|
Design Metrics Systems:
Pitfalls and Best Practices
By Deborah Mrazek, Design Practice Manager, Corporate Marketing, HP
Design metrics is a topic frequently discussed in design management and design strategy circles. Many of us struggle to find the “Holy Grail of Design Metrics.” To make strides in finding a solution, we should leverage the wisdom of others. In 1998, John R. Hauser and Gerald M. Katz wrote a foundational paper titled Metrics: You are What You Measure! Their premise is that “it is easy to select a metric but it is hard to select a good metric.” They then describe seven metrics pitfalls and seven best practices.
Based on my experience in developing a design metrics system for my company, their guidance is very helpful.
Metrics Pitfalls
Delaying rewards: There can be a time lag—often measured in years—between an investment in design and the business benefit. A good design metric system should balance measures of the ultimate business benefit (delayed) with in-process indication that validates the predicted benefit of the investment. -
Using risky rewards: Measuring and rewarding for only design “goodness” is too risky. There are too many other factors that need to work in harmony for a great design to be a great success in the market.
Making metrics hard to control: The cause/effect logic chain between design actions and business benefits often has many links. A good design metrics system needs to articulate both the ultimate business measures as well as metrics that the team can affect today. Losing sight of the goal: In today’s competitive world, the ultimate goal is business success. Select metrics that provide insights as to how to adjust actions and decisions while there is still time to make the changes necessary to reach the ultimate goal. Choosing metrics that are precisely wrong: Some values are easy to collect, others very difficult. While it’s tempting to pick metrics that are easy to count accurately, be aware of unintended consequences. Assuming your managers and employees have no options: Designers are busy. They need to feel the time and effort they spend to collect and communicate metrics is worth it. A good design metrics system will allow your designers to make smarter decisions. Thinking too narrowly: Just because you’ve measured it in the past or others measure it, don’t assume that’s the right metric for your need. A good design metric system will improve the quality and timeliness of decisions important to design.
Metrics Best Practices
-
Start by listening to the customer: As a designer, we start by understanding our customer. The customers of a design metric system are the stakeholders of the system; the designers, managers, business partners, and senior business leaders. Understand their world and their needs.
-
Understand the job: Understand the job the design metrics system needs to play in your organization and with your team. Consider how metrics are used to influence decisions and actions within your team and with your design partners.
-
Understand interrelationships: Mapping the role the design team plays in delivering value to the customer, and the links and dependencies between design activities and ultimate customer and business benefit, can lead to a better focus on near-term, mid-term and long term metrics.
-
Understand the linkages: Understand the linkages between design investment and action and the impact to customer and business benefit. A good design metric system will allow you to optimize investments based on understanding the underlying linkages.
-
Test the correlations and test manager and employee reaction: As designers, we know to bring in the human element. A good design metric system will take into account both the formal practices and process and also the human side.
-
Involve managers and employees: A good design metrics system can only be successful if values are collected, organized, and communicated. This is done by people. Participatory design techniques are very helpful at this stage.
-
Seek new paradigms: While metrics may be very quantitative and structured, tap into your creative side. A good design metric system should tell stories with numbers to influence decisions that are important to the design team.
By tapping into the wisdom of others, and using an integrated thinking approach, we can build powerful design metrics systems. Metrics systems that include stories with numbers about cost savings, market differentiation, brand contribution, or measures unique to the organization. Design metrics systems that connect with current and future formal and informal decision making processes. Ultimately, design a metrics system that connects with both the heads and the hearts of decision makers and contributes to design having a seat at the strategy table.
About Deborah Mrazek
Deborah works for the Senior VP of Corporate Design at HP. She is responsible for building the HP-wide design practice to be a more competitive, reliable, strategic tool. This requires her to architect the programs and direct development of the HP design and HFE (Human Factors Engineering) system, and work with HP businesses to build design and HFE capability. Deborah also works with the SVP of Design to create and sustain a campaign with HP executives to gain commitment to establish customer-centered design and HFE to be used more strategically.
This article appeared in the March
2010 edition of the DMI News & Views.
Copyright © 2010 Design Management Institute All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the copyright holder.
Feedback on DMI Viewpoints and article proposals
are always welcome! Please email jtobin(at)dmi.org.
 Email this page to a colleague
|
