What’s Head of Design? Should my organization pursue this role?

Good Head of Design tuh makhluk kek mana sih? 🤔

A good friend of mine asked that question through random conversation. It’s year 8th of my design career, along with my observations. I find these two extreme characteristic influencing styles from the Head of Design, inspire by Ki Hadjar Dewantara’s wisdom

🔦 Leader who is comfortable with the spotlights, has high tendency on Ing Ngarso Sung Tulodo — This leadership will boldly focus on bringing the presence of the design org by setting an example. The standard of organization adapts heavily to the brand image of the leader. Usually, it comes with a disruptive approach. The result is a branding that conveys design org presence out loud inside and outside the company.

🔎 Leader who is comfortable working in the background, typical tut wuri handayani’s person, you don’t know this person exists, you’ll know this person through personal recommendations. This kind of person like to work in the background to observe. They usually focus on cultivating and tailoring on a personal level you’ll see the result on the quality of individual growth. It’s intangible and focus solely inside the company.

I wish to find the mix of both characters, turns out its contradictory character. The tendency to be dominant is on one side only. On a similar aspect, Head of Design is a good influencer in their own way. In both characters, we’ll find In madyo mangun karso’s attitude to raise the team spirit.
If we use 3P’s framework. People, Process, Product. Designers influence the most on people & processes.

The synergy between Founder & Head of Design — When is the best time to invest in? Should my organization have one?

In my perspective Head of Design function heavily is on cultivating culture around people & processes. Culture, it’s supposed to be spread across departments, especially departments that collaborate a lot with designers. I would say, not all companies should have a Head of Design.
So, how do I know… should my organization have one? If yes, then from the two kinds of characters mentioned above, which one is the best fit for my company?
The answer is… It depends on the circumstances 😅…
These questions accordingly, might help to determine the answer:

1. On customer mindset. Who are the customers? How are customers obsessed are the company?
2. On the founder. How’s the founder’s perspective toward the customers? and how they applied it on the day to day basis?
3. On the cultural dynamic. How does employee relationship during work, is it more transactional or relational? How do design function position themselves across other functions on a leadership position and individual contributors?
4. On the company stage. At what stage is your company? At what stage of the funding series? How many/diverse top management roles are in your company?
5. On revenue generator. Which are the touch point or user segment that drives the revenue?
6. From questions 1–5, could you envision this company becoming a designer’s playground?

If your organization needs Head of design, the suggested time to fill this role is when the (1) company is in the dissonance phase or (2) when the company is during the stage of scaling. The moment of dissonance is the transformative phase where the company is currently on a journey to preserve company’s core image into the desired image that the company envisions for the future. In my use case, it’s indicated by employee regeneration when “senior employees” who preserve the original culture since the company was established merge with some “new joiner” that brings a different culture from many different companies — This is where the acculturation phase goes on. The founder should be strong enough to keep core company identities. This is when Head of Design that seemingly cultural fit suggested being involved. Why so? Designers best at listen and facilitate discussion, those two aspects is a way to cultivate culture. On the tactical sides Design as a function highly rely on rituals and influence the good quality of deliverables through facilitation — by that design org demands heavy collaboration with many role, such as PM, branding, marketing, sales, ops, and engineering. Designers act like crossroads to facilitate intersections where two or more roads can converge or diverge. Through that mobility — Head of design could observe the traffics to oversee the driving experience.
To reach the destination with an enjoyable driving experience all people who use the roads should have a similar understanding of how to drive — In the company’s case, a similar understanding on how to “play” should be derived from a strong foundation of company culture & identity that is usually tight with the founder.
The good dynamic between Head of Design who can observe all the traffic + Founder that brings the company's core identities plays a beneficial mutualism here.
As I noticed from previous experience, a company with a strong Product Design Org usually comes with a benefit of a healthy culture and customer obsession that reflect on the process and people.

If you need one, how do we spot a good one?

In my reflection, good design will speak for itself. You’ll see the quality from the interaction with the product. It’s intuitive. Using that analogy, In my case, a good Head of design could be examined intuitively on how beautiful and on-point questions this person comes up to — years of experience don’t lie. Their portfolio is the manifesto of their leadership philosophy and also a journey of cultivating culture. You’d better ask about their portfolio.

KaDes = Kepala Desain

Through similar random conversations, my friend found a new term KaDes or Kepala Desain suitable for ePiseuri* (*Sundanese jokes only here 😄)

It’s been 2 years I joined eFishery, And still firm believers up until now, eFishery is a playground for designers. Our playground ranges from digital products, IoT products, landscape of services, growth mindset team, and the important things is.. supporting environment.

*Ps: Thank you to those who inspire me to write this concept of the article :) Karimcuy, Fawwaz, Larasati & Reza Arkan.