Bartłomiej Lenard — Experience Design Lead at EY
Design decision making - is it possible to manage the product by design?
Design & Business
🇬🇧 English
Design & Business
Should a consultant be a bodybuilder?
About
I have been working in the tech industry for 11 years. For the past 9 years, I have been part of the Edisonda team, where I work as a consultant. On a daily basis, I meet with clients, talk about their needs and create processes that we later implement. In a sense, I sell our services, but I'm not a regular salesman. In my presentation, I will share how to sell your work by catering to customers' needs. I will focus on some examples and anti-examples. There will be some advice on the attitude of a consultant and an explanation of who a consultant actually is. What will you learn from this talk?
- How not to buy and sell design
- How to talk about customer needs
- Why a designer, consultant, and researcher should know how to sell
Watch the full talk
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From the recording
Talk in brief
A talk about how design consultancies and internal designers can progress from production support to trusted strategic partnership. Growing designer-to-developer ratios show design’s increasing organizational influence, but influence depends on proximity to decision-makers and the ability to communicate beyond specialist language. The maturity path moves through reliable execution, recognized expertise, and finally a trusted-advisor relationship in which leaders ask designers to frame problems and possibilities, not only produce artifacts. Credibility comes from business understanding, useful collaboration, and evidence of outcomes.
Key takeaways
- 01
Design influence grows with organizational change
Increasing design capacity changes how companies work only when designers participate in decisions rather than simply multiply outputs.
Watch from 4:45 - 02
Build proximity to decision-makers
Regular collaboration with senior leaders helps design understand business concerns and contribute before solutions are fixed.
Watch from 6:13 - 03
Move beyond artifact delivery
A production-only relationship limits design to executing decisions already made and offers little opportunity for product impact.
Watch from 8:21 - 04
Earn the trusted-advisor position
At the highest maturity, organizations seek design help framing unfamiliar challenges rather than requesting a predefined product.
Watch from 9:21 - 05
Translate specialist thinking into shared language
Designers need to explain decisions in terms colleagues understand without abandoning evidence or important customer concerns.
Watch from 14:16
Read edited transcript highlights
These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.
More designers do not automatically create influence
A dramatic change in the ratio of designers to programmers signals investment, but headcount alone cannot transform a company. Designers must enter planning, research, prioritization, and outcome review, while the organization must give them access to the relevant decisions. Otherwise the expanded team can remain a larger production service with limited strategic effect.
Watch from 4:45Strategic contribution requires decision proximity
Designers learn the organization’s pressures and can shape direction earlier when they work regularly with senior managers and accountable product leaders. Proximity is not permission to ignore customers. It provides the context needed to connect customer evidence with risk, revenue, capability, and timing before the company commits to a solution.
Watch from 6:13Artifact handoffs preserve a narrow service role
When a designer receives a fixed brief, produces screens, and sends them to development, the most consequential choices have already happened. Reliable execution is still valuable, but the relationship offers little room to challenge the problem or evaluate outcomes. Moving beyond it requires trust built through useful work and demonstrated understanding of the wider system.
Watch from 8:21Trusted advisors help define the question
At a mature stage, leaders approach design with an uncertain business or customer situation rather than a predetermined deliverable. The designer helps frame the challenge, gather evidence, compare strategic options, and identify what should be tested. This position is earned through judgment and credibility; it is not created by renaming the design service.
Watch from 9:21Shared language makes expertise actionable
Specialist vocabulary can obscure the importance of design reasoning for colleagues in finance, operations, sales, or leadership. Translate the issue into the outcomes, risks, and decisions those groups understand, while preserving the customer evidence behind it. The goal is mutual comprehension, not replacing design principles with whichever stakeholder speaks loudest.
Watch from 14:16
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