In this episode, I talk to Andrew Barraclough, who has held a number of corporate design leadership roles, as well as doing tours of duty in marketing and R&D and ran his own design agency. His design experience also spans industrial, packaging and digital. Partly as a result of his broad experience, he’s one of the most commercially and organizationally savvy design leaders I know.

In this conversation, we talk about how to raise design’s impact on organisations, by developing a portfolio of stories, backed by appropriate metrics, to engage with stakeholders on a regular basis –  rather than chasing after the red herring of a single killer ROI number. Later on, he has sage advice on how to collect and contextualise measures from different parts of the business.

We also cover his concept of ‘Design Linking’, the important internal plumbing work of connecting different design teams, initiatives, partners and stakeholders together to maximise design’s impact.

06:48 Design ROI - a red herring

12:55 Plotting a holistic design strategy 

14:50 Wide and frequent stakeholder engagement 

24:00 Aligning projects with stakeholders

28:57 Design Linking

37:39 Marshalling metric

43:20 Getting out of the doldrums

ANDREW BARRACLOUGH

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KEVIN & PLAN

Kevin McCullagh is the founder of Plan, a product strategy consultancy based in London, which helps design and innovation leaders with strategic clarity. He writes and speaks on Foresight, Innovation and Leadership.

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Website: www.plan.london

Email: [email protected]

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By Nico Delaney

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