Redesigning Business Operations: The Impact of Human-Centered Design
By Kevin Perry, Struck
A low-lit office with designer furniture. Walls covered with sticky notes. A creative director spinning records loudly. Black rimmed glasses. Oversized hoodies. Collaborative chatter.
This is what I see today as I look out my office window—a buzz of artistry and creative ideation. Yet behind closed doors, the business operations often find themselves immersed in spreadsheets and numbers, seemingly detached from the creativity that defines most agencies.
As I recently transitioned into the role of COO at Struck, the intersection of creativity and business operations became a central focus. I wanted to know how we could execute a successful business strategy that seamlessly integrates with our agency’s creative core. To find answers, I turned to my background in design and the impactful role of Design Thinking.
Human-Centered Design: A Transformative Force
Creative agencies understand the power of human-centered design. It’s a transformative force that shapes effective strategies and outcomes. At Struck, our mission is to drive transformation through creativity. With transformation as a key focus, how do we bridge the gap between our business operations and the creativity that drives us?
Design Thinking shows us that by embracing iterative processes, fostering collaboration, and maintaining an unwavering user-centered focus, businesses can unlock unparalleled value in their strategic endeavors—whether for strategic client work, or their own internal strategies.
This visionary approach not only enhances service quality but also places end-users' needs and experiences at the forefront of decision-making, shaping a more user-centric and successful business strategy. When thinking how we do this at Struck, I identified these items.
Note: Our performance varies across these items – excelling in some, exploring others, and harboring aspirations for each, as we believe all are essential for a human-centered organization.
1. 100% focus on driving better experiences
This may sound obvious, but in the hustle of business, it’s easy to get caught up on thinking solely about the data, our clients, users or ourselves. But being truly human-centered requires an unwavering focus on driving better experiences for everyone – our employees, customers, their users, and the community at large.
IBM Design Thinking urges us to flip the script: "Instead of framing opportunities, projects, and organizational constructs around internal logistics, human-centered organizations frame them from the outside-in: as user needs or customer needs." It's about putting people at the core of everything we do.
Recently, we brought this approach to life through a full-day workshop with our HR manager and a cross-functional dream team mapping our employee experience journey in detail. We brainstormed, voted on the most promising solutions to our pain-points, and solidified a plan of action to test with experiments – complete with success metrics. This wasn’t just a workshop … it was a testament to the power of building with the end-user in mind.
2. Cross-Functional Organizational Structure
McKinsey states that more collaborative teams drive higher business performance. By fostering a culture of collaboration, organizations can tap into a diverse range of perspectives and ideas, paving the way for innovation and enhanced problem-solving capabilities.
Design Thinking dictates that, when building project teams, we don’t just assign resources. We frame our approach to the problem at hand. Each team member brings their unique perspective and expertise to the team, widening the range of breakthrough ideas. And yes, this requires a diverse team to get right—better solutions come from harnessing the talents of a team with rich, unique histories of their own.
In the spirit of bringing multiple perspectives together, we purposely organize teams to operate primarily within their cross-functional project team while maintaining an anchor in their discipline team, so they get exposure to both client needs, internal challenges, and internal mentorship. We even hold “MindTrust” sessions in which cross-functional project team members converge to share what they’ve been working on, which helps cross-pollinate disciplines for fresh insights and alignment.
By breaking down silos and fostering collaboration, our cross-functional organizational structure ensures that insights and innovations flow seamlessly across disciplines, contributing to a more agile and effective business operation.
3. Design the Business (Not Just the Client Work)
Designers at Struck extend their expertise beyond client projects to tackle internal challenges. For instance, we enlist cross-functional teams to address a variety of business challenges including Finance Processes, Project Management approaches, and even Employee Engagement.
Recently we put Design Thinking exercises to work to redefine our internal communication processes. We employed classics like the "Sailboat activity" to identify what is propelling us forward and what is holding us back, and "Rapid Brainstorming" to generate a multitude of solutions. The team embarked on a path elevating creativity over immediate feasibility. The subsequent voting and prioritization, using the Impact and Effort scale, led to a focused set of ideas that we tested for viability and then implemented.
The result: a meticulously crafted communication plan that works for every person in the business.
Art Director Katie Tingey encapsulates this approach: "As a designer, you have to understand not only the user but the business ambition and the objectives of the brand. So why not use the same tactics internally?"
4. Experimentation & Risk Taking
A core principle of Design Thinking is prototyping and iteration. If we know that continuous iteration and learning is essential when working on projects for our clients, then why not use these methods on internal business processes? Instead of planning projects in large waterfall releases, human-centered organizations minimize risk by iteratively developing ideas, making decisions, adjusting, and ultimately delivering outcomes.
Struck aimed to streamline our project management process to align with the company's growth goals. Rather than implementing a massive overhaul, we introduced a series of iterative prototypes. This allowed the team to gauge the effectiveness of each change, make real-time adjustments, and ensure a seamless integration that supported the company's overall growth strategy. Note: we are still iterating!
In 2023, like many other agencies, Struck faced some economic challenges. Rather than implementing a fixed response, we used Design Thinking to prototype adjustments to our budgeting and forecasting models. By iterating based on real-time financial data and market trends, we made agile decisions, ensuring financial goals remained resilient even in unpredictable conditions.
In the interplay of creativity and business operations, Design Thinking is more than a methodology—it’s the life force that centers an agency's creative DNA in its strategic core. Design Thinking celebrates change while remaining grounded in the greater human experience.
It’s something we can all get behind. And benefit from.
Kevin Perry, Struck