Jesse James Garrett

It’s the new year, design leaders. How’s your resolution?

I don’t mean that the way you think. When we talk about resolution at this time of year, we’re usually talking about commitments. But “resolution” means something else too: Clarity. As in “high resolution”. So this week you may be making commitments for the year to come—but how clearly can you see where those commitments will take you and your team? How hi-res is your vision?

Too many of the design leaders I meet get caught in reactive cycles, constantly sprinting toward the next quarterly milestone without ever defining their own point of view on how their teams should evolve. This leads to teams whose approaches and capabilities end up being shaped by circumstance rather than by a leader’s intentions.

So here are some questions to ask yourself to increase the resolution of your vision:

• What work do you see your team doing this year?
• At what point will your team look different than it looks now?
• What new roles, structures, or processes do you want to have in place by the end of the year?
• What new capabilities do you see your team having by the end of the year?
• What new business areas, product lines, or stakeholders do you see your team engaging with?
• How do you see your partnerships with product and engineering changing this year?
• Most importantly: What new value do you see your team delivering at the end of this year?

That last one is key. None of the other ways your team might evolve really matter if your value proposition isn’t also evolving alongside them.

Most design leaders would agree that design has more value to offer than their organizations are realizing. But evolving a team to be able to deliver that value rarely happens without intentional leadership. And that takes resolution: focus and clarity.