Author: Jesse James Garrett
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The Three Trajectories of Maturity
The Season 3 finale of our design leadership podcast Finding Our Way is here, and it’s one of our richest episodes yet, as we look back at what we’ve learned from our recent conversations with design executives. Peter called it jampacked, and he’s not kidding! If you’ve ever been curious about the nature of my…
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Appreciating the founders of Adaptive Path
Apropos of nothing, here’s an appreciation of my Adaptive Path co-founders, and especially their careers after AP: Indi Young went from being the elusive mystery founder who was rarely seen in public to an internationally acclaimed author and speaker. Her groundbreaking mental model methodology continues to influence research and strategy practices even as her work has…
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Reflection
The sticky notes on my client’s home office window seemed innocuous enough, but that’s never been enough to stop a curious, friendly neighbor from inquiring. “What are you working on up there?” they asked. “I’m doing some reflection, figuring out where I want things to go next for myself,” my client responded. “Oh, I’m sorry,”…
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Getting hands-on with design quality: Tim Allen on Finding Our Way
What if you didn’t have to leave design craft behind when you became an executive design leader? If you’ve been following my recent threads on design executives’ responsibility for quality, you’ve seen a diverse range of opinions. Some argued that taking a hands-off approach to design quality was tantamount to abdication of a critical leadership…
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From design leader to product leader: Che Douglas on Finding Our Way
If more product leaders thought like designers, we’d have clearer roadmaps, happier teams, and better products. But that’s surprisingly hard to find, isn’t it? So few designers make their way into product leadership roles, and so few product management cultures support the kind of experience-driven thinking that a design-minded product leader could bring to the…
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More on creative control and design quality
If the design executive isn’t looking out for design quality, just who the hell is? That’s the very good question many of you had for me after I wrote about these topics a few weeks ago. In that piece, I argued that the ascent to executive-level leadership necessitated a shift for the leader from creative…
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Design at the C-level: Jehad Affoneh on Finding Our Way
I’ve been hearing about design’s impending rise to the C-suite for practically my entire career. On the latest episode of our design leadership podcast Finding Our Way, CDO Jehad Affoneh helps me and Peter unpack what it means now that they’ve finally arrived. Some reflections: As a C-level function, design’s value proposition is more strategic—and…
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Creative control and executive design leadership
Even the most experienced designers can be surprised and dismayed to learn just how little creative control comes with being a design leader. But once you reach the executive level, the tradeoffs become impossible to ignore. That can be surprising because the path from young designer to seasoned designer is itself a path toward greater…
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New year’s resolution
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…
Jesse James Garrett 