April’s
So You Wanna be a Design Strategist event sparked a number of interesting discussions around how to grow designers into a design strategist role. Here are a few of the salient points that were shared with me about this issue:
“It's not that I believe you can totally avoid politics or that you should never have to sell, etc. It's only that these things are techniques and what is missing is fire. All great musicians have both technique and fire, but the important thing is that their fire is usually what kept them on the path long enough to develop their technique fully.
In the same way I’m concerned that telling designers that it's all about the techniques (metrics, politics, prototyping, selling, etc.) would make them feel overwhelmed and uninspired to take action. Often too much talk of technique can put out the fire.”
“We need to be very honest with ourselves about talents/natural strengths vs. skills. You are not going to get the same level of natural "fire" in all people. But, people who don't have as much fire can augment themselves through techniques and partnerships. I actually think some people will find that inspiring.”
“There really isn’t an “us” and “them” distinction between regular Joe designers and the lofty strategists. Sure there will always be different skill sets and levels of ability, but I think it’s very important (philosophically and culturally) to view this as a continuum. Every designer can develop skills they already have to be better/more effective than they are now. I’d argue that even the notion of “strategy” can be seen on a continuum. Only a certain number of folks have the potential to drive design strategies that are of corporate-level significance. But I think every designer has the potential to influence the strategy of their product, or sub-set of product.”
“Rather than overwhelm people with the amount of stuff they need to learn/know, we can illustrate how their already existing design skills can be used as strategy skills.”
译文:
设计战略家的技能
四月份的“ 你想成为一名设计战略家”的活动发起了一些很有意思的讨论。讨论围绕着如何从一名设计师成长为一名设计战略家的角色。关于这个问题，这里有几个要点，我要与大家一起分享：
“我不相信你能够完全地避免政治，如果是那样的话，你应该永远都不出售。其实，只有一部分的原因是因为技术，而其他的，我们所缺乏的是激情。所有伟大的音乐家都同时具有技术和激情，但是重要的是，他们的激情让他们在艺术的道路上走得更远，去全面发扬他们的技术。
同样地，我所关心的是，告诉设计师们这全和技术有关（韵律学、政治、原型、销售，等等），会让他们觉得没有信心和灵感去创造。太多地讨论技术，也会将激情熄灭。”
“我们需要非常诚实地面对我们自己的才能/天生的优胜与技术的对比。在所有人之中，你们不会有相同水平的天生的“激情”。但是，那些天生激情就没有那么多的人，可以去通过增强他们自己的技术和合作伙伴的关系来补充。实际上，我认为一些人将会发现这非常鼓舞人心。”
“在合格的设计师和出色的战略家之间，其实并不是“我们”和“他们”的区别。当然，总是会有不同的技能和不同水平的能力，但是把它看作是一个持续的过程，我认为这是非常重要的（哲学与文化）。每个设计师都能发展他们技能，比他们现在的成就更好、更有效。我倒认为，即使“策略”的概念可以持续地存在，只有一定数量的人有潜力去推动企业级别的意义的设计策略。但是，我认为每位设计师都有潜力，去影响他们的产品的策略，或者是产品的子集。”
“我们能够证明，他们现有的设计技巧能够作为策略技巧来运用，而不是用大量他们需要去学习/了解的素材去压制着他们。”