There are common challenges in the quest for delivering Human-Centred solutions and developing a world class Digital capability.
After experiencing the Digital industry in many different types of organisations, roles and decision making levels, I have found common capability delivery opportunities.
One of these opportunities is the ability to identify the skills required to deliver Human-Centred solutions.
Multiple skills within the Digital industry
We love the idea of generalists that can master the high level thinking of a strategist consultant and the detail orientation of a front-end developer, or an interface designer. In reality only a small number of practitioners can actually do it – and not until they have gained a significant amount of experience.
It is not only a matter of technical tools and knowledge, but also about a mindset that enables a person to identify the dimension of the problem to solve.
Often, experienced practitioners switch their mindsets between 2 or 3 crafts when relevant, but very few can swap between all the crafts mindsets within a given moment in life.
Unfortunately many will believe they can, setting the wrong expectations of what each specialisation means.
Human-Centred skills scenarios
Many factors could help to answer this question, like the appetite for a digital or technology approach, or the pre-existence of complex processes and infrastructure, the maturity of the organisation regarding ways of working, and of course the budget – just to name a few variables.
Let’s explore four scenarios at a very high level to get a sense of the skills required:
1. The organisation needs to retain market segment with a digital value proposition
In this scenario it is usually required to research and analyse what competitors are doing and why customers are migrating to their platforms.
Most likely there will be some rapid prototyping and usability testing to validate whether the need is just to play catch-up, or there is something else the organisation must do.
Finally there will be a need to design a digital experience that is feasible within the timeframes and technical capability, and of course viable.
The skills in this scenario are related to UX researchers, strategists and designers.
2. The organisation need to monetise existing infrastructure
This is simply asking what else can we do with all this technology and integrated systems. Can we create multiple products and re-skin the technology to solve different problems?
The answer is yes, and Product designers have the right skills to help with this challenge.
3. The organisation needs to simplify processes, by making them faster and reduce costs
At first there will be a need to map out all current processes against the expected ouctome usually from the customer perspective through a customer journey or service blueprint, and collaborative sessions with all the different areas of the business involved.
After that, the initiative can take a continuous improvement approach where the main objective is to tweak small steps in the process as many times as necessary to get to a measurable result. A different approach could be to map out an ideal future state of the entire service based on research.
The skills in this scenario are related with Service designers.
4. The organisation needs to deliver a consistent brand experience by consolidating assets
This is perhaps the less creative of the challenges as it is required to think in systems, processes, frameworks, standards and playbooks.
However, there is a discipline oriented to solve this challenge, usually referred to as Design Ops.
Your strategy will play out differently, depending on your scenario and the problem you are solving.
There is always the opportunity to develop internal capability, to fund contractors with projects (CAPEX) budgets, or to get external consultant services.
Whatever is the organisation challenge and defined approach, there will always be the right skills to be applied to the specific problem.
The questions that leaders and organisations should be asking themselves are: what is the next innovation opportunity and are we prepared for it?
Do you need help identifying the Human-Centred skills for your team?
Let’s brood together a solution that will help your creative team to succeed in delivering great experiences and developing a world class capability.
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What are the skills that your team needs to deliver Human-Centred digital solutions?
The questions that leaders and organisations should be asking themselves are: what is the next innovation opportunity and are we prepared for it?