CHRIS JACKSON—DESIGN LEADERSHIP & STRATEGIC ADVISORY
Design leaders get handed a restructure and told to make it work.
I’m a thinking partner for design leaders working through a merger, a restructure, a new team or a new brief. I help you see the situation clearly, decide what your team needs to become, and work out what to do next.
The Problem
Design team problems usually show up as patterns: misalignment, overload, constant reprioritisation, difficulty explaining design’s impact, and decisions made elsewhere that the team is then expected to respond to.
Your team is capable, but the context around it is changing, and the organisation doesn’t always see that capability clearly. The responsibility for making sense of it usually sits with you.
The daily reality can look like this:
You’re in another priority meeting where design is the last to know about the change.
You’re asked what design has delivered this quarter, and the honest answer is hard to say out loud.
Your team is busy, and you’re increasingly unsure whether you’re working on the things that matter most.
The organisation has changed, but the assumptions, capabilities and ways of working around design haven’t caught up.
These sit between strategy, culture, capability and organisational decision-making. Another framework or restructure rarely settles them.
Start with a thinking partner
Design Leadership Advisory
One-to-one, online and confidential. We work through what’s happening, what your options are, which decisions matter and what to do next, and I’ll challenge your thinking where it needs it.
Work with me for six sessions across 12 weeks on a specific challenge, or ongoing if you want a standing thinking partner.
When the whole team needs to move
The Design Team Strategy
For some leaders, the thinking shows what the team needs next. The Design Team Strategy is a structured engagement for design leaders who need to clarify their team’s role, priorities, capabilities and ways of working in a changing organisation.
It starts with a focused workshop to understand the current situation and find the biggest strategic questions. From there we develop the direction, priorities and practical changes your team needs, with advisory support where deeper work is required.
Major NZ bank · Strategy Realignment
Culture reset and redirection for a design team of 40
Following significant organisational change, worked with leadership to realign priorities, strengthen shared direction and reduce friction across the design function.
Regional Council · Capability Building
Building a service design team from the ground up
Built a service design capability from inception to organisation-wide delivery maturity over three years, developing the team, operating model and organisational relationships required to sustain it.
About me
For more than 20 years I’ve worked with organisations across government, financial services, energy and technology, building design capability, shaping strategy and working through periods of significant change.
I’ve led design teams, built service design practices, worked through restructures and cultural change, and advised design leaders on complex organisational problems.
I’ve practised strategic foresight for more than 15 years. I use futures thinking to understand emerging change, challenge assumptions and ask what an organisation is becoming.
I’ve won 23 design awards, spoken internationally, and created the Futures of Design 2045 Scenarios, which more than 500 designers, leaders and educators have downloaded.
Let’s connect
Not sure what your design team needs next?
You don’t need to have the problem figured out before we talk.
If something has changed around your team, such as a restructure, a new strategy, shifting expectations, new technology or a sense that the way you work no longer fits, let’s start by working out what’s happening.
What is your design organisation becoming
The Futures of Design 2045 Scenarios explore four plausible ways the role of design could evolve over the next two decades, and what each might mean for how design teams operate today.
Use them to step back from delivery and ask what is already changing around your team, and what it might need to become.
Field Notes on Design Leadership
Occasional notes from the work on design leadership, organisational change and strategy.
No fixed schedule.