CHRIS JACKSON - WELLINGTON, NZ
I work with design leaders when the organisation around their team is changing.
Design teams often have the talent they need and lose performance in the system around it: how work flows, how decisions are made, how design is understood, and how strategy connects to execution.
THE STORY
The work
Often the team is capable, the work is good, people are busy and the organisation is moving. Then something changes: a restructure, a new strategy, new leadership, new technology, changing expectations of design, or a different relationship between the organisation and its customers.
The old ways of working may still function, and they no longer quite fit the world around them. That’s where I work.
I help leaders see what has changed, surface the assumptions shaping the team, and decide what needs to evolve across strategy, capability, culture, operating model and organisational relationships. The question that matters is what the team needs to become as the organisation around it changes.
How I got here
I started in furniture and product design, working between studio practice, exhibitions and early design consultancy across London, New York, Barcelona and Milan.
Over time, I became less interested in what design produced, and more interested in what design made possible inside organisations.
That shift took me into service design, strategy and foresight, and eventually into working directly with design leaders inside government, financial services, energy, transport and technology organisations.
Along the way, the questions became bigger:
What happens when an organisation changes faster than its design team?
What assumptions are shaping how the team works?
What does design need to become as its role in the organisation evolves?
And how do leaders make sense of all this while still having to deliver today?
Those questions now sit at the centre of my work.
What I do now
Design Leadership Advisory
I work alongside design leaders as a one-to-one thinking partner when the answers aren’t obvious. We work through what’s changing, test decisions, understand the organisational dynamics at play and decide what to do next.
The Design Team Strategy
I work with the whole team to understand what’s changing around them, set a strategic direction and decide what the design organisation needs to become.
Futures thinking runs through both. I help leaders step back from immediate delivery, challenge the assumptions shaping how they work, and explore how their role, capabilities and ways of working may need to evolve.
In both, I help design leaders understand what is changing, what it means for their organisation, and what to do about it.
Selected Experience
20+ years working across design, strategy and organisational change in government, financial services, technology, energy and design education.
Former Service Design Director, DNA, Wellington
Former Principal Advisor, Ministry of Justice, New Zealand
Worked with organisations including ASB, Kiwibank, Meridian Energy, Greater Wellington Regional Council, Red Cross NZ, Serato, The Guardian, V&A, MIT, Z Energy, The Ministry of Education and TU Dublin
Lecturer and international speaker on design leadership, strategy, systems thinking and futures
Creator of Futures of Design 2045, a scenario resource for design leaders downloaded by 500+ people
23 design awards, including DINZ Purple and Gold Pins
IFTF Strategic Foresight Practitioner
MA Furniture Design & Technology, Bucks New University
BA (Hons) Furniture & Product Design, Nottingham Trent University
I continue to teach and speak internationally, exploring how design organisations can understand change, make better strategic decisions and evolve their role inside complex systems.
My approach.
I start with the system around the team. How a design team works is shaped by assumptions, relationships, incentives, technology, decision-making, organisational structure and the expectations placed on design. When those change, the team has to change too.
That’s why I look past the immediate problem and ask:
What’s changing around this team?
Which assumptions no longer hold?
What is this design organisation becoming?
The answers help leaders make better decisions about strategy, capability, ways of working and where design can create impact.
If any of this resonates, let's talk.
If you’re leading a design team and something is changing, whether in your organisation, your strategy, your team or the role design is expected to play, I’m open to a conversation.
Some leaders need a diagnosis, some need to work through a decision, and some need an experienced person outside the organisation to help them see more clearly.
The first step is a free 30-minute Clinic call, to talk through where you are and whether I can help.