Experience Matters

Collaborative Design, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Escape the Vicious Cycle of Review and Revisions

Those of us in the business of planning and building compelling experiences have all been there. You know what I’m talking about - that point where, in a project that’s been going great, you feel like you’re slowly losing sight of the original vision and the process has become a steady flow of revisions with no real end in site.

At Critical Mass, we employ a couple of collaborative design methods that help our teams escape what I call the vicious cycle of review and revisions.

Why does collaborative design work? We work in environments where products are becoming more complex - from a plan and build perspective - and design cycle times are shrinking. Our clients are constantly challenged to remain strategic while responding to the latest changes in business and technology. With all this pressure, a lot of responsibility falls on stakeholders and project teams working at the front lines to work and deliver faster than ever. Collaborative design helps break out of the sequential design process and launch teams into a world of concurrent design with a design team made up of client stakeholders and Critical Mass employees. While things may get a little fuzzy, it gets everyone on the same wavelength early on, marching to the same tune.

Here are the key elements for a successful collaborative design process:

1. Clear scope
2. Clear deliverables
3. A cross section of disciplines represented in the team
4. Subject matter expertise
5. Regular face-to-face meetings between client stakeholder and project team

As with any project, clear scope and deliverables are essential. Where the magic begins to happen is in the cross section of disciplines represented in your client and project teams. From a client perspective, it is absolutely essential that you have one or two subject matter experts in the room. Subject matter experts will be your lifeline. Whether you’re selling cars or financial products, these folks have such a strong understanding of their particular area of expertise and you will need to rely on it early in the design process to wrap your head around things.

The most important element is face-to-face collaboration - either going on-site with your client or having your client come to you. It means investing in travel. You’ll have to iron out an agreement around that up-front, but once you do, you can build a schedule out that illustrates when face-to-face collaboration needs to happen and make travel arrangements around that.

Some qualities that would describe a successful collaborative design process include:

1. Shared sense of ownership
2. Buy-in is baked-in
3. Wholesale revisions are rare
4. Review meetings feel less like reviews and more like working sessions

When everything is said and done, the net result is that the final product represents a shared vision between client and project team. It’s beautiful actually. Our clients see their ideas and suggestions reflected in the final product just as much as our designers, developers and writers do.

Have you experienced results like this using collaborative design or other methods? If so, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

In my next post, I’ll walk through a real-world application of collaborative design.