One of the most important things to figure out at the start of a design project is what kind of client you're working with. It can also be one of the most difficult things to discern if you're working with a client for the first time. The issue is not at the interpersonal level--some people are good at what they do, some bad, some are professional and some not. Products, on the other hand, are successful because of coordinated teamwork on all levels--where every person contributes to the overall product quality. For example, a brilliant product could be introduced to the market through a mediocre sales team and get bogged down quickly. To help you be more attuned to the vibes the next time you walk into that first meeting, here's a quick designer's guide to client types.
The Gray Team: Some organizations opt for the middle in every way. These companies are filled with good people and, in many cases, brilliant talent. The latest management methods are employed and the latest tools are deployed. Consensus-building is a key factor in the dynamics. But this effort to satisfy so many aspects of the problem and so many departments of the company at the same time can drive the product development into the doldrums of the comfy middle. At all levels, from the top down, team members are committed to solid collaborative engagement, yet vision and optimism are tuned out. No matter how challenging the task is or how critical the product will be for the company's growth, the results are going to be mediocre. Not bad, not good, just plain...gray.
The Dictatorship: This is a scary place, but if you're on the right side, brilliant things could happen! In this case a very small number of individuals--possibly only one--are dragging a semi-cooperative organization on a journey to a place only they can envision. That journey is your project, so you better buckle up since you're in for a wild ride. For many reasons this organizational approach to product development and design is centralized to the extreme, often due to a crisis, a turn-around situation, or maybe that's just what tradition dictates. One thing to remember: Always keep the leadership happy. If not, you're out the door the next morning. But after you've succeeded in making the executive suite happy, you'll have to work with the organization to carry out the details. At this point, other individuals will try to do whatever they can to stop, delay, and downright sabotage the project. That's the wild ride I mentioned earlier. Fingers will be wagged at you at all levels and the final results will depend heavily on your ability to take a deep breath and carry on nonchalantly in spite of the adversarial approach. If the right decisions are made at that upper level, the outcome could be an exceptional product.
The Oasis: It's rare, but a surprising number of organizations manage to get it all right: Strong leadership at many levels, good communication of goals and strategy, and ultimately, the best ingredient: a positive, supportive atmosphere. The sky's the limit to these teams since everyone feels connected to the greater goal. This client is definitely a keeper. They may have some less-than-exhilarating projects on the outset, yet every one of them will end with better-than-expected results. And most importantly--you'll enjoy every minute of it!
That's my view. What other kinds of clients have you encountered in your design work?
Read more of Gadi Amit's The New Deal blog
Browse blogs by other Expert Designers
Gadi Amit is the president of NewDealDesign LLC, a strategic design studio in San Francisco. Founded in 2000, NDD has worked with such clients as Better Place, Sling Media, Palm, Dell, Microsoft, and Fujitsu, among others, and has won more than 70 design awards. Amit is passionate about creating design that is both socially responsible and generates real world success.
Related Stories: | Topics:Design, the new deal, Gadi Amit, client types, project management, management, Consultants, Gadi Amit, San Francisco, NewDealDesign LLC, Dell Inc., Fujitsu Ltd. |
Email
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Buzz Up!
LinkedIn
Recent Comments | 1 Total
June 22, 2009 at 3:03pm by Harry Otsuji
While I am not a designer, in any business and other relationships into one which he/she contemplates entering, before one attempts to "Know Thy Partner," one needs to "Know Thyself." From the time beginning with birth, one begins to develop a world view, a view of what one believes about God, nature and man, and the interrelationship amongst them. This in turn will shape one's ideology, the principles which will guide and determine one's actions as the world is encountered. One may never study philosophy, but that world view and ideology will be inevitable, which will govern the course of one's life. While I believe that in my life I have free will and the exercise of it, the choices and decisions that I make are by and large governed by my world view and ideology.
It is obvious that a designer who encounters and enters into a relationship identified by that client group, The Oasis, it is clear to me that the world view and ideology of client and designer are essentially are in synch. In that situation, values, ethics and language have the same foundations between them, which in turn, and enables them to rationally communicate with one another and be understood, with minimum conflict. With the Gray Team and the Dictatorship models, foundationally there are irresolvable and/or irreconcilable conflicts. In my 35 years of consultancy in real estate development, to mitigate this, I adhered to two fundamental principles, learned from my experience with the Japanese, which were:
1. Never enter into a project, where I perceived that the world view and ideology of between the principal and me were at odds; and,
2. Never take on a troubled project, the foundations for which probably were based on world views and ideology in conflict, in the first place.
My view in the current design development milieu and environment, especially in the technology fields predominated by 20-somethings in America, whose basic experience has been in training from their time in secondary school in the tools of technology, their world view and ideology are still in infantile stages. Many and maybe most will be doomed to futures with Gray Team and/or Dictatorship models. ( A fascinating study of the development of a world view and ideology at an early age, carried out with finesse, has been the election of Obama as president . I believe that by the time he returned to Hawaii from Indonesia, and reentered Punahou School, before he was 12 years old, the basis of his world view and ideology was well-established. Training of this type is intense in the Far East. The rest is history. Obama’s model, after the blitzkrieg governance of his first five months in office portends the Dictatorship model, for the future of America.)
If Fast Company is mindful of the benefits and efficacy of the Oasis model, and advocates it, given its influence on young minds, the magazine needs to delve more deeply into foundational world view and ideology which impel excellence in design, in a free but structured environment unfettered creativity and American exceptionalism. For this to become efficacious, one first must "Know Thyself," to enable one to "Know Thy Partner," with whom one wants to enter into a partnership realttionship.
The Bible says it this way:
"Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnershp has righteousness with lawlwssness? What fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols?" @ Corinthians 6:14-16)
The principle is universal: "Know Thself," in order to be able to "Know Thy Partner," in any kind of partnmership relationship. The article above concludes: "They may have some less-than-exhilarating projects on the outset, yet every one of them will end with better-than-expected results. And most importantly--you'll enjoy every minute of it!" It just may be that, in the long run, the relatiosnhip ought to have primacy, since there will never be a perfect product that emanates from the relationship. But one just might be surprised by the excellence of the ultimate product, which evolves from such a parnership, which has its own high value.