Business Thinking for Designers

partner. You’re now ready to take on business culture.
Pro tip
Empathy Maps and Insight Statements are great team-based 
activities. Set aside a two-hour block with your teammates, 
grab some Sharpies and Stickies, and develop ideas together.
Map the business culture
There’s another side of business that’s much more complex 
than the model or strategy but equally important to 
understand. It’s how business gets done. 
Executive stakeholders have the power to say “yes” or “no,” 
and it’s up to us to figure out ways to win them over. When 
there’s a lack of clarity around decision-making, designers are 
likely to feel frustrated. Conversely, when designers better 

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Develop your business perspective
understand how those leaders make decisions, they feel more 
engaged and have more trust for their teammates.
In either scenario, designers need pragmatic approaches to 
map these cultures of decision-making. My favorite tools for 
the job:
• Team Mapping Tool
• Stakeholder Analysis
• Force Field Analysis
These tools give designers the means to quickly visualize 
culture in a workplace—from stylistic preferences of 
decision-making to mapping organizational power dynamics 
and willingness to change. The tools effectively find gaps in 
communication to identify advocates and detractors of design 
and form a strategy for whom to partner with and when.