Business Thinking for Designers

Chapter 4
Create 
conditions for 
design maturity
Gain perspective of how design connects to business

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73 
Create conditions for design maturity
InVision’s groundbreaking report, The New Design Frontier, 
explores the behaviors, practices, and outcomes of high-
performing teams in ways that support the ideas in this book. 
The report identifies five organic levels of design maturity at 
which design has increasing levels of influence on a company’s 
bottom line. 
One of the biggest jumps design teams strive to make in 
their maturity is moving beyond design as a service for basic 
aesthetics and creative problem-solving techniques (Levels 1, 
2, and 3) to a model in which design collaborates in strategic 
decision-making (Levels 4 and 5). I’ve seen many design teams 
stuck at Levels 2 and 3 because they’re unable to correlate 
more advanced design activities to business outcomes. 
A key paragraph from the report describes what’s necessary 
for teams at the third level of maturity to progress further:
When organizations establish the right 
conditions for design and make room for it in 
core processes, they also experience deeper 
customer understanding, bolder exploration 
and experimentation, and more informed 

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74 
Create conditions for design maturity
decisions vetted through the continuous 
testing and learning process design enables.
The New Design Frontier
The phrase that catches my attention is, “When organizations 
establish the right conditions for design and make room 
for it in core processes...” I’ve never seen an organization 
organically instill these conditions for designers. To make it 

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75 
Create conditions for design maturity
happen, designers must step outside their comfort zones and 
learn the business.
There’s a reason companies like Netflix, Nike, Patagonia, and 
Tencent continually produce inspiring products, services, and 
innovations: They have mature design teams that connect their 
work to the ultimate outcome of their organizations—winning 
in competitive markets.