Business Thinking for Designers

• Core: Optimize current offerings
• Adjacent: Add new features
• Transformational: Create new products

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Figure 5-7: The Innovation Ambition Matrix from Monitor Group
The best times to measure ambition are at the beginning of a 
project or when workshopping new ideas. In either scenario, I 
take the following steps to complete the activity:
01. Draw the grid.

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02. Assign Post-it colors to cross-functional partners.
03. Ask each partner to capture the projects or features in the 
backlog on Post-its.
04. Place Post-its on the grid according to how ambitious the 
team should be with each. 
05. Analyze any deltas that show up on the matrix and use 
those to find an agreed level of ambition moving forward.
Pro tip
The Innovation Ambition Matrix is a fantastic activity for 
getting alignment and buy-in with a design system. Since 
a design system can range in complexity, getting clarity 
on ambition proves a valuable exercise before committing 
resources to creating or updating it.
This Innovation Ambition Matrix is so simple, yet so 
helpful to getting partner alignment up front. When 
approached as a cross-functional team activity, a 
completed matrix is a wonderful way to negotiate 
before the stakes are too high and emotions get 

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involved. It’s the perfect tool to share with your 
industry friends.
Conclusion
Communicating well is a key for influencing business decisions 
and outcomes. By adjusting your communications, designers 
can show their business partners that they’re capable of 
working in multiple ways, as well as prepare for any difficult 
decisions. 
In the final chapter, we’ll take the lessons learned thus far and 
show how you can put them all together. The goal is to help you 
mature your approach, which in turn will help mature design in 
your organization.

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Further reading
The rule of three by Brian Clark, Copyblogger founder and host 
of Unemployable 
How to Tell a Business Story Using the McKinsey Situation-
Complication-Resolution (SCR) Framework by Jeremey 
Donovan, SVP of Research & Advisory Services at CB Insights
The Pyramid Principle by Ameet Ranadive, Chief Product 
Officer at GetYourGuide
The Negotiation Canvas download from Negotiation by Design

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Put it all together