Business Thinking for Designers

• Financial: To remain in business, what are the things we 
must do? Generate revenue? Grow? Reduce costs? Retain 
users?
• Customer: To meet a financial objective, what do we need 
to give customers to satisfy them?
• Operational: To meet a customer objective, what things do 
we need to do well?
• Learning & growth: To meet an operational objective, 
what are the things we need to develop, learn, and grow 
internally?
Developing Strategy Maps is one of the most effective ways 
to foster the maturity of design teams. Not only do they play 
to our strength—visualization—but they also unite designers 
around a common point of view that is vastly superior to an 
array of personal opinions or feelings. 
Now I’ll show you how to create a Strategy Map that 
communicates your team’s definition of desirability and 
helps to clarify how designers impact competitive advantage 
differently than other functions in the business.

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87 
Create conditions for design maturity
Did you know? 
Many large organizations already have Strategy Maps for the 
business. Ask around, get your business partners curious, and 
see if you can find out if they exist.