User-centred digital strategy: what it is, why it matters, how to do it well

slideshare.net/sophiedennis @sophiedennis
Let’s talk about strategy…
 
slides: slideshare.net/sophiedennis
Sophie Dennis 
service design and product strategy 
@sophiedennis
The short
version

From Org Design for Design Orgs by Peter
Merholz and Kristin Skinner (O’Reilly,
2016). Informed by the levels of Strategy,
Structure, and Surface described in Jesse
James Garrett’s classic The Elements of
User Experience (New Riders, 2010)

On post-its write
1. one thing that bugs you about “strategy”
2. one thing you hope to get out of this session
3. one question you’d like answered
Write each one on a separate post-it 
Share them with your neighbour

It’s all b******ks

Why even bother?

Culture eats strategy for breakfast
— probably not Peter Drucker

Strategy is easy

It’s implementation that’s the hard part

The strategy is delivery
— Mike Bracken 
Government Digital Service

JFDI

[shortest talk ever]

What is strategy? 
...and why does it matter?

“There is surely nothing quite so useless as
doing with great efﬁciency what should not
be done at all”
— Peter Drucker

Strategy tells us
Where are we going?
What will be different when we get there?
Where are we now?
How are we going to get from here to there?
What might stop us and how will we overcome that?

Good strategy helps make decisions

Good strategy gives us purpose

Good strategy enables us to delegate
control and decision making

Good strategy makes us more agile

Bad strategy

The “yeah, right” test
 
The “so what?” test
 
The “yes! and…?” test

The “yeah, right” test

Cornwall is going to be the next
silicon valley
Insert your city
or region here

The “so what?” test

apps 
 
 
  Not a strategy

apps, digital transformation 
 
 
  Not a strategy

apps, digital transformation 
 
 
 
Seriously
Not. A. Strategy
, wearables,
chatbots,, AI,, personalisation,, a new logo,
a rebrand,, content marketing,, agile,, Agile,
user experience,, lean UX,, service design,
innovation… …

The “yes! and…?” test

So what makes a good strategy?

Strategy is a coherent plan to
achieve a goal that will lead to
signiﬁcant positive change

Strategy is
about
changing
something

Strategy
should
achieve a
goal

Strategy
should be
coherent

coherent
kə(ʊ)ˈhɪər(ə)nt/ 
 
adjective 
 
1. (of an argument, theory, or policy) logical and consistent 
‘they failed to develop a coherent economic strategy’
2. Forming a uniﬁed whole 
‘the arts could be systematized into one coherent body of
knowledge’
 
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/deﬁnition/coherent

Moon Shotshttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aldrin_Apollo_11_original.jpg

Exercise
Read through Kennedy’s moonshot speech
In your group discuss:
1. What is the concrete, tangible goal?
2. What is the signiﬁcant positive change
Kennedy hopes achieving it will bring?
3. What leads Kennedy to believe  
the goal is achievable?
4. What are the most signiﬁcant  
barriers to success?

What was
the concrete,
tangible
goal?

“before this
decade is out
[to] land a man
on the moon
and return him
safely to earth”

What
significant,
positive
change is it
trying to
bring about?

How does he
show the
goal is
achievable?

“we have examined
where we are strong
and where we are
not, where we may
succeed and where
we may not…we
possess all the
resources and
talents necessary”

accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft…
develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters… additional funds
for unmanned explorations… 531 million dollars in ﬁscal ’62…  
7 to 9 billion dollars additional over the next ﬁve years

many years… heavy costs … a degree of dedication,
organization and discipline which have not always characterized
our efforts… we cannot afford inﬂated costs of material or talent,
wasteful interagency rivalries, or high turnover of key personnel

there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States
take an afﬁrmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared
to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we
are to go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difﬁculty,
in my judgment it would be better not to go at all.

Focus and leverage

start enduser journey
pain points

tactical solution
pain points

pain points
strategic solution

1. Diagnose the problem 
what is the true nature and extent of the problem? what are we really
trying to achieve? what’s really going on here?
2. Find the unifying idea 
what overall approach will enable us to cope with and overcome the
obstacles identiﬁed in the diagnosis? what is the common thread in the
problems we’ve found? where can we focus in order to apply leverage?
3. Craft a plan of attack 
what is the co-ordinated set of actions or steps we should take that will
work together to accomplish our goal?

1. Denial - our thing is not broken
2. Anger - we hate you for telling us
3. Acceptance - holy crap our thing is broken
Dan Hon, ‘Stages of Transformation’, 11 April 2011  
tinyletter.com/danhon/letters/s4e10-stages-of-transformation

“A good diagnosis simpliﬁes the often
overwhelming complexity of reality by
identifying certain aspects of the
situation as critical.”
Richard Rumelt 
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy

Fog

1. problem statement
2. opportunity/objective
3. situation/constraints/context
4. recommendation: Big Idea
5. recommendation: smaller ideas/
releasing early value/validation
6. principles, models
Diagnosis
Unifying idea
Coherent plan
of attack
I wrote about this a bit more at  
medium.com/@sophiedennis/weeknotes-s01e01-what-a-diﬀerence-a-day-makes-from-dwp-to-nhs-digital-d1fe54ﬀ0cb0

One last thing

DANGER! 
Problem Deﬁnition Escalation

The client asks you to design a business card  
You respond that the problem is really the
client’s logo
Michael Beirut, ‘You’re So Intelligent’, Design Observer, 9 May 2007  
designobserver.com/feature/youre-so-intelligent/5917/
The client asks you to design a logo 
You say the problem is the  
entire identity system
The client asks you to design the identity 
You say that the problem is the  
client’s business plan

The problem isn’t making
something look pretty, you fool,
it’s world hunger!
Michael Beirut, ‘You’re So Intelligent’, Design Observer, 9 May 2007  
designobserver.com/feature/youre-so-intelligent/5917/

Why? 
So more people get their flu jabs
Why? 
So fewer people end up in hospital with severe, life-threatening flu
Why? 
To reduce pressure on the health service
Why? 
ONLY WE CAN SAVE THE NHS!
What are you doing?  
Making it easier to book an appointment for a flu jab

“the nature of these challenges are
emblematic of deeply entrenched ﬂaws
in our institutional structures, our
underlying theories, deﬁnitions of
success, and ultimately how we have
constructed our civilization.”
Christian Bason
The frontiers of design for policy

People still don’t have their ﬂu jabs

“It’s just a website
We’re not going to the
moon”
Mikey Dickerson on ﬁxing healthcare.gov 
 
Photo by Matt Jukes @jukesie from the Ofﬁce for National Statistics Alpha/
Beta team

Q&A

Further reading
Richard Rumelt, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy
Lots more examples and advice on good vs bad strategy
Jared Spool, Beyond the UX Tipping Point
https://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2016/05/26/jared-spool-beyond-the-
ux-tipping-point-live/

Becoming a user-centred organisation
Sophie Dennis, The Art of Things Not Done, NUX5 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh-hvPtqN54

Product strategy with story-mapping and the Kano model
Megan Casey, The Content Strategy Toolkit

Advice, templates and methods for getting buy-in and working with
stakeholders. Useful for any kind of design or UX project.
Dan Brown, Documenting Design Discovery

medium.com/eightshapes-llc/documenting-design-discovery-
db14da1b0627#.24ud09pj0

More on structuring ﬁndings. He’s also written a book about it.

User-Centred Digital Strategy
 
Sophie Dennis 
service design and product strategy 
@sophiedennis
slides: slideshare.net/sophiedennis

Problem statement (What’s the problem?)
This should be made up of:
• the specific problem the team is addressing
• the result of the problem
• the change of situation which means the problem becomes a
higher risk
• the risk that’s a result of the problem and change of situation
Melanie Cannon, Lead Content Designer, DWP 
Helping teams define their focus  
dwpdigital.blog.gov.uk/2017/02/28/helping-teams-define-their-focus

Short form creative brief 
articles.uie.com/short_form_creative_brief

Design Principles 
cxpartners.co.uk/our-thinking/design-principles

Dan Brown 
Documenting Design Discovery 
 
medium.com/eightshapes-llc/documenting-design-discovery-db14da1b0627#.24ud09pj0

1. Stakeholders know
what’s really going on

2. Stakeholders can derail
the whole process

1. People support what they
help to create
2. No big surprises
3. They don’t have to like it  
- but they do need to buy-it

Making the map is as
valuable as having the map

1. problem statement
2. opportunity/objective
3. situation/constraints/context
4. recommendation: Big Idea
5. recommendation: smaller ideas/
releasing early value
6. principles, models
Diagnosis
Unifying idea
Coherent plan
of attack
I wrote about this a bit more at  
medium.com/@sophiedennis/weeknotes-s01e01-what-a-diﬀerence-a-day-makes-from-dwp-to-nhs-digital-d1fe54ﬀ0cb0

Working with stakeholders

User-centred digital strategy: what it is, why it matters, how to do it well

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