What I learned over decades of consulting was that it mattered most
what level the contract came in at, in terms of how much power and
influence the resulting design (which would sometimes be done
entirely in the consulting and sometimes in conjunction with internal
developers).  A contract at the Project Manager level would often lead
to design decisions vetoed or watered down at higher levels from
within the company.  Contracts that came in at the Vice President or
CEO level, even when coordinated with production departments, would
often proceed much smoother and lead to products that were less
compromised and ultimately more successful.  There are many variables
in this equation, obviously, so its important not to overgeneralize
regardless of what angle any of us are coming from.

As far as what you've seen and not seen Scott, I've read your book.
 However, my experience has been fairly different from your statement
of having never seen the power over engineering or veto power.  I
was, at one engineering consultancy of 130, the sole designer, and
definitely had great control and power to guide the integration of
industrial design, software design, interaction design, and overall
product experience and design, much as an architect would have in
working together with very skilled builders on a custom project. 
Again, a single data point, but at the same point, not someone
interviewed for your book, so outside of what you'd found and
studied.  I think it's important to understand where the hills in
the topology are, but the outliers are also greatly important in that
they map real and existing territory.  Perhaps more designers can
learn valuable lessons and strategies from the outliers, even as they
learn from the experiences of those sharing the most commonly found
situations.

I always liked Tom Peters' books, not because he told the stories
and lessons of the average corporate people, but the experiences,
challenges and triumphs of those that went beyond.  His books were
aspirational in that way.

My current role is one of defining the culture and value system near
the beginning of the company.  The challenges in doing that are
somewhat inverted from trying to move up within traditional
organizations, but given that we're constantly creating new
organizations, there is much to be said about getting the genetics of
organizations right at conception as opposed to trying to re-engineer
organizations whose cultures and values are long set and deeply
ingrained.  I also understand the great value and opportunity that
exists in consulting to those companies though, and helping them to
make that transition and evolution as best possible.

Both models, and likely everything in between, are valid approaches
to moving our field forward.

My own means of judging efficacy remains to look at the actual work,
products, services, and career accomplishments of designers and their
companies and then to seek to understand more about the diversity of
those approaches, rather than try to look for the most common
experiences and derive a reductionistic assessment or prescription.

While it's true that designing organizations is valuable, it's also
true that there will always also be much innovation occuring in small
ad hoc teams that come together for a development project, and among
individuals doing broad design.  It's imporant to recognize the
importance and distribution of both.


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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=33964


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