Building a Design Consensus by Bryan

June 08, 2010 in Notable, with 4 Comments

"Design consensus" is an unwelcome term in design circles because it reeks of "design by committee." In a corporate environment, though, consensus can be a designer's best friend— if you know when to seek it out.

Don't always seek a consensus

In reality, seeking a consensus isn't always a good idea. Individual thoughts and ideas can be great for maintaining consistency while collaboration can sometimes take forever. If you're considering getting consensus on something, ask yourself if it's needed in the first place— maybe the project can thrive without the input of a dozen other people.

If the risk of individual decision-making isn't too costly, or the risk doesn't need to be mitigated with informed business decisions, then forget about seeking a consensus all together.

When to build a consensus

If consensus is called for, figure out the goals of everyone on the playing field. Are there advocates that understand good design? Can you align everyone else's thinking with your vision? If not, maybe you need to punt until you have a clearer picture of the team's goals.

Whatever you do, don't open up the whole problem to collaboration or you'll have chaos on your hands. Instead, break the problem into smaller parts and dole them out for specific advice from people in different business units. You're looking for buy-in at this point so put your best foot forward and sell what you know.

Finding consensus can become a complex situation very quickly, so a designer needs to take the reins and keep the process from stagnating. Let the team know that non-response is considered an acceptance of the idea, and you'll take it as a green light to move forward. Once you get the organization used to processing feedback and ideas this way, you'll get more control over the conversation and discover design consensus isn't really that terrible of a process after all.

4 Comments

Jonathan (ZURB) says:

A key moment in my development at ZURB was figuring out when a consensus was valuable and when it wasn't. A lot of times I could spin my wheels for a while trying to build consensus around something that isn't ready or isn't important, when the better approach is to just get something done and then circle back around. Momentum is key to finishing projects and a design consensus can be a real momentum killer.

That being said, getting a consensus is awesome when it's valuable and warranted. A lot of the approaches to getting feedback we've talked about before can help there.
Erik says:

Consensus is often the best choice - both politically and practically. Since most departments in an organization have trouble talking to each other, it is often the designer's job to bring those groups together, figure out which solution(s) make the most sense from various perspectives, and champion the common vision. What's the point in having a company if you can't leverage other people's expertise in the design process?

Of course, consensus should be balanced with a designer's internal compass. A good question I ask myself (constantly) is... "what is the ultimate problem/goal I am trying to solve?" and "How can I move forward more quickly?" Perhaps ironically, I've often found that consensus helps answer those questions better than I can alone.

Of course, the secret in effective use of consensus is to start with the right people, and ignore or un-invite the people that don't help propel the team forward. With the right team, rapid consensus-driven progress is possible.
Matt (ZURB) says:

It's especially important to get consensus from your implementation team or else you'll have to horse whip them to get things built as designed. And no one likes a horse whipping.

That said you don't need to get their input on every tiny detail, just sell them on the benefits of the overall direction. If they understand that much they'll be equipped to fill in gaps and make small adjustments along the way without your constant oversight.

If you have to stand over someone to get them to do what you want you may as well just do it yourself, and good luck scaling that.
last minute mallorca says:

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