Dear (none)Designer,
Welcome back to the fifty-seventh Design at Scale™ Newsletter – where we explore innovation and how design sparks real change in large organisations and agencies.
Last month, we discussed automation and its impact on current product development, design, and delivery processes.
Why are these changes important?
As we adopt automation and AI in content creation and task delivery, it is essential to recognise that these technologies may fundamentally shift both our processes and outcomes. While helpers like GPT Chat can simplify daily tasks in our complex work environments, it’s important to recognise the tipping point where additional inputs may actually complicate processes—a concern especially relevant as we incorporate more advanced technology.
Are we perhaps complicating our own work?
An AI or language model can create briefs, evaluate data, and make decisions. We can generate wireframes and user interfaces that are intuitive and appealing. With the right references, we can create a complete image library for an online shop, car brand, or retail content. We can automate integration with our Figma files to export data directly to a repository for code consumption.
Yet some might think we are still working within the double diamond framework, just with slightly faster tools. Measuring the impact and speed of delivery has been discussed for almost two centuries. Frederick Windsor Taylor, under the Society of Advanced Management, first defined methods for work efficiency in early modern factories, where labour operated with the first machines. Unfortunately, this approach to planning and measuring work has significant drawbacks for today's workflows. Modern workforces are now distributed globally, and tasks often await assignment by project managers or are passed from one country to another, even from one continent to another.
Technology advanced, but the process did not?
How is it that our technology has advanced so much—reducing the size of transistor systems to nanometers, from building railways to internet highways—while our work processes remain unchanged and still echo traits from the steam engine era?
For many, work remains frustrating, in part because too much of our information isn't directly related to production. This disconnect highlights why, even as personal automation improves an individual's efficiency, it may reduce the organisation’s overall impact without systemic changes. We can integrate, connect APIs, and read server values across the globe. Still, a human must make informed decisions.
To fully realise the benefits of automation and scale our organisations, we must empower remote, “self-sufficient teams” to make independent decisions and deliver value not just quickly but with precision. This shift is essential because, without it, automation alone cannot provide the needed impact—a point supported by the evolving structure of modern work environments.
Several studies from Stanford University[↗001], MIT[↗002], and the Global Leadership Forum [↗003] suggest the future of work is not tied to departments or rigid structures. Instead, these studies recommend enforcing structural change in the form of a "team of teams."
Why Team of Teams?
The Design at Scale™ framework is based on the Team of Teams model, which has been used in the military for over four decades. Before we discovered Agile methods[↗004], squads, and modern departments, the military (the oldest business department) underwent a comprehensive organisational overhaul. This change was tested, documented, and successfully implemented in organisations worldwide. It involved shifting from a hierarchy to a team of teams structure, where each team leader could choose the process to deliver on time and then empower the next unit to build upon the completed increment. This structure and mindset rely on reusing increments—such as beta, source code, etc.—to deliver value. Organisations can improve speed by up to 60% and deliver smarter, not just faster.
We’ll be looking at the series of articles that reflect on such structural changes and their impact on the modern organisation.
For more information, please visit Designa at Scale™ – GRID Magazine, where you can find additional relevant articles that explore high-performing teams, self-organising teams of 001, teams of 010, and teams of 100 that deliver the value proposition within a product-led environment.
