D-Ford Design Thinking’s vision and purpose is to scale design thinking at every level of Ford Motor Company. Joining the team in 2019, my role as a Catalyst has led me to two big parts of the effort: 1. internal design thinking enablement for the larger Ford (coaching + consultation); 2. building the mechanism for the still young team.

This “case study” is focused on the second part of my effort at the Design Thinking team. There won’t be many details of the work itself showed. It is mainly focused on my approach and perspective on applying design strategy internally.

Organization
D-Ford, Ford Motor Company

Duration
Aug 2019 - present

The bigger challenge

From the design strategy’s perspective, siloed efforts of existing works, unclear point-of-views and organizational issues are in the way of the organization’s effort toward its vision and purposes.

Even though there won’t be a quick solution to all these challenges yet, every piece work at hand could be done in awareness of the big picture.

Side note: In my other organization-related research, I learned that the patterns are very similar in many large organizations in transition.

Approach: Bringing the Structure

With projects and tasks at hand, I structure them to make sense of where things lead. This way, what seems to be a “one-time effort“ gets fed into the larger system of work with more mindfulness. There are two ways to look at the work:

How might we scale design thinking at Ford in a systemic manner by strengthening the connection of the team’s strategy and disparate works?

Learn more about my two examples of works under Niche and Infrastructure (password protected):

GLM Feedback Analysis

Design Thinking Novice’s Journey

Personal Reflection

Be “the” design leader and make space for systemic change. I learned that one does not need to be “entitled” to perform design leadership. Systemic design is all about collaboration and making space and mechanisms for knowledges to thread themselves, and I aspire to be the thought leader to make the change happen.

Always stay true to systems thinking. Even when external environment does not make room for it, I still have the agency to treat every work with intentionality and bring in the systems thinking mindset.

Special thanks to my teammate, Prapti Jha. In the two examples I shared, she had been a great work partner in both of them.