Design the Hard Way

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Marcos Nähr

You're doing design leadership the hard way. So am I. 20+ years of it, across companies where design was never a given. This is what I learned.

📍 Austria

Orphaned Demand

A seed-stage SaaS company had six engineers and no designer. The product kept shipping. Screens got designed. Workflows got defined. UX decisions got made. Nobody could point to a person whose job was Design. The work still existed. It was just being carried by whoever happened to be nearby.

Nobody told me my first job wasn't about design

A real situation from my first month as a manager, what it revealed about the direction problem, and one thing you can do differently this week.

Why I built this

And who it's not for. I spent 18 years in companies where design had to earn its seat every single day. Not companies where design was part of the strategy from the beginning. Not companies where the CEO came from a product background and already believed. Companies built

Designing Confidence: The UX Leader's Journey

The Confidence Problem Nobody Talks About in Design Leadership Leadership is not about orchestrating pixels and wireframes. It never was. It is about operating with conviction in conditions where certainty is a luxury you rarely get. There is a particular tension that follows UX professionals into management: you have to

Mastering the Art of Control

A Guide to Focusing on What Really Matters You are probably feeling overwhelmed right now. We often face circumstances that appear to be beyond our control. This struggle can lead to stress, anxiety, and a sense of helplessness. What if there was a way to navigate life's complexities

Beyond Best Practices

A Design Leader's Guide to Revolutionary Thinking A peculiar paradox exists in modern design leadership: while innovation is the rallying cry of our industry, our design systems (and, as a result, our products) have become increasingly homogeneous. We've created a comfortable echo chamber where "best

Transforming Organizations Through Design Operations

Richard Buchanan once wrote about a design movement in management aimed at reforming organizational culture, one that pushes design deeper into the corporate fabric with real consequences for how organizations think and operate. George Nelson, in a 1957 essay called "The Designer in the Modern World," made an

The Complex Dynamics of Adding Leadership Roles in Design Teams

As design organizations grow and evolve, leadership decisions become increasingly complex puzzles to solve. Having worked with American companies for almost two decades, I've observed how the addition or withholding of leadership roles can significantly impact design team dynamics. The challenge lies not just in recognizing when (or

Managing Consistency vs. Flexibility with the Polarity Management Framework

As software companies grow and develop advanced tools, they often have to decide between prioritizing consistency or flexibility. The Polarity Management Framework is a valuable tool for analyzing and navigating this complex situation. It offers a balanced perspective to help the company achieve sustainable growth and innovation by managing these

Promoting User-Centricity in Cross-Functional Teams

Maintaining a user-centric approach in design practices is not just beneficial, but also essential for success. The challenge lies in ensuring that user needs remain at the heart of every decision. Drawing from my experiences at Dell and Dynatrace, where our talented product designers worked on creating impactful design