Ep 125 Value of Design P3: Showing the value and impact of design

Show notes

Welcome to the 125th episode of The Crazy One Podcast. I’m your host, Stephen Gates, and this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and everything else that helps empower creative people.

As always, you can listen to every episode, get the show notes, and more at thecrazyone.com—that’s thecrazy and the number one. While you’re there, please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and take a few seconds to leave a review. It helps me know what you think and helps others discover the show.

Also, don’t forget that The Crazy One is on YouTube, with tutorials, masterclasses, past keynotes, and new videos at thecrazyone.com/youtube.

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A Series on the Value of Design

This episode wraps up a three-part series focused on one of the most common questions I get:

“How do we show the value of design?”

Let’s recap:

• Episode 123: We talked about the difference between output vs. outcome, and how design is a consequence business.

• Episode 124: We covered how to create demand for design—by using design methodologies, customer-centered thinking, journey maps, and behavior modeling.

 

Now, in this final installment, we’ll dive into how to articulate that value. We’ll cover:

• How to show your work through design reviews and structured feedback

• How to demonstrate your impact through metrics and storytelling

• And how to start making change—even if it feels impossible

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Part 1: How to Show Your Work

Design Reviews: Visibility With Purpose

A design review is one of the best ways to bring visibility to your work—especially in lower-maturity organizations where collaboration and communication may be lacking.

Design reviews:

• Happen weekly

• Are tied to milestones in the design process

• Include leaders from design, product, and engineering

• Are required—leaders must attend or send a delegate

• Are focused on awareness, feedback, conflict resolution, and unblocking

 

Key rules:

• No massive presentations or showmanship—show the actual work (e.g., research, Figma files)

• The review is not a decision-making meeting

• Feedback is limited to 15–20 minutes per team

• Time is a focusing agent

 

This meeting should be structured, intentional, and designed to bring people together. Done right, it starts building healthy collaboration and consistent visibility.

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Part 2: Building Better Feedback Loops

Feedback can make or break your team’s value and culture. Unfortunately, it’s often inconsistent, subjective, or toxic.

That’s why you need feedback guidelines that define:

1. How to give feedback

2. How to capture feedback

3. How to prioritize and act on it

Giving Feedback

You need to create social agreements about what feedback means on your team:

• Titles don’t determine the importance of feedback.

• Feedback must be given in the meeting, not afterwards in DMs or Slack.

• It’s about getting it right, not being right.

• Tone, body language, and intent matter.

• Assume others are reasonable; if they’re not, you probably lack context.

Capturing Feedback

Use a standardized template (like in Mural or FigJam) to capture feedback:

• Do we act on this?

• Does it go to a parking lot?

• Is it out of scope?

 

Ask people to prioritize their feedback on a scale of 1–5:

• 1 = Minor, optional suggestion

• 5 = Show-stopping, critical issue

 

This creates consequence and helps avoid “cry wolf” scenarios where everything feels like a 5. It’s about setting boundaries and teaching accountability.

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Part 3: Demonstrating Impact

Speak the Language of the Business

If you want to be taken seriously, you have to connect your work to business goals. That starts with using metrics and data.

Common metrics include:

• Click-through rates

• Conversion rates

• Drop-offs and exits

• Engagement and retention

 

But more than the data itself, it’s about:

• Goal-setting at the beginning of a project

• Data-driven storytelling

• Helping your team learn the language of business

• Showing how design impacts outcomes, not just outputs

 

Even if metrics aren’t perfect, the process of using them helps focus conversations, reduces opinion wars, and shows your team is accountable.

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Part 4: Tell Your Story, Loudly and Often

Never assume people know what you’re doing or the value you’re providing.

You must tell the story of your work:

• Build case studies

• Do internal roadshows

• Create videos, newsletters, lunch & learns

• Highlight your partners and their wins

• Celebrate what’s working—and what you learned when it didn’t

Create Organizational Jealousy

If you want to drive behavior, help your partners get what they want: visibility, results, and praise.

Make people say, “Why aren’t we working with design like that?”

This motivates teams to collaborate and gives design a reputation for driving impact.

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Part 5: Where to Start (Especially If You’re Stuck)

If you’re thinking:

“This all sounds great, but they won’t let me do it. I don’t know where to start.”

Start with something no one cares about.

Don’t chase the biggest, flashiest project. Start with a quiet corner of the business where you can test new ways of working:

• Pick a smaller team who’ll appreciate your help

• Run an experiment

• Create a case study

• Use that win to scale elsewhere

 

This is how change starts. And once you have a plan—even if it’s small—you’ll begin to shift the culture.

Your plan doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be real.

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Final Thought: Success Only Exists in Hindsight

Here’s what most people don’t tell you:

Success never feels like success in the moment.

It feels like:

• Stress

• Doubt

• Struggle

• “Is this even working?”

 

But afterwards, when you look back and see the change—it all makes sense.

Don’t let imposter syndrome or frustration stop you. Just start. Pick a direction. Put a plan in place. Adjust as you go. But start.

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Wrap-Up

To help you implement everything from this series:

• I’ll post links to templates and visuals in the show notes at thecrazyone.com

• Follow the show on LinkedIn or Facebook

• Follow me personally on Twitter or Instagram

 

And as always:

The views in this show are my own and don’t represent any past or present employer.

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Thank You

Thank you, as always, for your time. Time is the only real luxury we have, and I’m grateful you spent any of it listening to me.

Go out, take a stand for your value. Don’t let others define your worth. Use these tools, put them into play, and show the world what design can do.

And while you’re at it… Stay crazy.

Tagged as:
communicating design value creative leadership design case studies design feedback guidelines design impact design in business design metrics design reviews design strategy design team success design value feedback culture mea value of design