Creating a Design Driven Culture

Read on for all the key takeaways from our Design Leaders roundtable.

Creating a Design-Driven Culture

Enabling creative innovation and business growth to coexist

Innovation isn’t just about pushing creative boundaries—it’s about solving real problems in new ways. Whether that’s leveraging new tech, rethinking processes, or collaborating across teams to enhance user experiences, the most valuable innovation is intentional, user-driven, and aligned with business goals.

But when deadlines loom or the business is under pressure, innovation is often the first thing to be deprioritised. Innovation doesn’t have to be grand or disruptive to be impactful—some of the most effective innovations are simple, smart solutions that make things easier. At its core, innovation is problem-solving

Creating a culture that enables innovation

For innovation to thrive, leaders need to buy in, and teams need an environment where they feel empowered to experiment—without fear of repercussions. A supportive culture is the foundation of a truly innovative team.

Organisations should foster both structured innovation (planned initiatives) and organic creative thinking (space for experimentation). Make sure any innovation projects are aligned with business goals so they stay focused and contribute to bigger strategic objectives.

Some of the most effective (low-risk) ways teams are fostering innovation:
💡 Hackathons – Structured, cross-functional problem-solving in a short timeframe.
🛠 Team offsites – Dedicated time away from daily pressures to focus on creativity.
🔄 ‘No-fear’ environments – Leaders giving teams the space (and confidence) to experiment, fail, and iterate.
🕒 20% time – Allocating a portion of the workweek to explore projects outside of day-to-day responsibilities.

Keeping innovation future-focused

Instead of reacting to change, set your teams up for long-term innovation by thinking ahead:

• Consider how your product or industry will evolve in 5 years, then reverse-engineer that into today’s strategy.
• Frame innovation in business terms—showing leadership how it impacts revenue, efficiency, or retention is key to securing buy-in.
• Align design-led innovation with business roadmaps so it doesn’t get deprioritised.

Practical steps to build a culture of innovation

✔ Encourage cross-functional collaboration between design, engineering, and product teams.
✔ Balance business needs with creative freedom—innovation should be structured but not stifled.
✔ Deliver quick wins alongside strategic innovation to build trust, demonstrate immediate value, and create momentum for long-term impact.
✔ Embed future thinking into everyday work—if innovation is treated as a side project, it won’t drive real change.
✔ Showcase design-led innovation openly—talk about it in meetings, water cooler chats, leadership updates. Be the cheerleader for your team’s progress.
✔ Brand affinity, retention, and loyalty are valuable but hard to quantify—work with product managers as advocates, define a shared North Star vision, and collaborate with business allies to shape the product roadmap and gain executive buy-in.
✔ Align design KPIs with business objectives to strengthen the case for continued investment.

Innovation isn’t a department or a project —it’s a mindset that should be embedded across teams. When design teams build trust, frame their work in business terms, and consistently showcase their impact, they gain the space and support needed to drive real change.

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Advocating for Design at the Exec Level

Design leaders need to speak the language of execs, demonstrate tangible business impact, and leverage the right allies to embed design into strategic decision-making.

Aligning design with business goals

One of the biggest blockers to cross-functional collaboration is misaligned goals. Design leaders need to actively align with commercial, product, and marketing teams to ensure design isn’t seen as an isolated function, but as a key business driver.

Certain roles—Product Marketing Managers, Brand Experience Teams, and Researchers—help bridge gaps, but they can often be the first to go when budgets tighten. Demonstrating their value beyond a single function is critical to protecting these roles and keeping cross-team collaboration strong.

🔹 Break down silos – Ensure transparency and shared goals between design, marketing, and engineering teams.
🔹 Find common ground with commercial teams – Working together on concepts like pricing, packaging, and product positioning helps embed design deeper into business conversations.
🔹 Product and marketing often operate out of sync – The root cause is usually goal misalignment. If you can align on objectives early, teams will stay in sync and work more effectively together.

Getting executive buy-in

Winning over the exec team means demonstrating that design is a strategic advantage.

✔ Tailor communication to leadership – Some execs respond to hard metrics, others to compelling user stories. Match your approach to their mindset.
✔ Showcase quick wins – Small, measurable successes build momentum and make it easier to push for bigger, long-term design initiatives.
✔ Tie design success to business outcomes – Conversion rates, retention, efficiency improvements—whatever moves the needle for the business.
✔ Use a hybrid approach – Data + human storytelling is the most powerful way to prove design’s impact. Customer testimonials paired with hard metrics can be a game-changer.
✔If you can, get execs to speak directly to customers—not just read reports. Seeing real user pain points firsthand makes the impact of design impossible to ignore.

A massive thank you to John Griffin for moderating the session and keeping the discussion focused on practical solutions. And to everyone who joined, it was a great mix of perspectives, from scale-ups to established teams, all tackling similar challenges in different ways! ✨

Please reach out to our Design specialist, Megan, if you're keen to hear more or attend future events. Megan heads up our Product Design function at Burns Sheehan and is passionate about hearing the latest challenges and trends in the product space. You can connect or reach out to her directly here: Megan McArdle / meganm@burnssheehan.co.uk

🔗Check out the summary sheet here from our Manchester session here.

Images from our Manchester Design Leaders cohort