Ben Holliday

This is my blog where I’ve been writing for 20 years. You will find posts about digital transformation, design and leadership. You can also find me on Bluesky and LinkedIn. In 2022 I published a book for TPXimpact, Multiplied.

Latest posts and feed

Different ways of leading design: face to face, or side by side

Seniority in Design: feedback loops

Why you’re only as good as your feedback loops. Read more

Seniority in Design: leading sideways

How you can lead from the side, not just from the front. Read more

A house without windows

The windows we build into our work are about giving ourselves a way to see the world outside, as well as letting the world see us. Read more

Make it happen

Types of design focus

Some working definitions. Why the language we use and what we mean when we’re using a design-led or based approach is important. Read more

Blog post round up – Summer 2019

It’s okay to be a design leader

Stepping outside the design community

Comparing service design and business design

How service design can bring a new set of approaches and focus to organisations. Read more

Seniority in Design: personal responsibility

Simple models

The importance of frameworks and first principles in service design

Why the importance of frameworks is that you focus on a smaller set of things, because you can’t focus on everything. Read more

Seniority in design: empathy both ways

Hypotheses in user research and discovery

Formats for working with hypotheses in Discovery as part of user research. Read more

The horizon and the next steps

In a design process there are two immediate things that matter: the horizon (immediate goal), and the next steps (immediate steps towards that goal). Read more

Seniority in design: proximity and closeness

Learning to prototype is more important than learning to code

Why prototyping doesn’t mean that you have to write code or build software. Read more

What’s on my bookshelf this winter/spring (2019)

This is what I’ve been reading over the past few months (stretching back to the end of 2018). The rest of this list is books I’m planning to read over the next few months. Read more

A design state of mind

What it means to move to a design mindset. Read more