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

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

The roundup. January (and some of February) 2019

2018 – End of year review

Ambiguity and design

Ambiguity is a key part of design. It points us to the uncomfortable gap between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’ which is where I believe design adds most value. Read more

The roundup. November 2018

My November round up. Read more

Prompts for design leaders working with product teams

Sharing prompts and questions I use when working with product teams. Read more

For the love of the blog

Ending my experiment with blogging more on Medium. Read more

Shared working definitions

The purpose of defining something is to create a shared understanding of words, ideas, and processes with a wider group of people. Read more

A service-oriented approach to organisation design

How a service-oriented approach is an effective way of organising change and managing priorities inside organisations. Read more

What makes a design education?

There is no digital service design

Why service design will never be effective if it’s only seen as digital or given the remit to work as digital. Read more

Seniority, anxiety and dealing with confidence issues

A short follow up to my blog post about seniority in design. Read more

What’s on my bookshelf this summer (2018)

The roundup. June/July 2018