Escaping the Donut Hole (Alfred Kahn)
Escaping the Donut Hole In my last post, I introduced the concept of the design leadership “donut hole.” The donut hole is the period between a company’s beginnings as an early-stage startup and its evolution to late stage or growth. Typically, as a startup climbs the maturity curve from the early-stage scramble to the finish line into a mature, growth-stage company, it goes through a period where it has hired product and engineering leadership, but little or no design leadership. You can get more information regarding the risks and challenges associated with the donut hole in my previous post ; in this post, I will discuss how to tell if you are in the donut hole and how to escape it. Are you in the “donut hole”? The simplest answer to this question is, if your company has more than 3 designers reporting to a Product leader, then you are in the donut hole. Very few product leaders have the skills and experience to lead a design team; in fact, having to oversee design is likely a sourc...