Pros
- actually doing strategic design work, giving designers a seat at the table where decisions are made about major client decisions, major investment programmes, major pivots and transformations - long history of interdisciplinary collaboration, having learnt from many mistakes along the way. Doblin was a beacon of effective multidisciplinary teamwork - professional challenge and opportunity: I always felt that everyone was invited to get involved in multiple parts of each project, rather than have to stay in their lane. When it worked well, people brought their whole selves to work, and I felt appreciated for the unique combination of skills and characteristics I brought.
Cons
in the London team: - we lost our dedicated studio space, and it was impossible to maintain studio culture - constant clashing with the strategy consulting group over pricing, cultural norms, staffing rules, etc. A general feeling of being misunderstood and under-appreciated - missing business and sales leadership - it's not so easy to do the business development side of innovation strategy work, and we never had leadership that was able to make use of the Deloitte network in the way promised when Doblin was acquired. - Deloitte's weird fragmented business model meant that the Doblin global community got weaker and weaker and ties between Doblin practitioners got lost. This is a big shame!