Now that we’ve established that communicating the how is a principal element of efficient design, we can take it a step further. The key role of communication, and, more broadly, of all the eight principles, goes far beyond the matter of design of commercial products. In effect, it applies to every single life scenario where there is an exchange of ideas, collaborative work, or joint effort of multiple people.

When it comes to commercial environments, we can apply the eight principles not only to the final product, but also to all the intermediate stages of its making, from its conception, through prototyping, planning, engineering, quality assurance, marketing, delivery, maintenance, and all the way to the end of the product’s useful life. The sub-deliverable produced on every such stage – be it the project initiation document, the stage work breakdown structure, the first prototype, the quality control process, the marketing campaign, the support policy, or the recycling method – will therefore serve the ultimate product purpose and be built with the same baseline criteria in mind:

• It should solve the right problem.
• It should be accommodating to its users.
• It should be sensible and smart.
• and so on.

(See this article for the complete list of criteria that we agreed to use.)

Each stage of making a bigger product, in effect, generates a little product of its own. It is not as tangible or well-shaped as the final thing that we typically call a product, but nonetheless it is still something made for someone. The initiation stage generates a Project Initiation Document (PID): something that is used by the management team to establish a business case and clarify how the key management questions are going to be addressed. The early manufacturing process generates a sequence of product prototypes. When the product is ready to go public, the marketing department generates a marketing roadmap – also a product in itself.

If the PID is composed not clearly enough for its recipients, or the chosen risk management strategy is not relevant or, worse, the business case is not sustainable, it may undermine all the further product work. If the prototype is not showcasing the future product’s features well, or is produced too early or too late, it can easily be the reason for the management to shut the product down. If the web site team or salespeople struggle to grasp ideas envisaged by the marketing plan, or if the marketing plan relies on ephemeral manipulative tactics, the product may fail to find its way to the customers’ homes.

We can zoom in even closer. Consider one of the many manufacturing stages. A team of engineers look to build the first prototype of the new product their company is making. The team lead brings in the architect and the product owner, and together they discuss what the prototype should look like. Basing on that conversation the architect drafts some blueprints, which the lead engineer then renders to a list of equipment and a set of work packages. The list of equipment is passed on to the procurement department, and the work packages are assigned to individual engineers. The engineers then engage their minds and embark on their assignments as described in the specifications they were given.

Each of those steps generates its own little product:

• The initial meeting generates an idea for the prototype.
• From that idea, the architect generates the blueprints.
• The lead engineer generates a list of equipment and a work breakdown structure.
• The procurement department generates a ready-to-use equipment.
• The engineers generate individual parts of the future prototype.

A mess-up on each of the above steps has potential to endanger the prototype. If the architect fails to follow the product owner’s thinking, her blueprints won’t reflect the intended scope of the prototype. If the blueprints are too complex, or too simple, or ambiguous, or instructive, the lead engineer may fail to identify the best set of tools to use or to break the work down into the optimal combination of work packages, which may unnecessarily increase the costs or manufacturing time.

Same for the procurement team: what if the item requested by the lead engineer is not available? Should they go for an alternative? Can they go for previous generation equipment or an aftermarket brand? Would buying a newer but more expensive tool be still within the budget? Any manufacturing process raises hundreds of little questions like these. Often, the number of those questions and the availability of accurate answers is what makes all the difference between a successful and failed product.

Doesn’t that remind you of anything?

It’s the same communication story that we’ve seen earlier when talking about the easy-to-grasp products. The products that make themselves clear. The products that are easy to understand and straightforward to use.

Just as with real-world objects and processes handled by end users (kettles, roundabouts, underground maps), objects and processes handled by production chain users (ideas, blueprints, equipment lists) have higher chances of being handled successfully if they stick to the eight principles of intelligent design – and particularly are easy to understand, empathic, and self-enforcing. Just as with real-world objects, the maker always knows more about their product than the user, and so can make it in the way that it can be used rightly, comfortably, and safely.

If the equipment list, instead of simply providing specifications, makes it clear what qualities the business needs from each piece of equipment, it would be easier for the procurement team to figure out if an alternative solution fits. If the blueprints provide extra guidance on elaborate elements yet give enough freedom to the lead engineer about less crucial bits, he might come up with a better choice of tools and materials. If production assignments put extra focus on features that need extra attention, the engineers are less likely to implement them incorrectly. In each instance, the person responsible for the deliverable that it hands over to her co-worker or contractor, can make that deliverable work better by investing more effort in designing it intelligently. Having everyone on the team stand by that approach can result in ground-shifting boost to the quality of business process, resulting in higher-quality, cheaper, and more sustainable products.

We call this important concept the design chain. Its core idea is about making sure that every little deliverable that the main product builds on aligns with the principles of intelligent design. The use of the design chain makes every cell of the product mechanism generate the best output for its role, and helps the product-making effort operate as a single organism. With information flowing freely between its counterparts, and the product knowledge sifting from the very top to the very bottom on every stage of the making process, the risk of something taking a wrong turn gets significantly lower.

And one final remark. The chain links that are closer to the start of the product making chain have much stronger capability to affect the shape and direction of the product than those that come later. Strong and resilient starting links provide strong foundation for the future of your product, just as weak, faulty, or missing links can undermine the whole product effort. An ambiguous statement in the blueprint has a much higher potential to affect the product success in long term than a line failure or an unsuccessful marketing campaign. There exists an illustrative example of what happens when the flow of information within the business is weak. Most of us have heard of it. In fact, it’s mentioned in the oldest book of the world. It’s called the Tower of Babel.