Last year, we found ourselves asking a big question. After almost 30 years working in and around design leadership, what have we learned? And how could we distil it and share it in a way that is genuinely useful?

Our first instinct was to write a book. A practical handbook for design leaders navigating complex organisations. But we also know how these things can go. We would probably disappear for months, maybe years, trying to perfect the manuscript. By the time it gets published, the conversation may already have moved on. It also didn’t feel like it reflected how we approach our most successful client relationships, always as a partnership.

So we’re choosing a different route.

Instead of a finished book, we’re creating and curating a living handbook with the working title The High Impact Design Leader. Over the next 18 to 24 months, we’ll release it in draft form, piece by piece, as a LinkedIn Newsletter series. Each article will stand alone while also building on the last, gradually shaping a coherent and practical handbook for high impact design leadership. We’ll keep the language straightforward and the focus practical.

Along the way, we’ll share tools, prompts and templates you can apply in your own context, as well as case studies drawn from our lived experience working with design leaders in more than 350 organisations.

And here’s the important bit. This won’t be a one-way broadcast. We want to build this in the open, with you.

We’d love this to become an ongoing conversation with our network. We’d love our ideas to be tested, challenged and strengthened by your experience. Most best-practice is developed through experimentation and reflection, not in isolation, and this handbook will evolve in the same way.

The first article, an introduction to the handbook, is now live. If you have 5-10 minutes, we’d love you to read, subscribe and share your perspective.

The High Impact Design Leader / Part 1

Thank you, as always, for being part of the conversation,

Team PARK