Company situation in October 2023

Inherited a team comprising 4 Product Designers with various levels of skills and maturity across Product Design disciplines, 2 of the team members were open to modern outcome-driven design approaches.
Most of the work being shipped was not validated or de-risked for usability, desirability, value, usefulness, findability and accessibility
Designers were embedded within development squads optimising screens for visual appeal
There was no measure of the user experience customers and users were subjected to of what was being shipped
Product feedback was funnelled through senior leadership input, sales and customer support feature requests

Consequences to the business

High churn of customers
Product design decisions were being made based on assumptions and stakeholder happiness
High cost of support and high cost of acquiring customers
Product Design team wasn’t skilling up or pushing the knowledge envelope to grow

Why were customers not taking subscriptions or leaving?
What aspects of the design were working or not working?
What was the impact of design on the business?
What value was the product design team delivering to the business?
What should be the next valuable things to build that would attract and retain customers?
What direction should the designs take?
How do influence the roadmap with customer insights?