I love the work of Charles and Ray Eames. I recently re-watched The Architect & The Painter and paused it to jot some notes on their design process:

The Eames design process, is a process of learning by doing. When designing something, it is often this connection that provides the key to the solution.

“Never delegate understanding.”

This is the hallmark of Eames design, their secret ingredient. “First you have an idea, then you discard the idea, then you have 50 other ideas and you discard them, and then you do several models, and they don’t work, and you throw them out. And the secret is work and work and work and work and work.”

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‘Never delegating understanding’ is such a great principle. Both when leading others and when designing. I often need to delegate or assign work to others. Whenever I’ve also delegated understanding— of the problem, the greater context, status of the work, or the final product shipped— usually something goes off track. When I am doing the work myself, my best work happens when I fully understanding the problem, the greater context, and the best outcome by working through as many ideas as possible.