The Hidden Work of Design: Making Information Move

At Q30, we spend a lot of time thinking about how information moves through organizations. Good communication isn’t just about meetings, updates, or emails; it’s about how people share what they know, access what they need, and listen to the people they serve.

I’ve been doing design work for over 30 years. I’ve been in countless meetings, and like most people, have a love–hate relationship with them. I don’t like when they’re drawn out, unfocused, and deliver diminishing returns the longer they go, or the kind that “could have been an email.” However, when they’re focused, with the right people in the room and fully engaged, they can be fun, energizing, and inspiring.

After all that experience, it feels like a mundane and unremarkable revelation that yes, communicating with people is essential. That may be obvious, but what we call “communication” isn’t just about meetings or status updates. It’s about the flow of information and how it connects people, ideas and decisions. Clients have crucial knowledge embedded within their organizations, and individuals often hold insights that aren’t widely shared, sometimes locked away in silos or buried in process.

Part of our job is to uncover and connect that knowledge, making it visible and usable across teams.

The flow doesn’t stop internally. Stakeholders and audiences also hold valuable information in the form of feedback about what they need, what works, and what doesn’t. Working in environments like these involves designing processes that support the flow of information in every direction: helping organizations share what matters, making it searchable and accessible to their audiences, and listening just as carefully in return.

We can think of design practice as a choreography of flow: actively listening, documenting our insights, and reflecting them back in clear and creative ways. When this process is effective, it not only informs the work but becomes an integral part of it. This approach helps build understanding and strengthen relationships, which in turn fosters meaningful collaboration. The products and services we design are extensions of this flow, facilitating clearer and more effective communication for the users.

Untangling information in complex organizations

It can be challenging to collaborate with organizations whose internal structures are so opaque that it’s difficult to identify the decision-makers or even the decisions being made. Even experienced and engaged teams can sometimes lack clear lines of communication or defined responsibilities. While equal involvement might sound ideal, the reality is that when everyone works in silos or occupies the same level on the organizational chart, it becomes unclear who’s driving and who’s making the decisions.

For us, this often means muddling through at first and navigating not just structures but also culture, working styles, politics, and personal motivations that only come into focus over time. Communication, or information flow, is what turns that uncertainty into clarity, allowing us to understand how decisions are really made and move projects forward.

Communication with purpose

Steady dialogue is what keeps projects from drifting. It can feel like an endless cycle of meetings, but when they’re conducted with purpose, they facilitate progress rather than hinder it. The Agile methodology, though we don’t follow it strictly, gets this right. Daily stand-ups, sprint planning, and retrospectives help maintain momentum and alignment. We’ve adapted these practices to suit our workflow, combining them with weekly production meetings and one-on-one check-ins to ensure both the work and the people continue to move forward with less confusion.

Scaling communication with clients

Information flow matters just as much with clients as it does within our own teams. Project managers and account leads play a pivotal role in this process. As companies scale and client teams expand to include more stakeholders, the need for structured communication remains constant. Our internal team must rise to that complexity, not just creatively, but organizationally.

Design consulting is fundamentally a collaborative process. It thrives when there’s clarity of purpose, defined roles, and open lines of communication within our teams and with our clients. The work benefits, relationships strengthen, and outcomes improve. So, while it may be tempting to grumble about yet another meeting invite, it’s worth remembering that when conversations are short, focused, and practical, or when longer workshops are well-designed and truly collaborative, they grease the wheels that keep everything moving. Thoughtful information flow isn’t a burden; it’s the infrastructure that makes good work possible.