Peak-performing agencies are learning the value of collaboration through a new lens today: how the rapidly improving capabilities found in platform and web technologies bring new opportunities to the design of experiences. But in a recent Wired magazine article that claims to advance this idea, the author still clings to the antiquated belief that, “…design by committee doesn’t produce good results.”

Increasingly, we’re seeing that high-performing agency teams and projects rely on a high level of joint ownership of every dimension of scope, and this requires the bulldozing of fiefdoms and silos, the remnants of an age long-past.

I spoke recently with an agency CEO, whose team recently achieved a 100%+ improvement in delivery velocity, and he relayed one of his key learnings: “We will never again have someone who is ‘in charge of’ design…it was destroying both our ability to work together as a team, and the opportunity to harness the innovation from the daily improvements in web-based technologies.” His employee sat scores went off the charts (high) once they had made this change. And yes, the same for client satisfaction as well.