A discipline in the making

Enterprise design

Design the whole company, not just the screens.

Enterprise design is the practice of designing an organization so that what it stands for, what it offers people and how it actually runs fit together. Most problems I'm called in for don't live in one screen, one process or one org chart. They live in the gaps between them. That's where I work.

Every company is already designed. Mostly by accident.

What counts as an enterprise?

An enterprise can mean many things. Anything where people come together to make something happen qualifies.

  • A business
  • A non-profit
  • A project
  • An initiative
  • A collective effort
  • One person's initiative

Everybody is part of many enterprises. Your company, your team's project, the board you sit on, the side project you swear is almost done.

Nested diamonds from the EDGY poster: you, your teammates, your organisation, your peers in the discipline, and enterprise design connecting disciplines

The problem lives in the gaps

Each part of a company usually works fine on its own. Things break where one part hands off to the next, and nobody owns that space.

IdentityWhat we stand for
  • Purpose
  • Values
  • Strategy

The campaign promises what the call centre can't deliver.

ExperienceWhat people go through
  • Customers
  • Employees
  • Partners

The new app can't see what the old system knows.

ArchitectureHow it really runs
  • Processes
  • Systems
  • Data
Enterprise design works in those gaps. One map of the whole, so a change in one part shows its ripple in the others before it ships.

Why it matters now

AI makes every part of a company faster. It doesn't make the parts agree. Automate a messy process and you get the same mess, at machine speed. When the ground keeps moving, you need a map of the whole: what you stand for, what you sell, how it really runs, and how one change ripples through the rest. With that map, AI becomes a helper. Without it, it's a very efficient way to make things worse.

  • Keep the core humanThe few things that make you you are decisions, not tasks. People make those calls.
  • Give the support work to AIThe repetitive part that eats the week is exactly where AI earns its keep.
  • Let a machine watch the detailsIt follows everything underneath, and raises a hand when something moves on your core.

More on how I bring AI into a business in How I use AI.

Don't take my word for it

Strategy consultants, researchers and design schools keep landing on the same conclusion: results come from how the parts of an organization fit together, not from polishing one of them.

Enterprise design is the practical side of that idea: making those choices visible on one map, so everyone can see what they cut off and what they connect.

EDGY: one language for everyone in the room

EDGY is an open-source language for enterprise design, published by Intersection Group. Underneath, it stays almost suspiciously simple: people perform activities, using and creating objects, to achieve outcomes. On top, it describes any company with three facets. Where two facets meet, you get the intersections people usually manage in separate silos. That simplicity is the point: a CEO, an architect and a designer can read the same map without a translator.

Venn diagram of the three EDGY facets: Identity, Architecture and Experience, overlapping into Organisation, Brand and Product

Facets

  • Identity Why do we exist?

    Purpose, values, culture: what the organization stands for and what it won't compromise on.

  • Experience What do people go through?

    What customers, employees and partners actually live when they deal with the organization.

  • Architecture How does it really work?

    Capabilities, processes, systems and information: how the organization delivers on its promises.

Intersections

  • Organisation Identity × Architecture

    How people are structured and work together to live the purpose.

  • Brand Identity × Experience

    How the purpose shows up in every interaction, not just the logo.

  • Product Experience × Architecture

    What the organization offers, and the machinery that delivers it.

From abstract to tangible

  • OutcomeWhyHowWhat

    What we want, or what will happen. Outcomes are abstract by nature, and they hold up any sound strategy.

  • ActivityWishWorkReality

    How we wish it worked, how it works, and how it actually happens. Activities run over time and keep people in step.

  • ObjectContentAssetProduct

    Anything that can be used, sold, traded or consumed, or that helps reach people. This is where the value lies.

Everyone already owns a piece

Look around a leadership table: every facet already has someone looking after it. They rarely look at the same map.

The EDGY wheel from the poster: the three facets and their intersections at the centre, the elements of each facet around them, and on the outer ring the people who usually look after each one
  • Navigator Identity

    CEO, strategist, content creator

  • Team builder Organisation

    HR and managers

  • Capability Architecture

    CxO and architects

  • Producer Product

    Product designer and project owner

  • Advocate Experience

    UX designers and CX experts

  • Champion Brand

    Art director and copywriter

Don't try to predict the future. Make it happen.

Always be clear whether you're talking about the future, the past or the present. Start with the future state: it tells you what's worth mapping today. Then plan how to get there.

  1. Future state

    Start with where you want to go. Design thinking, Blue Ocean or a Business Model Canvas can all help.

  2. Current state

    Map what you know about the enterprise today, guided by where you want to go. Don't over-map.

  3. Make decisions

    You can't do everything at once. Decide, and put the first steps in order.

  4. Make it happen

    Everyone knows where you are and where you're going. Now plan it and do it.

The Atlas: seven maps, use only what you need

The Atlas is the framework I built on top of EDGY. Seven kinds of map, each answering one question, at three levels of detail, with the raw data underneath. You rarely need all seven, and nobody should make you draw them all. The rule fits on a sticky note: use only what you need, update only when necessary.

  1. 01

    People Map

    Who needs to be in the room, and what's the ambition?

    6 people and an ambition

  2. 02

    Venn

    What's our shared vision of the enterprise?

    1 sentence per facet and intersection

  3. 03

    Core Map

    What are our core elements?

    3 to 5 per facet

  4. 04

    Gap Map

    How are our core elements connected, and where does the loop break?

    The links between core elements

  5. 05

    Blueprint

    How do our steps hand off to each other? Silos appear where one step stops talking to the next.

    5 to 10 steps per kind of activity

  6. 06

    Milky Way

    What does the whole enterprise look like, element by element?

    About 50 elements, people and intersections

  7. 07

    Universe Map

    What influences us, and what do we influence?

    5 to 10 outside forces

Three levels of depth: core, strategic, support

Every element on a map gets a depth. Deciding what's core is the most useful argument I start in a room, and the one people remember the next morning. The same map can then be read at the right depth for the right audience: the board doesn't need the support layer, and the experts can't work without it.

CoreStrategicSupportUnderneathtracked by a machinewaterline
Above the water, what leadership and everyone else need to see. Below it, what experts and machines handle.
  1. CoreCommunicate
    3 to 5 per facet

    What makes you you. Shared with everyone, remembered by everyone. Core is capped at 3 to 5 per facet, and the cap is the point: if everything is core, nothing is.

  2. StrategicCo-create
    About 50 elements

    What teams need to shape the next move together. This is where workshops happen and trade-offs get made.

  3. SupportAnalyse
    As many as it takes

    Everything else it takes to run. Real, useful, and best left to the experts who live in it.

  4. UnderneathTrack
    Everything, always moving

    Not a map: the territory. A machine follows it and pushes up whatever moves on your core.

Enterprise design in practice

A few projects where the work happened between the parts of an organization, not inside one of them.

Intersection and me

Intersection Group is the not-for-profit association that develops enterprise design and the EDGY language. I joined in 2019 and never really left. In October 2026, the Intersection conference came to Montréal and I organized it: three days, more than thirty sessions, one very tired organizer.

  • Leadership and core team, since 2019
  • I lead the development of our workshops
  • EDGY contributor: co-author of its evolution, co-speaker and case studies
  • Conference team, and organizer of Intersection 26 in Montréal

On the Intersection stage, every year since 2022

  • How to Re-invent an Event with EDGY?Intersection Conference 2026, Montréal
  • StratEDGY: Reframing the Core of Strategic ThinkingIntersection Conference 2025, Brussels
  • Easy to Use, Hard to Master: How to Navigate EDGYIntersection Conference 2024, Rome
  • A Year on the EdgeIntersection Conference 2023, Vienna
  • Co-Designing Enterprise CoherenceIntersection Conference 2022, Stockholm

All conferences

Common questions

What is enterprise design?
Enterprise design is the practice of designing a whole organization so that what it stands for (identity), what people go through (experience) and how it really runs (architecture) fit together. It is developed by an international community around Intersection Group.
Where does enterprise design come from?
The term was set out by Milan Guenther in Intersection: How Enterprise Design Bridges the Gap between Business, Technology, and People (2012). It brings together brand, enterprise architecture and experience design, and is now carried by Intersection Group and its community.
Is there evidence that this kind of work pays off?
Yes. Gartner (2024) found that only 48% of digital initiatives meet their business targets, but 71% do when business leaders co-own delivery with IT. BCG (2024) reports that 70% of the challenges in AI projects come from people and processes, not technology. And McKinsey (2025) found that redesigning workflows is the biggest factor in getting bottom-line value from generative AI.
Is enterprise design the same as enterprise architecture?
No. Enterprise architecture is one part of it: how the organization is built and runs. Enterprise design also covers identity and experience, and focuses on how the three fit together.
How is it different from UX or service design?
UX and service design shape one experience or one service. Enterprise design looks at how all of them connect with strategy, structure and systems, so that fixing one place doesn't quietly break another.
Does AI make enterprise design less necessary?
The opposite. AI speeds up every part of a company, including the parts that don't agree with each other. Enterprise design decides what stays human, what AI can take over, and how a change in one place ripples through the rest. More in How I use AI.
Is it only for large organizations?
No. Any organization with more than one team, product or channel has connections worth designing. In my practice, the same maps work for a ten-person company and for a government agency.
What is EDGY?
EDGY is an open-source visual language for enterprise design, published by Intersection Group at enterprise.design. It gives designers, architects, strategists and business people one shared vocabulary to map an enterprise together.
What does an enterprise design project look like?
Usually a series of workshops with the people who run the organization: map the core, find the gaps between the parts, then decide what to fix first and how to measure it. The Québec Tech and UPA case studies show it end to end, and my approach explains how I run it.
Can you learn enterprise design by playing?
Yes, and it's the fastest way I know. Boardroom Adventure is a card game built on EDGY: a team designs a fictional company in about an hour, then uses the same moves on a real problem.

Questions about me and Intersection Group are on the About page.

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Further reading