The Project Pyramid

Why We Built the Pyramid 

In our manifesto, Strategic Design - Manifest, we argued that design craft is only 10% of success. The other 90% – the Invisible 90% – is about how you move your vision through the complexity of enterprise and government organizations.

But before you can build a gameplan for that journey, you need a frame. That frame is the Project Pyramid.

The Pyramid is not a replacement for the design process (discovery → strategy → design → development). It sits next to it, ensuring that decisions are locked in the right order so that complexity doesn’t overwhelm the project.

The Four Levels of the Pyramid

1. Foundation — securing the base
   At this level, we close the essentials: scope, goals, and rules of engagement, success criteria. It’s like laying the ground floor of a skyscraper — without it, nothing else can stand.

2. Success Enablers — locking the logic
   Here, we eliminate ambiguity in what we are building and how decisions will be made. This means aligning on the product’s logic, flows, and acceptance rules. Once this layer is in place, subjective debates will stop reopening every week.

3. Productivity Enhancers — setting direction and systems
   Once the logic is locked, we must translate it into a clear direction and prepare the tools that allow the project to scale. This is where we validate the chosen concept, break the product into modules, and set the first version of patterns and a design system. It’s not just about visuals — it’s about ensuring hundreds of design and tech decisions can be made quickly, consistently, and without reopening old discussions.

4. Execution — delivering at scale
   At this stage, design, business, and technology finally collide. Execution is about production, handoffs, and rolling approvals that keep momentum without waiting for one “big bang” sign-off. By this point, the cost of going back is enormous. If the layers below were weak, execution will reveal every crack. If they’re strong, delivery feels almost inevitable — a controlled sequence of modules shipped and value released.

Pyramid vs. Project Process 

A project process tells you what activities happen in sequence: discovery, strategy, design, development. It’s useful — but in enterprise and government projects, the process alone is fragile. It assumes that once you complete one step, you can safely move to the next. Reality doesn’t work that way.

The Pyramid is different. It’s not about activities — it’s about decision order. Each layer locks something fundamental: alignment, logic, momentum, execution. You don’t move up until the layer below is closed. That’s why the Pyramid prevents re-opens, endless loops, and subjective chaos. It complements the project process by making sure that when you do move forward, you don’t fall back.

Pyramid, Process, Game Plan

They sound similar, but each plays a different role:

• Process is the sequence of activities.

• The Pyramid is the frame that ensures the right layers are closed before moving forward.

• The Game Plan is the choreography of moving through the organization: who sees what, when to accelerate, when to slow down.

The Pyramid is not the work — it’s the frame that makes the work survive. It doesn’t replace design craft or the project process. It protects them. It creates the order that complexity tries to destroy. From it, the gameplan is born — the choreography of how you actually move through the organization. And together, the Pyramid and the gameplan are what turn fragile concepts into impact at scale.