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A deep dive into how the team at Artefact  transformed agency friction into a global resource management tool, proving that the best products solve your own "Big Friction."

Case Study: 10,000ft

This week, I’m exploring the career of Rob Girling, co-founder of the iconic consultancy Artefact and the co-creator of the resource management tool 10,000ft. For those looking to dive deeper into our whole conversation, you can find the complete interview in my book, Leading by Design.

Rob’s journey is a masterclass in moving from a "service" mindset to a "strategic product" space. 10,000ft was born not from a desire for market disruption, but from the raw pain of managing a growing team of 30 designers on a spreadsheet that was starting to break. It was designed to solve the "clunky spreadsheet" problem for creative agencies and distributed tech teams who need a high-level perspective on organizational health.

10,000ft was acquired by Smartsheet in 2019. Separately, Smartsheet was acquired by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners for $8.4 billion deal.

1. “Build What You Know” Principle

Between 2006 and 2011, Rob and the Artefact team, led by co-creator Martijn van Tilburg and business partner Gavin Kelly, were swept up in a wave of design optimism. Gavin, an Artefact co-founder, served as the "third leg" of the 10,000ft stool, providing the essential strategic balance the project needed.

Despite their design pedigree, the team spent years chasing "snazzy" concepts and "magic" prototypes that failed to gain traction. The missing ingredient? A lived-in, deep understanding of the problem space.

The breakthrough happened when they looked inward at their own friction. As Rob explains:

The Insight: Your most valuable product opportunity is rarely a "Blue Sky" idea; it is likely the problem you face every single day. For the 10,000ft team, it was the breakdown of resource management.

Action for Leaders: Stop hunting for "The Big Idea" and start auditing "The Big Friction." What is the one recurring task that your team complains about every Friday? That friction isn't just a nuisance; maybe it’s your product.

2. Spotting the "Spreadsheet Breaking Point"

A spreadsheet that works perfectly for 10 people; It’s "clunky" but functional for 20; at 30 people, it becomes a liability. When you reach a "breaking point," you have two choices:

• The Service Choice: Hire an operations person to manage the mess.

• The Product Choice: Design a system that automates the mess.

Rob, Martijn, Gavin, and team chose the latter. They realized that if their agency needed a high-altitude view of project workflows, every other creative organization on the planet probably did too. They were right! I used 10,000ft to manage the workflow and visibility into our impact as a business driver as Chief Design Officer for [24]7.AI.

3. From "Optimistic Prototyping" to "Technical Empathy"

One of the most profound insights for the team was the gap between a vision and a viable business. The team realized that while designers excel at the "Front-End", they lacked visibility into the "Back-End" (the support infrastructure and the sales cycle).

Rob describes this shift as a move from arrogant design to technical empathy:

4. Designing the Culture as a Product

One of the most compelling takeaways from the 10,000ft story is that the software was a direct manifestation of Artefact’s internal culture. Rob and Gavin built Artefact as a "flat" organization that rejected traditional micromanagement. Consequently, 10,000ft was designed with a "high-altitude" view where every team member could see the entire landscape of the company’s work.

The Leadership Lesson: Software is "Coded Culture." When you build a tool, you are essentially coding your culture.

• If you design for transparency, you are advocating for a high-trust culture.

• If you design for "locked" permissions, you are reinforcing a culture of gatekeeping.

🚀 The Short of It Is

If you are an aspiring design leader looking to build successful internal products, here is the essential playbook for how to do this:

1. Audit Your Own Friction: Look for the "Big Friction", that recurring, painful task your team handles via a breaking spreadsheet.

2. Build What You Know: Success comes from a lived-in understanding. Even as UX designers (like Martijn and Rob), your strongest tool is your own frustration.

3. Find Your "Third Leg": Don't go it alone. Just as Gavin Kelly and Rob provided the necessary foundational support for Martijn and the team, find partners who balance your design vision with business and strategic rigor.

4. Practice Technical Empathy: Move beyond "snazzy" prototypes. Respect the complexities of engineering and scaling.

5. The "Functional Hack" Strategy: Don't wait for perfection. Build the simplest version that solves the core problem and get it into users' hands immediately.

The full interview with Rob Girling, along with insights from many other design and tech executives, is available in the book, Leading by Design: The Insider's Handbook for Tech Leadership, on Amazon.

That's it for this week!

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