Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams

by Peter Merholz

Team members often find themselves blocked, unable to make progress, but unclear as to exactly why they can’t move forward. Sometimes it’s a hangup in the creative process, where the proposed design solutions just aren’t feeling right, and the team is spinning its wheels. Leaders identify when the team is slowed, and figure out ways to regain traction. A story: Not long after iPad launched, Peter led a team creating a cross-device ecommerce experience. The solutions for web and mobile were great, but the work for tablet was uninspired. Peter basically called “time out” and encouraged the team to stop designing, and to instead go back a few steps and think hard about what it means to deliver an experience on this new device. After a 45-minute ideation session based on this new thinking, the team became unstuck and began again to produce great work. Often, the solution isn’t a matter of creative thinking, but interpersonal relationships. Team members may become frustrated working with others, particularly across functions, who don’t understand their contribution, or a team lead might have trouble getting executives to appreciate a proposed solution. A common tactic designers take at these times is to try to design their way out of the problem, doubling down on the work. This proves ineffective, because the problem isn’t the design, but how people communicate. The manager needs to help the team members engage in better conversations, reminding them to be sympathetic to others...

Management isn’t just about support and enablement. Sometimes team members find themselves unfairly or inappropriately challenged, particularly by those more senior to them. In such situations, it can be easy for a manager to shrug and stay out of it, but that will confirm to team members that their best interests aren’t at heart. Sometimes, managers need to risk their social capital with the broader organization in favor of standing up and fighting for their team.

Designers and their managers can find themselves in a world where everything is about design. It’s important that managers remind their teams that design is one function of many, and to illuminate the role design plays within the broader organization. The goal is not for the company to deliver great design, but to deliver a great product and service experience in a profitable manner.

There are many ways for people to grow, and a good design manager is sensitive to the particulars of each individual on their team. To better understand those particulars, we use a tool called the Personal Professional Mission. Ask each team member just what it is that motivates them. Why, in a universe of opportunities, did they make the choices that landed them in the role they have? It’s a big idea that most people have never been asked about, and haven’t considered deeply. It may require some time, and repeated conversations, to develop an answer. The Personal Professional Mission is key to understanding how the person will want to grow, and form the foundation of the relationship between a manager and an employee. This foundation will shape what is expected of that team member, and drive the charting of that employee’s career path. As an example of a Personal Professional Mission, Peter’s is to make the world safe for great user experiences. This has pretty much been his animating principle since he first started blogging in 1998, and was perhaps most fully realized in the creation and development of Adaptive Path, a design consulting firm dedicated to advance the field of user experience. It also spurred his departure from Adaptive Path, because Peter felt that he could best tackle this mission from inside the enterprise. User experience no longer needed a laboratory for development, but instead required operationalizing in-house in order to deliver on the promise. I...

Design’s inability to have meaningful organizational impact is often the result of an unintentional or polluted team culture. Before attempting broad, company-wide change, make sure the design team’s culture has been purposefully constructed to encourage the best work. The Elements of Culture It’s one thing to have a vision for a culture. It’s another thing to deliver on it every day. To break down culture into actionable items, we use the simple framework illustrated in Figure 8-1. Figure 8-1. A simple framework for understanding the components of design culture It begins with Values, which form the bedrock of a team’s culture. These are the mindset and principles the team upholds. Those values are made manifest through an Environment, the figurative and literal context and spaces in which the team works. And then the values and environment in turn drive Activities, the behaviors and practices of the team. In this chapter, we unpack each element to show how a design culture can get built.

As the design organization considers what to work on, it prioritizes time and effort on those initiatives that reflect the following values: Work from a shared understanding of human context Collaborate broadly and deeply, partnering better Coordinate efforts across projects, LOBs, and channels Prioritize the moments that maximize impact Measure the impact of our work, both human and business

While there is no One Best Design Culture, there is a set of values that are common among strong design teams: Collaboration and support Our challenges are too big for any one person to take on. Collaboration is key to success, and when team members are challenged, designers pitch in for one another. Respect for maker time While collaboration is essential, it’s not the only thing. As craftspeople, designers need blocks of “maker time,” being able to work without distraction. Give and take critique with grace To get to the best quality output, team members must feel comfortable providing candid critique, without fear that it will hurt another’s feelings and damage relationships. People giving the critique must do so respectfully.[24] Inclusivity Great ideas and input can come from anyone, regardless of experience, title, or background. Strong teams encourage this broad engagement, making sure that every voice is heard. Establish and uphold quality Every design team is measured by the quality of their work, and it’s the responsibility of those teams to define quality. It’s about the work, not the ego Designers put a lot of themselves in their work, and can become wrapped up in the quality of their ideas. A strong design culture recognizes this personal investment, but also acknowledges that the work, the result, is what is paramount, not any individual’s ego. Having clear values and purposes that individuals and teams align to means that everyone understands when a team take...

At MX 2015, Katie Dill, director of Experience Design for Airbnb, shared her team’s mantra of “Know the moments that matter. Keep it simple. Make it visual. Ensure it’s visible.” They partnered with Gensler to create an award-winning studio space that supports collaboration with no shortage of wall space to showcase work and remind the team and visitors that they’re in the business of creating a sense of belonging in the world. Their physical space is directly connected to their purpose (Figure 8-4).

When the product development team is small, it’s easy for designers, engineers, and product managers to all sit together. As the team scales within the building and across geographies, it becomes necessary to explicitly decide where team members sit — do they sit with other designers, even if they’re not working on the same problems, or do they sit with their respective teams, co-locating with engineers, product management, or marketing? Ideally, the answer can be “both.” A healthy approach is for designers to spend chunks of time in both contexts, where execution time is spent with the cross-functional team, and reflection and review time happens among other designers. This requires both a design studio space and available desk space within cross-functional teams. If space is at a premium and a choice must be made, then it’s a matter of “it depends.” If the design team is relatively new, or in a period of low morale, they makes sense to keep the designers together to bolster their culture and sense of belonging. As the design team matures, it become less reliant on constant contact, at which point it makes sense to shift designer focus to their respective teams. This also has the effect of spreading the design mindset to other parts of the organization.

While it’s great to have the whole team sitting together, it’s not always feasible or appropriate. It’s important to manage an organization’s virtual environments as purposefully as their physical ones, and to imbue them with the team’s values. What we’re about to say feels self-evident, but warrants saying as we have been in multiple environments that tried to operate this way: email is not a collaborative work tool. Too often companies still resort to email as the way to handle communications, make and track decisions, and share ideas (as attachments). It’s messy, as oftentimes not all the appropriate participants are included (and have to be awkwardly added into email threads after they’ve begun), and the record of decision making is hard to parse as separate threads emerge. Even worse, many large enterprises automatically delete email every 30 to 45 days or so, wreaking havoc on one’s ability to refresh on important topics. For a design team to work in a virtual environment, it’s important to do so with tools suited for collaboration: chat tools like Slack or HipChat; project communication and coordination tools like Basecamp, Asana, and Trello; shared file servers like Box and Dropbox; cloud-based collaborative productivity tools like Google Apps and Mural.ly, and design feedback tools like Wake. Simply having tools is not sufficient. Standards and practices must be articulated and enforced to ensure that they are used in a way conducive to teamwork. As anyone who has...

Onboarding A special class of activities takes place when a new member joins the team. Thoughtful onboarding is the difference between a new member feeling welcome, knowing where stuff is, and hitting the ground running, or someone feeling confused, uncertain, and unable to work. Provide the new designer with a team roster, instructions on the shared file structure, pointers to standards and guidelines, a glossary of acronyms and other jargon, and a buddy to go to for questions as they arise. Make sure they have a computer with everything they need already installed (which might mean working with IT to get a “designer special” setup, as designers have needs for software, displays, and accessories that differ from other departments). Schedule a team lunch to celebrate the new member. At Groupon, the design organization called itself the Design Union, a recognition of the company’s Chicago roots, and a celebration of the honest labor and craft of the team’s design work. Every new team member received a welcome kit, which included a branded notebook (Figure 8-6) and a rubber stamp featuring the Design Union’s shield (Figure 8-7). These small, fun non-essentials made clear the importance of craft within the team.

A weekly meeting for the design organization should have these three elements: News and information from the rest of the company These days, most company news is presented in email or all-hands meetings. Within the design organization meeting, leadership can provide further context for this news and information, highlighting what’s specifically pertinent to the design team. Leadership then solicits feedback to be shared with other company leadership. News and information about the design organization As the design organization grows, team members no longer “just know” everything that’s going on within the team. The weekly meeting serves as a formal means to share such updates. Of particular interest will be any open headcount, and how recruiting and hiring is going for those positions. This also serves as an appropriate time for team members to share high points (successful launches, positive external feedback) and challenges (blockers to doing great work, issues with tools and processes). Be careful that these meetings don’t turn into pity parties — it’s easy for the sharing of challenges to devolve into unproductive griping and moaning. If genuine concerns are raised that are worth addressing, note them, make it clear that they will be addressed outside the meeting, and share updates at subsequent meetings. Show work, discuss a topic, share inspiration A design team meeting without some engagement in the work feels lifeless and bureaucratic. The nature of what is shared ...