In the past I have always been part of a close-knit team that thrives on the energy we create by being together in the office everyday. We take advantage of each other’s proximity, relying on the quick feedback and unplanned discussions that happen naturally when you sit together.
So when the opportunity came up for me to set up my own design team, I was both hesitant and excited by the challenge.
The experience was both humbling and insightful. And it taught me volumes about the best ways to design a process to both build and nurture a UX/UI team.
1. Daily Stand Up, Check-in or Scrum
Schedule 15min to 30min at the start of everyday with a “stand-up”. The primary function of these ‘stand-ups’ were to quickly spot solutions, set direction, and keep everybody on track with what they were doing/need to do. I asked everyone to come to each stand-up with 3 pieces of information:
- What did you achieve yesterday?
- What are you hoping to achieve today?
- Is there anything stopping you from achieving this?
By asking what they achieved yesterday gives you the ability to mark off schedule tasks that were assigned to that person. It also allows you to gauge if they are achieving tasks in the estimated time/ burn rate.
By asking the team what are they hoping to achieve, this allows them to have ownership of their tasks. It also allows you to gauge their knowledge of the overall project. This also uncovers if they are holding up or blocking other people.
Finally, by asking for the blockers you can prioritise what elements you need to focus on that day which then provides you your own daily tasks.
It's worthwhile noting, that every task for each team member should be placed in a system like Trello. This system will then be the foundation for the agenda for the daily stand-ups. It will became the team’s hub, they can see what everyone was working on and what is coming up in the pipeline.
2. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Communicate everything and never assume anything. I'm sure we have all heard the saying around what assumptions make, unfortunately unlike many sayings this one couldn't be closer to the truth.
You can use things like IFTTT to link Trello and Slack together so that the entire project team receives a Slack notification when an item is entered or moved to the next step in Trello.
Given that you are communicating the daily grind, it is also good to get into the habit of emailing the team/office each time you launch a project or meet a project goal. At the end of each month, you should send out a recap of the top accomplishments from the past month. Yes this increases email frequency but it will ensure design is considered and understood by the larger company. Remember it's important to celebrate the successes!
The above covers the formal side of communication but also maintaining a bit of that water cooler chat by setting your status to things like 'going out for a run?', 'Grabbing lunch?' or 'Getting smashed so going dark for a bit', all helps to build a team culture and to enjoy the ride along the way.
3. Work Wherever
Working at your desk is not always the best way to get things done. So you should get up and work from wherever you feel most inspired or wherever you feel works for the task. It could be in the park, at the pub with some of your team or even at home for some quiet time. In fact I'm actually sitting at my local coffee shop now writing this. But the flip side is meeting deadlines and ensuring team communication. You must still meet all your daily tasks, make all your meetings/catchups, and communicate with your people what you are working on. In short, simply do points one and two well and make sure you are always responsive to messages you receive.
Everyone will soon get into the habit of getting what they need from you and members of the team in this way. As such you will never be the subject of the statement “this person is never around’. The answer to the question of where you are is always on the status. No confusion.
4. Tools
Outside of the standard design tools (PS, AI, Sketch, Azure, Framer and so on), get good at Invision to share your designs and ask for design feedback. Also when you are giving feedback, don’t give comments like 'looks great mate’, to be honest that really isn't worth writing. Make sure you are constructive with your feedback. Trello and its Kanban features, allow you to tigger/automate (with applications like IFTTT) all of those super annoying repetitive tasks such as 'communicating a status change' or 'card update'.
Slack is great for project communication but Skype and others could work as well. And of course Atlassian tools to allocate tasks to Development and supporting documentation. If you are a designer who codes, then Git is your friend. Set up your own branch and Devs will love you for ever!
It’s important to note that these are the processes that work for now. Being flexible and ensuring you are constantly evolving the process in which you and your team complete work is really the only way to truly find what works best for your team. I hope this gives you some guiding principles and some ideas to try when building a process to create great work.