Designing the Design Team

Making the best team for maximum productivity and efficiency

Design Operations
B2B
Start-up

Overview

During my time at a B2B start-up, I found myself discovering a problem within the design team that I could step in to help. I initiated the idea of re-structuring the design team to the CEO, where I was given the opportunity to lead this project.

Please note that not all ideas were taken into execution due to various reasons. This case study is to present what I initiated and ideated, showcasing where I was headed and an approach I would go off of the next time I have the opportunity to serve a similar situation.

Role
UX Designer
Duration
1 Month (April 2024)
jump to:
discovery
planning
Implementation
challenges
takeaways
discovery
Lack of streamlined process made it difficult to grasp user pain points

One of the most important actions I took as a remote contributor was to proactively communicate with designers, developers, business side as well as stakeholder to understand their problem-solving approach and relationships with their users.

Q. Do you have direct contact with users and if yes, to what extent?

Product Team
Yes, but limited
  • receives user voice mainly from CX Team but also from Business Team
  • can request user interviews/usability testings through CX
CX Team
Yes
  • receives user voice directly
  • shares user voice with product team individually or in groups
Business Team
Yes
  • receives user voice directly
  • shares user voice with CX and/or product team individually or in groups

As much as designers should have a closer relationship with the users, that was NOT the main issue

The main problem was that the lack of structure was creating unnecessary complexity and confusion

What was happening: Having minimal-to-no process or structure was creating multiple conversations of the same project in parallel. As a result, team members had issues keeping up with the most updated information and repeatedly asking similar questions.

What should be happening: A streamlined process and a champion overseeing the operational side of things for a smoother communication and maximum efficiency, together bringing value to users

Planning
Start small, get others involved, and grow bigger

After I had communicated with everyone involved and identified the main problem, I started to strategize. My plan going forward was to start small, get others involved, get constant feedback, improve and eventually grow bigger. For context, here is the breakdown of the product team so you get the idea of the scale.

Designers

3

Front-end Dev.

6

Back-end Dev.

2

Full-stack Dev.

1

PjM

2

* Product Team includes everyone involved: full-timers, contractors & freelancers

My immediate mission was to lead and guide the designers (3 total including myself) and iterate quickly

Implementation
So what did I actually do?
Proactively communicated with designers including weekly 1-on-1s
Identified main pain point
‍
One of the issues the design team was facing was miscommunication with the stakeholder. There's a lot I cannot disclose but what I can say is that it makes perfect sense: the stakeholder envisions the bigger picture and the designers are most concerned about how they can make an impact on the users through their assigned project.
Verbalized and visualized "reality vs. desired"
‍
I've noticed that most often, team members are having similar issues without even noticing. By verbalizing and making a visual presentation of the current situation as well as where we want to be, I was able to gather consensus fairly quickly.

Instead of this:

Let's try this:

Actively shared my thought-process and maintained an open-door policy for feedback
‍‍
In order to align my solution with current needs, I asked for feedback as well as suggestions in our daily designer meetings. This not only helped in maintaining integrity and proved that we were all headed the same direction, but also brought accountability and trust.

What was rewarding was that I received positive feedback on my leadership and how I stood up to tackle this problem

Challenges
Where I was headed...
The design team started moving in the right direction, in terms of communication with the stakeholder, and I was communicating with the rest of the team that I would soon outreach to the rest of the product team. However, due to unexpected circumstances (i.e. changes in business goals and hiring), I was not in the role to lead the rest of the product team.

Even though I was not able to carry this project to the scale I had initially intended, let me share what I had in mind so you get an idea of what I would have done and how I would go about the next time I come across a similar scenario.
Create templates wherever possible

In order to alleviate complexity or confusion, what can be automated should be automated

  • take advantage of AI and other useful tools out there
  • create templates no matter how small (e.g. slack message template from designers to engineers giving design feedback at pre-lease phase)
Create a centralized system to pool resources, templates and questions

Equally important as creating templates, there must be a centralized system to pool everything

  • a go-to place that team members can go for any resources and questions
  • assign a champion monitoring and consistently updating the centralized system
Maintain an open-door policy for feedback and suggestions

Be intentional and mindful to gather feedback both in quantity and quality

  • can send out feedback surveys on a regular basis
  • hold workshops to exchange ideas
Takeaways
What were my realizations?

This project had a lot of highs and lows. But there were some major takeaways that I can take with me going forward, affecting how I define the roles and responsibilities of a designer.

The power of realization

This project reminded me of the power of realization. You never know what you're capable of doing and where your passion lies when you go outside of the box.

Found my passion for Design Operations

This project made my realize my passion toward maximizing team productivity and efficiency. Seeing how the design process would also apply to teams, not only products was a valuable lesson and I hope to explore this further in my upcoming roles.

Team efficiency is worth investing into

It's important to notice that team efficiency is more than just operational re-structuring. It becomes the values and culture of the entire team. Easier said than done, it takes months, if not years, of dedication and commitment but definitely worth investing into.