Presented at:
* 'The New Designer' Conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, June 2017
* The Hacking UI Meetup in San Francisco August 2016
When I was told I needed to start building a design team - I didn't know what to do. I never managed before.
So I looked for a shortcut, some way for me to create an accelerated learning for managing designers.
I decided I will interview the top design managers in the world, and learn from their experience. That became the first season of the Hacking UI Podcast (http://hackingui.com/podcast).
Almost two years of experience managing designers, 9 interviews, and one professional panel later, I am here to tell you all about the insights, lessons learned, and methodologies that I successfully implemented into my way of thinking and managing.
From interviewing the world's top design managers for the Hacking UI Podcast.
(http://hackingui.com/podcast)
These insights are from our talks with the following design leaders:
- Billy Kiely - VP Product at Invision
- Melissa Hajj - Design Manager at Facebook
- Emmet Connolly - Director of Design at Intercom
- Joel Califa - Design Manager at Digital Ocean
- Magera Moon - Design Manager at Etsy
- Bob Baxley - Former Director of Design at Apple, (was also at Pinterest and Yahoo)
- Katie Dill - Director of Experience Design at Airbnb
- Jon Lax - Director of Product Design at Facebook
- and more..
Heads up: Most of them are common sense - but they are way harder to actually practice and implement into your habits.
Scaling a Design Team: Insights from interviewing the world's top design leaders on the Hacking UI Podcast
1. Common SenseWHAT I LEARNED FROM INTERVIEWING THE WORLD'S LEADING DESIGN MANAGERS
AND SCALING A DESIGN TEAM IN A FAST-GROWING COMPANY
Sagi ShrieberSagi Shrieber
19. hackingui.com/podcast Sagi Shrieber | @sagishrieber
Management is a
design problem.
• Do interviews, solve problems.
• Explore and iterate with workflows in the team.
- Katie Dill |
22. hackingui.com/podcast Sagi Shrieber | @sagishrieber
Design critiques are
a thing
It’s our job as managers to teach our team
to do that and learn to master this
ourselves
23. hackingui.com/podcast Sagi Shrieber | @sagishrieber
Iterate as you scale
“Notice when your team grows - you will spend
more time on context rather than feedback”
- Melissa Hajj |
26. hackingui.com/podcast Sagi Shrieber | @sagishrieber
Don’t be an (art)
director, be a mentor
Ask questions that will make them think. “Do you
understand the problem that you’re solving?” or
‘’Is this a real problem?”
- Melissa Hajj |
27. hackingui.com/podcast Sagi Shrieber | @sagishrieber
No trust,
No scale
You can’t be making sure everyone is doing their
job if you want to scale
- Joel Califa |
32. hackingui.com/podcast Sagi Shrieber | @sagishrieber
•Make them as subjective as you can
•Base them on experiences you had in
your own organization
•Prioritize them
•Approve them with all teams &
other leaders
Design Principles
35. hackingui.com/podcast Sagi Shrieber | @sagishrieber
Push your designers
to spark emotion
People are not just clicks on a server log
- Bob Baxley |
36. hackingui.com/podcast Sagi Shrieber | @sagishrieber
Let your team in on
recruiting process
Slack Channel, encryption of text to avoid bias
- Joel Califa |
37. hackingui.com/podcast Sagi Shrieber | @sagishrieber
Slower hiring
process is better
Better not make mistakes on this stage, and
have a longet process, also for the employee
- Billy Kiely |
38. hackingui.com/podcast Sagi Shrieber | @sagishrieber
Slower hiring
process is better
Better not make mistakes on this stage, and
have a longet process, also for the employee
- Katie Dill |