Design is the conception and realisation of new things. With new things, problems arise, and problems make us uncomfortable. With discomfort comes fear and anxiety. Designers spend a lot of time prioritising the needs of customers and organisations. We need to be just as deliberate in making certain that environments in which Designers operate, are conducive to helping them perform at their best.

1. Sebabatso Mtimkulu
Pixel Up! 2019
sebabatsom@joytouse.co.za
SAFE SPACES.
Creating conducive working environments for Designers to thrive.

2. New role (2018 – 2022):
User Experience and
Human-Machine
Interaction Designers

3. “ …We are responsible for creating
worlds of experiences, environments,
services, and systems that impact
millions of people.”
- worldiaday.org-

4. ABILITY AND DISABILITY
ACCESS TO INFORMATION
AND TECHNOLOGY
LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL
UNDERSTANDING
AGE, GENDER AND IDENTITY LIFE EXPERIENCE
DIFFERENCES WE ARE DESIGNING FOR
- worldiaday.org-

5. - trends.fjordnet.com -

6. - DI Tech Trends 2019 -

7. All this is what we need to process as
Designers.
We play a very important role in making all
this information a meaningful and relevant
reality for customers and organisations.

8. We’ve got a lot on our shoulders.

9. WHAT IS DESIGN?

10. Design is the conception and realisation of
new things.
With new things, problems arise, and
problems make us uncomfortable.

11. With discomfort comes fear and anxiety.

13. 13
We spend a lot of time prioritising the needs
of customers and organisations …
We have not been as deliberate in making
certain that environments in which Designers
operate, are conducive to helping them
perform at their best.

14. We need to start applying a
human-centered approach to managing
Design teams.

15. - rework.withgoogle.com -
What makes a [Google]
team effective?
• 2+ years
• 200+ interviews
• 250 team attributes

16. Psychological Safety.

17. A shared belief that the team is safe for
interpersonal risk taking.
Being able to show up and contribute without
fear of negative consequence. Team members
feel they can achieve their goals, while being
fully accepted and respected.
Psychological safety
BE MYSELF TAKE RISKS
MAKE MISTAKES RAISE PROBLEMS
ASK QUESTIONS DISAGREE
- hbr.org -

18. PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY PRACTICES
01. Care personally
02. Encourage vulnerability 05. Set the tone for everyday engagement
and interaction
04. Make it safe to fail
06. Ask the team for feedback03. Practice radical candor

19. 1.
CARING PERSONALLY
- Kim Scott: Radical Candor -

20. “We are all human beings, with human feelings, and even at work we
need to be seen as such. When that doesn’t happen, when we feel we
need to repress who we really are to earn a living, we become alienated,
and that makes us hate going to work.”
Caring personally
– Kim Scott: Radical Candor

21. 2.
ENCOURAGE
VULNERABILITY
- Brene Brown: Power of Vulnerability -

22. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity, innovation and change.”
Encourage vulnerability
– Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability

23. It is our role to undo some of the deep
societal constructs that creep from
everyday life, into our work.

24. We need to deliberately take these human conditions
and address them in our processes, affirming our
teams, that being unsure, not having all the answers,
and at times getting it wrong, are all expected part of
the process.

25. 3.
PRACTICE RADICAL
CANDOR
- Kim Scott: Radical Candor -

26. “In creating a good work environment, it is important not to side step
the difficult part of being a boss, and that is telling people directly when
their work is not good enough.”
Practice radical candor
– Kim Scott: Radical Candor

27. - peakon.com -

28. 4.
MAKE IT SAFE TO FAIL
- Kim Scott: Radical Candor -

29. How X makes it safe for their employees to fail…

33. How X makes it safe for their employees to fail
• The organisation encourages Intelligent Failure. They encourage employees to openly
communicate when an idea will not work, even after it has made it past the Rapid Evaluation phase.
They believe this is better than investing more resources in a product that will not be meaningful.
• When a team kills a project because of a detected flaw, they still get a bonus.
• Teams are also celebrated by peers and applauded by management, and often rewarded a few
months of discovery and exploration time to come up with their next project.
• All failed prototypes are showcased to the rest of the organisation.
• An annual celebration of failed work is held to hear what went wrong, and what lessons were
learned.
• In turn, employees that worked on the failed projects, get a formal sense of closure, allowing them
to let go of the emotional baggage of work they had invested in, but never actualised.
- The Fearless Organisation: Amy C. Edmonson -

34. 5.
SET THE TONE FOR
EVERDAY ENGAGEMENT
AND INTERACTION
- Kim Scott: Radical Candor -

35. Set the tone for everyday engagement and interaction
• Teach stakeholders how to treat and communicate with
Design teams.
• Teach members of the Design team how to communicate
and interact with each other.

36. - Lumina Learning -

37. 6.
ASK THE TEAM FOR
FEEDBACK
- Kim Scott: Radical Candor -

38. How are you feeling?
Is there anything you are uncomfortable with?
Do you have any feedback for me?

39. Software. Hardware.
Heartware.

40. Valuable reads

42. THANK
YOU
FOR LISTENING