Team Strategy
As our design team has grown from 1 to 10, we’ve expanded to include three distinct roles. Program, Service & Product designers collaborate to iterate and improve products & services.
Design Team
Venn diagram displaying the relationship between program, service and product design roles.
Design Leadership:
*also referred to as “program design” in above chart
Goal: Establish the strategy and provide management support to the design team.
Team: Sits at the program level alongside the Tech Lead, Customer Experience Manager and Program Manager
Works directly with stakeholders to communicate product requirements and constraints.
Delivery:
Conducts discovery and research for new value streams or business opportunities
Facilitates workshops and stakeholder alignment
Establishes design team processes and practices
Discovery summaries, product strategy, team processes and workflows
CX / Service Design:
Goal: Optimize and deliver solutions that advance the customer experience for users
Team: Assigned to the Customer Experience team to work alongside internal subject matter experts
Structure: Operate in monthly or quarterly timeframes.
Delivery:
Capture metrics, identify pain points, evaluate touch points, and recommend solutions
Service blueprints, metrics, workflows and processes, implementation strategies
Product Design:
Goal: Incorporate user insights into product delivery
Team: Assigned to a scrum team to solve problems for a specific value stream
Structure: Operate in two-week sprints
Delivery:
Capture user feedback and implement features that improve the user experience
Prioritize features while considering impact and effort
Research summaries, synthesis, user journey maps, wireframes, prototypes, high fidelity designs
Design Processes
Design Collab:
Maintain consistency across product teams
Identify overlap or gaps for Service and Product designers
Improve cross functional communication
Understand dependencies and constraints
Design Sync:
Traditional design critique
Give and receive feedback
Improve design ideas
Understand development constraints
Confirm design system components are being used properly
User Working Group:
Display progress to a group of participants
Understand use case for specific roles
Validate or invalidate designs
Connect with new roles and build trust with users
1 on 1s
Review design progress
Think about the bigger picture, how do your designs relate back to the vision statement an your career growth
Deconflict and provide support as needed
Agenda and cadence is determined by each individual designer
Note: The above processes are facilitated by the Program Design Lead.
Our team practices Agile Methodology and works in two-week sprints. Sprint Planning, Standup, Backlog Grooming, Feature Prioritization, and Retrospectives are facilitated by Project Managers for each value stream.
Templates & Resources
Design Collab Template:
The Design Collab was a new ceremony added to deconflict between Service and Product Designers. There were some overlapping efforts and dependencies as we added this new role. The intent of the design collab is to understand the bigger picture of design work on the team and visualize collaboration.
Outcome:
The addition of the Design Collab has created better collaboration across value streams and more transparency into team goals. The designers work together outside of this session now that there is a better understanding of impact and dependencies across value streams.
FigJam board displaying the planned work for 3 teams, including cross-functional collaboration.
FigJam Calendar plugin displaying time off and holidays for the sprint.
Design Sync Template:
The format of the Design Sync has been iterated a few times since our team has grown. One pain point was that designers didn’t feel like they were given enough context when critiquing designs for team members outside of their value stream.
I adjusted a FigJam template to allow designers to provide more context on their sprint. They’re also able to identify how far along in the process and call out what type of input of feedback they need at this stage.
Outcome:
The new format has allowed for more context and transparency throughout the discovery, research and design phases. Designers can give targeted feedback when designs are in-progress, allowing team members to pivot or adjust as needed.
FigJam template displaying what feedback is needed for the design sync session.
FigJam template calling for questions from the group.
1:1s & Growth Trajectory
The agenda and cadence for each 1:1 is determined by each individual designer. We can discuss a range of topics, including sprint goals, research or design questions, long term growth, dependencies and blockers. If the designer does not have specific topics to cover, I default to the discussion items listed in the 1:1 Template:
What are you working on? How are you feeling about it?
What is your stress level?
Do you have any blockers or concerns at this time?
What can I do to support or improve things? Any feedback for me?
Action Items that result from the above questions.
Outcome:
The flexibility for each session allows each designer to come prepared with what is most applicable at that time. Long term growth is strategized with the template below. This results in clear goals for each team member, assessment of performance and proposed next steps.
Growth Trajectory Template:
FigJam template tracking performance, growth and bigger picture goals for an example designer.