When teams grow, pain seems inevitable. Critiques feel like a council throw-down on Game of Thrones; tenured team members start feeling either smug or displaced; new joiners feel like they interrupted a movie in progress; everyone feels like they’ve lost the plot and aren’t sure what else will change; etc

How do we build a team while building its culture? How do we scale while strengthening that culture? When should we hire early-career designers versus seasoned veterans? “No pain, no gain” might work for body building, but for building a team, pain signals imminent entropy. There’s another way: Andrea will share her growth strategy, tactics, and tools for taking small design teams (fewer than a dozen members) to the next level.

Growth strategies Be human-centered. When a team grows, individual members experience it personally. Being human-centered means caring deeply about individuals to understand and manage their hopes, fears, and dreams. Negative experiences lead to attrition, and hiring becomes a Sisyphean task. Positive experiences have a flywheel effect on recruitment, culture, and bench strength. Co-create the team’s growth plan. We co-create and co-design outcomes with stakeholders because it brings them along for the journey. Why should growing a design team be different?

Tactics and tools Skills matrices. Designers use these to identify their own areas of interest and growth opportunities, providing rich fodder to ensure 1:1s don’t devolve into discussing the work. Balanced team approach. Depending on how an org is set up, it may not be possible to hire early-career designers until enough seniors are available to support them. Consciously build a culture of support and make team-based hiring decisions.

Andrea's experience of team growth as a designer has been traumatic. As a manager, she wanted to create a different outcome. She's proven it’s possible and now wants to share that experience.

This talk was filmed at Leading Design Festival 2021. Find out more about the event details here - https://leadingdesign.com/conferences/festival-2021

Leading Design is a programme consisting of conferences, retreats and coaching. Find out more about Leading Design on our website - https://leadingdesign.com/