From Solo to Team — My Experience Building a Product Design Team From Scratch

PRODUCT DESIGN LEADERSHIP

My experience as the first in-house designer at a company focused on offering fully online personal loans provided me with visibility into both the evolution of future strategies and the ongoing need for improvements in the solution.

As the product expansion continued, I witnessed the moment that highlighted the need to build a Product Design Team. The efforts of various teams shifted from primarily focusing on technological feasibility to integrating a diverse portfolio of solutions, enabling users to simplify their financial management.

Challenge

The integration of new designers presented an opportunity to redefine the role of design, its methodologies, and processes to maximize its impact on the organization. This aimed to establish a user experience strategy across various product units that aligns with global objectives.

Beyond allocating efforts to each project, it was crucial to attract talent that brought balance through their skills while also finding professional development opportunities within the organization.

Actions

My focus was on articulating the growth strategy for the product design area, planning coherent career progression paths for different levels of responsibility and experience in each role, along with criteria for hiring new talent.

By incorporating the perspectives of executives, strategic players, and designers, it was possible to define “levels of delivery scale” (Fig. 1) ranging from specific tasks that improved the interactive qualities of the products to broader aspects that introduced a culture promoting both individual and collective growth.

Fig. 1 «For the team to deliver to its potential, it must operate across a range not only of skills, but of conceptual scale, from the “big picture” down to the pixel and pica. Imagine a conceptual scale that spans a product and services view from 10,000 feet to 1 foot, and place design work along that scale.» — Adapted infographic from: Org Design for Design Orgs

This would foster close and horizontal (Fig. 2) collaboration throughout the organization, positioning the design role as a key facilitator in discovering the needs of diverse user groups.

Fig. 2 «The team should resemble a three-legged stool, in which each leg represents one of the three areas [Engineering — Product — Design] that helps build a product. […] Without those strategies from the onset, you’re bound to create an unstable stool down the line, which, in this case, is a shaky product.» — Alex Schleifer

Reflections

This experience taught me the importance of teamwork in achieving exceptional and expansive results. Initially, it was a challenge to step away from projects, but soon I witnessed with admiration how each team member elevated the work to new levels of maturity.

Supporting the professional development of each team member made me realize the importance of advocating for the team’s needs and contributed to defining paths for my own growth.

There were tough lessons that taught me that some circumstances are beyond our control, and we are responsible for facing them with our best efforts and intentionally. Remembering that our work in an organization also impacts people outside of it, and what we learn from our colleagues shapes us and influences our future decisions, inspiring us to grow based on shared experiences.

Further reads about building product design teams:

1. Org Design for Design Orgs [Book]
2. Defining Product Design: A Dispatch from Airbnb’s Design Chief
3. From Design Team to Design Culture
4. Career progression for Product Designers & User Researchers at Lyst

Thank you for taking the time to read this experience! 🤍

If you’d like to discuss this case further, let’s get in touch via LinkedIn.

— Hilde.

Here, you can find further examples of my experience as a product designer:

Online Personal Loans: Product Strategy Revamp

“Buy Now, Pay later” Shopping Payment Method — Minimum Viable Product Design