10 things they didn’t tell you about design management
Supporting designers is the most challenging, but at the same time most rewarding thing to me. Over the past two years I made an awful lot of mistakes in this role. I hope that as a new manager you’ll get to make your own mistakes and learn from them.
Alastair Simpson’s post pretty much sums up the 10 most important ones. Here are my thoughts on each of them.
1. Management is really about leadership
The title you have and your position in the organisation is usually not what’s holding you back. You don’t need a fancy title to be an amazing design leader. Anyone can step into a leadership role, regardless of hierarchy in an org structure. Don’t wait. Start leading.
While anyone can step into a leadership role, leadership is not for everyone.
A leader would never say: “That’s not my job” — nor would she do something just get the title. They are not driven by their position, but by responsibility and the desire to make an impact. Higher job titles allow you to work more. Your formal authority is secondary to both your domain expertise as well as being resourceful and helpful to others.
I’ve noticed that all of this is not intuitive for some new leads, though it also depends on whether the environment is supportive or not. Some people will never figure out what it takes to be a leader, even when they have both the formal title and a supportive environment.
2. Management of people is a craft in and of itself
And like any craft, it’s damn hard work. You need to constantly develop your soft skills. You need to constantly be asking questions of your team. You need to constantly be looking inward and asking yourself how you can improve and help make your team better. It is relentless.
Whenever you sense that something might be off, it probably is.
So, hurry up and talk with your folks. Learn to listen and listen so you can learn. Never assume that people have the correct information, or that they will tell you what’s bothering them right away. Always repeat the important stuff, even 10 times if you need to.
3. The shit umbrella
Managers are often referred to as needing shit umbrellas to protect their team from unnecessary crap in an organisation. This is true. But be careful not to over protect your team. If you do, they will never learn and grow from their own mistakes. Everyone needs to get slightly splattered with poop at certain points in their career. Just make sure you support them through this difficult time.
Never be a buffer zone of your team, but always fight for them whenever you feel they are right about something. They don’t need to know about all the times you protected them.
Be comfortable with giving negative feedback. Too many managers avoid giving negative feedback because it makes those on the receiving end feel uncomfortable. Do it often, but not too often because it can demotivate. Find a balance. Rare are designers whose driving force is critique.
Besides shit umbrella, don’t be a shit sandwich person neither. Always say things as they are, even when they are really bad.
Always be aware of yourself and pay attention to the way you say things.
4. The process
As a manager your job is not to add process and unnecessary structure to your team. As a manager your job is to break down process to the bare minimum that suits the development stage of your team. Provide the right level of support and inspiration, so your team can create amazing solutions for your customers.
Implementing various processes will give you a sense of calmness — “Now everything’s going to work like a well-oiled machine”. Unfortunately this is not true. The best processes are organic and should come from members of the team.
It often takes a lot of time for a process to be fully utilized. The same goes for undoing existing one. Be prepared for this and understand why something is working or not. Coming up with the process is probably the easiest part. Implementation and measurement are much harder.
Another menace lays in insecure team members who tend to ask for more processes and formalities. Instead of supporting them (and applying the same rules to the whole team), help them find the best way to deal with ambiguities. It’s naturally hard for all of us to operate in abstractions but it’s your job to give your team the necessary context and clear the roadblocks.
Focus on the output, not the process.
5. Communication
Creating the best design doesn’t mean it will actually ship. As a manager, your job is to build networks and trust with your peers in engineering, product, marketing plus many more teams. Effective communication of design and strong relationships are just as powerful as amazing design solutions. Learn to hustle.
Communication is the holy grail of every profession. Unfortunately, most designers still don’t get it.
“Pixels, however, don’t get you jobs. People do.”
—Mike Davidson
As your team grows, communication will likely be the first to take the hit. It will mostly change in dynamic and diversity. And that’s totally fine. After some time a certain levelling is required.
It’s on you, as a leader, to show on example. Work towards the ideal “voice & tone” of your team communication.
This isn’t something you can just set, but rather iterate in small steps.
6. Hiring
As a manager you should spend a metric ton of time interviewing and networking. You need the best talent in your team in order to be successful. You should always be hiring people you think can now, or will be able to take your own job some day soon.
From making a hiring plan and writing the job ad, to setting up the interviewing process, making the hiring decision, and designing the whole onboarding process, prepare yourself for one of the most energy demanding processes in existence.
As Cap Watkins nicely puts it here, treat hiring as a team activity. This will give everyone a sense of responsibility, and everyone will feel awesome. After all, the newcomer is going to work with the whole team and beyond, not just with you.
Pro tip: 10 minutes rule
When I was about to interview for the first time, I asked my favorite ex manager: “How do I know if I’m going to make the right decision?” He just smiled and said: “You’ll simply know. The first 10 minutes spent with the person are the key. Listen to your gut feeling, it’s the best indicator of them all”.
I thought that was easy for him to say, given how much experience he had. I didn’t really believe him, until I was proven wrong. Every time I pushed myself into making a decision based on hard facts, my spidey sense would tingle. A good cultural fit, someone who would fit well within the team, is just as important.
There are a lot of false positives when it comes to hiring, so pay extra attention here.
7. Decisions
You will upset people by making tough decisions. It’s ok to put your foot down. Too many compromises make rubbish products. Often you won’t have all the data, or enough time. Learn to be comfortable with this. But also learn to accept that sometimes you will make the wrong decision. Just make sure you learn from those mistakes quickly.
Sometimes there will be a clear signal calling for your action, but you won’t be able to see it because of lack of experience, or because of too much noise. In these grey areas, filled with noise and signals, it’s very easy to slip and make a bad decision.
Your decisions will make people either disagree with or respect you. Eventually someone might even like you, but that’s not your aim.
You don’t do this job to be liked. You do this job to be fair to everyone throughout your organization, not just your team.
8. It’s not about you. And actually it never was
You are likely no longer the best designer on your team (And maybe you never were anyway). Get comfortable with this and work out how to create an environment that your team can be creative and solve the right customer problems in amazing ways.
Besides you being comfortable with this realization, you should set the same expectations within your team as well. Everyone on the team should know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, so they could jump in and help when needed.
As a designer there are a lot of things you can do, and at the same time it’s OK not to be the best in all verticals. The same goes for your team as a bouquet of verticals.
9. Not knowing
It is not your job to know everything and have all the answers. It is ok to say “I don’t know” to your team. It is your job to lead. Bring the right balance of people together to solve problems that match the unique skills they all have.
Again, this is something you and all of your team members should be comfortable with. They should be OK with you not having all the answers and they should be OK with themselves not knowing all the things.
Embrace curiosity, learning, failing and constant improvements.
You are not the leader because you know everything, but because you are good with the group.
10. Empowering people
Great managers empower their team to make decisions for them. As a manager you may actually make less day to day decisions than you did as an individual contributor.
“Pass on the values.”
“Make yourself as redundant as possible.”
“Aim to find somebody who can replace you.”
“If a team can work without you for at least three days, you are doing a good job.”
These are some of the mantras I’ve been taught by my managers. They teach you about your duty to empower others.
Good luck.
If you found this piece of any help, please feel free to reach out. I don’t know much, but I’m always happy to chat and share my experience.
Thank you Alastair Simpson for writing the original piece, and Andrea Szollossi for helping a lot with this one.
