What to Do When Your Designers Snooze
5 ways to get your design team to up their game.
Scenario 1: You’re a creative director managing a team of designers for an IT company. Operations launched years ago, it was a major success.
Fast-forward to present day: your designers finish their tasks without thinking, rarely look fully awake, and sadly, seem to be unaware that their designs look like relics from the nineties.
This is for you.
Scenario 2: You’re a design junkie. You just accepted a new job at this obscure design startup to help the founder, who is a friend of yours, save his company without hurting his employees’ feelings.
i.e. find a way to make your fellow designers pick up their game without saying that their inability to meet clients’ expectations is costing the company money…same money needed to cover their paychecks.
This is for you too.
First of all, it’s ok. Sometimes, designers’ learning curve plateaus when they feel secure that what they already know is quite enough to keep their jobs. You can encourage them to learn. Here’s how:
1. Mention a hot design trend during your morning huddle.
Just throw it casually. Gush about it a little, or tell them why you don’t like it. But don’t over do it. This way, you will indirectly let your fellow designers know that there are new things going on in the design world. That they need to read more to at least be able to keep up with the conversation. No one likes to feel left out, right?
2. Play a fun game that requires critical thinking.
All work and no play is a terrible strategy. People automatically switch to autopilot mode when they get used to a certain routine. It doesn’t even have to be one of those team-building games. You can challenge someone to a chess game for example…or tell someone about an awesome new video game you’re playing these days, ask them if they’d like to try it sometime.
Games will get your designers thinking….flex their brain muscles, so to speak. You will all have fun. And you’ll get closer as a team. It’s a fantastic strategy.
3. Take a walk to the coffee house across the street for a change, and point out design inspiration in your surroundings.
Sure you can brainlessly scroll through pages and pages of your Dribbble feed, but if you want real inspiration, go for a walk.
Designing things for humans requires understanding humans’ relationship with their surroundings. Notice how people interact with things, the gestures they make in their day-to-day lives. Keep that in mind while you take your walk and strike up a conversation about how -insert interesting observation- can be applied in design. This will widen their horizons and irrevocably change the way they think.
4. Watch them work. Find out what’s wrong. And casually throw a remark like ”Oh, I hate this too. have to do it today again….but hey! there is this cool trick I heard about other day but forgot to check it out . Let’s look it up”.
Look it up together. It won’t sound like showing off if you learn about it and try it together for the first time. It doesn’t even have to be a lie about a trick you already know. You can keep a list of all the new stuff you hear/read about once and want to learn more about. I do.
5. Hire a freelancer to help your team with a big project. Explain that you’d never ask them to work longer hours to meet a deadline.
You will seem like a considerate manager. The entire team can benefit from talking to someone new with fresh ideas. Plus, your professional circle gets bigger and you meet all sorts of people who could potentially work for you full-time someday. If you do your homework, you can find lots of freelancers who don’t have outrageously high hourly-rates. Invest some time in scouring the internet for these gems.
Have a fun weekend and #keepdesigning
If you have a digital product in need of rescue, you can reach me at designismusic@gmail.com
