Feb 4, 2020
Humanitarian design 24/7
The need for local teams when working around the world
I wake up excited and sleepy at 5:40am to make coffee. I need to supercharge my body for the 6am call with colleagues across the world, where it is already 5pm. I’m eager to hear the results of the user research they conducted during the day. We’ll spend the next two hours discussing their findings, outstanding questions, and what we need to change for the next round of user testing. We agree on a way forward, and then it’s my turn to apply the changes and review with our advisors while my colleagues sleep. When they wake up, the prototypes need translation and they are ready to use in the field again.
This is a standard way of working for designers at the Airbel Impact Lab. We work as a global design team with local collaborators. Over the past three years, we have learned that when we’ve had a local presence for the duration of the project, we were more efficient, more empathetic, and most importantly, we were able to connect more systematically with our users. Plus, we were able to build stronger rapport not only with our clients but with our own colleagues in the IRC country offices and integrate them into the design process.
On top of that, we want to consider sustainability. At Airbel, we strive to create local design teams that can continue the work after the HQ team is gone.
The benefits of working as a global design team
There are plenty of positive outcomes when you work as a holistic team. Some of the key benefits are:
Budget and time
While it may be ideal for the whole team to be on the ground all the time, we often don’t have the time or money to make this happen. An on-the-ground team of talented designers who know the language and have in-country connections can make better use of our budget and work much more quickly than flying the HQ team around the world for months on end.
Context and culture
A deep understanding of our users is necessary for any design work, even more so in situations where our users have experienced trauma. We work with the world’s most vulnerable people, and there is only so much that an empathetic foreigner can understand when speaking with a struggling refugee mother through a translator. When we work with local teams, we can build trust and enrich our understanding of what our users may be experiencing. Talking with someone who understands your challenges and shares your social norms is a better experience for users than speaking to a room of foreigners.
Consistent user feedback
While the HQ team might only have the opportunity to connect with the user in very quick and short interactions, our on-the-ground design team can take more time to reconnect with users and explore co-creation together. Local teams are able to prototype with more rigor and can focus more on the experimentation of different concepts that would be beyond short design sprints.
Around-the-clock designing
A unique opportunity when working with teams spread around the world is that we can divide and conquer. Working globally has allowed our collective design team to do more, faster, and better. Thanks to technology, we’re able to collaborate over Skype, Google Docs, and WhatsApp to refine our work on a very quick turnaround time. The ability to “pick up” the work while your other team members are taking a rest extends our capacity to new levels.
Sustainability
Building local capacity paces the project on a quick and reasonable timeline that helps prevent burnout from travel and overwork — for everyone involved! Instead of cramming the work into 1–3 weeks of intensive research and testing, overworking the country and project team, you can divide out the work and explore opportunities that better reflect the user’s response by taking the time to synthesize and plan next steps.
Different models for developing global design teams
We have tried, and failed, in creating our design teams. Here are a few strategies we have found successful:
Hiring local designers
This is the fastest method to bring a team together that is already skilled in design research and user testing and can create high-quality prototypes. When working with local designers, your team is able to put more time into the strategy and decision because the team on the ground is already proficient in creating research plans, speaking to users, recording and sharing insights.
Locally embedding a design consultant
A consultant who can travel for extended periods of time to build relationships with our users and stakeholders can be a huge asset to the project. However, finding a skilled consultant is difficult and it might take some time to find the right fit. Pairing the consultant with other local team members can help up-skill them through hands-on experience.
Building-up a local academic researcher
An open-minded academic researcher is able to learn the design process and put it into practice long after the HQ team is gone. They will already have an array of research skills that pair up well with our methodologies. Although this option might take a bit longer, your researcher-turned-designer will be able to work on their own, deliver high-quality research insights, help guide the team to better design options, and share their experiences around the value of design in the humanitarian field with others.
Training humanitarian country staff
When country staff becomes avid prototype testers, they can help the project move forward with their knowledge, as well as significant and specific logistical and technical skills. Local humanitarians know how to make programs work in the context of their country office, government, and available partnerships. Thanks to their extended time working in a particular country, they know the problems clients face and can provide the best paths to an effective design.
Nothing is without obstacles
Of course, there are always challenges working across time zones and as part of large teams with multiple stakeholders and advisors. Some of the challenges we’ve experienced include:
On boarding non-designers to our process
To learn design thinking you need to practice it. That takes time. This is especially hard when country staff are booked on multiple projects and don’t have time to travel into the field or dive deep into the process.
Using the right tools
Not everyone is used to the same digital tools, and not everyone uses these tools in the same way. We’ve found that we can reduce this barrier by creating templates, showing past examples, and being very clear with our asks to reduce stress across the team.
Trusting what you read
As designers, we are so used to the luxury of seeing the research with our own eyes that it’s hard to trust what you read. We must be open and confident that our team on the ground knows what they are doing. An approach of “Show your work” helps teams who aren’t there to understand: what happened, what was tried, what research questions were answered, what do we still have questions about? Google docs has been especially helpful as a collaboration tool, as it gives us the opportunity to leave questions and responses that the whole team can access at all times.
Being considerate about scheduling
Undoubtedly, finding an adequate time that is fair and just for all involved has been a bit difficult. It is a real life constraint that we must work around and often make sacrifices in our schedule. However, we try to be clear and considerate of others, keep to the time allotted, remind each other it’s time to take a break, and plan backward to meet deadlines. We update detailed monthly plans so the whole team knows exactly what is happening. For example, is our colleague in the field the whole week? Or let’s avoid scheduling a meeting when they might be overwhelmed with synthesis or when they’re on the road.
The work from our global design team is done quickly, but carefully, with the ultimate goal of testing and bringing to life a product that is truly valuable for those we serve. Collaborating remotely takes work, patience, and lots and lots of time. We are getting better at communicating, creating a sense of team even while far away from one another, establishing our goals across the project timeline, and being open to different ways of working.
At the end of my workday, I send off an email with our updated prototypes, notes in our research document, and a big thank you for all the work my teammates have completed thus far. Building a strong team across oceans is not easy, but it is highly beneficial to our work and our users.
