Product Design Team Rituals

What we do to stay connected, empowered and learning

At Algolia, each designer works on a product squad that is composed of a product manager, product designer and developers. This means that as a team, we don’t work on projects together day-to-day. In order to keep a sense of unified team, to share knowledge and to support each other in our work, we created certain team rituals. These rituals are an embodiment of our team values, they keep us connected to each other and to the greater Algolia organization.

Team Meeting

All product designers meet on a weekly basis to discuss team matters. We begin each meeting by going through our Goalfest document (borrowed from Joel Califa). In these discussions, we focus less on what we accomplished and more on the lessons learned. Often, we will share best practices about prioritization, project management, and communication. On occasion, we also use team meetings to work/ align team processes, such as planning new member on-boarding, establishing team values, discussing the hiring process, and so on. Most of all, this is a time for us to connect and feel like we are a team.

Design Critique

Weekly, we gather to show one another our ongoing projects. The goal is to ask for feedback and have an open conversation in safe place. I usually leave this meetings feeling inspired, excited, and humbled by the feedback the team provides. You can read more about how we run them here.

1:1s

These are my favorite meetings of the week. As a manager, I meet with my team members once per week. To me, 1:1s are about relationship building and providing time for my team members to talk about what is important to them. Often we discuss career growth, challenges and blockers on specific projects, tricky situations, prioritization and so on. Most of all, this is a time for me to listen to my team and be a thought partner to them. This is also a great time to give and ask for feedback.

Design Brainshare 🧠

Each team member has his/her superpowers, which is why we recently kicked off this skill sharing lunch series. We meet during lunch time every other week. We either train others on a skill (e.g. how to present your design work, how to run a design sprint). Sometimes, we do a whiteboard design exercise instead to keep our UX skills sharp. In the past, we’ve also invited speakers from other companies to talk to us about things like design systems. The goal here is to spend time together informally, learn something, and have fun.

UX Office Hours 🤓

Weekly, we host UX office hours to provide colleagues across the organization design advice. These meetings keep us connected to folks we don’t always work with day-to-day. For example, account managers and sales folks often come to ask us how to pitch Algolia to clients (what UX conversations to have). Sometimes, developers come showing us a prototype they’ve built. This meeting has grown in popularity over time and is starting to become an institution.

Introduction to Design Thinking

Once a month, we run a 3-hour workshop for 8 of our Algolia colleagues. We run through a design exercise with the participants that showcases the end-to-end design thinking process. This is a hands-on way to show what design thinking is all about, to show its value and impart some valuable skills to our colleagues. I’ve noticed that after these sessions, participants feel inspired and excited to put their new skills to practice.

What rituals does your team have? What have you found most valuable in keeping you inspired and connected? Share in comments below!