Retain & Develop
Kick-Ass Designers
Part 6: Success of the Project
This is the sixth article in a 10-part series for design managers and directors called How to Retain and Develop Kick-ass Designers. You can find the overview of all 10 parts here in the Introduction.
True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Everyone wants their efforts to mean something. Your designers want to solve problems, help organizations reach their goals, and to express themselves. It’s really satisfying to be part of something creative.
And, on top of creating great designs, the most fulfilling projects are the ones that are successful; projects that actually get implemented.
However, sometimes you take on projects that don’t get implemented. When that happens, there are a number of opportunities to make the most of the situation. Your team can enjoy the creative and intellectual collaboration, learn new skills, and so on. But you don’t want to count on “making the most of it,” for too many projects, otherwise it gets discouraging. This post is about how important it is to consider success of the project.
Make it a Major Criterion for Accepting Projects (When You Can)
At an agency, you’re regularly evaluating which projects to pursue and bid on. Like most agencies, you’re probably considering a bunch of factors:
- Target market and area of speciality
- Interest and desirability
- Profitability
- Benefit to the portfolio
- Alignment with your core values
But, we often assume — or don’t consider — how well the client will carry the torch after we’re done. Will it get built well? Is the client really ready to commit to continued iteration after the first release? Is the business model strong?
Not too long ago, we had a big exciting project presented to us. The client was going to create a powerful, feature-rich portal for its banking customers. The client said, “We’re kicking off in a couple weeks. Can you send us a statement of work?”
They were giving us the project. No competitors. No constraints. They had a ton of work to do and they needed help. We were faced with a highly motivated client who was offering us interesting, profitable work. And, they said they wanted to do really interesting things with the portal.
Our response: “Maybe.”
We needed more information. We needed a better sense of how successful the project might be. We couldn’t leave that to chance.
We investigated. Did they have a dedicated project manager? Did that person have any other project commitments? Has that person ever managed a project of this complexity?
Who are the business sponsors? Do they realize what it takes to build a complex, powerful, user-centered, industry-leading portal? What’s their track record of funding phased, continuously iterating projects?
Who are the strategists, business analysts, and subject matter experts? Are they up to date on the cutting edge of their field? If they’re not, are they eager to have the vendor supply that expertise?
Most importantly, for really big projects, is there someone appointed to lead the project? This is not the business sponsor; they focus on revenue goals, not running a project. It’s not the project manager; they focus on deadlines and managing the moving parts. It’s not a technical lead; they need to manage architectures, risks, costs, and technical proofs of concept. It’s not the creative director; they’re focusing on design systems, user behavior, and brand.
Usually, this crucial person is a product manager or program manager. The more complex the design challenge and/or the greater the number of people involved, the more important this person becomes. Does she have experience with projects like this? Is she willing to say “No” when she has to? Does she have diplomacy skills, the ability to think on her feet, and enough knowledge of the market to evaluate feature priorities? Does this person understand how to lead product development and software development teams from a user-centered and product-success point of view? Do they have experience creating Minimum Viable Products (and not just for a simple product)?
It’s OK if the answer is “No” to any of those questions, as long as the client accepts them as risks and wants us to staff up to cover those responsibilities. Sometimes, they’re happy to hear this and they ask us to teach them throughout the project.
Our client was slightly taken aback at first. They never imagined their design vendor would ask so many questions that were seemingly not about design. We helped them see a few key risks that needed to be solved before we’d accept the project. In this case the biggest concern was the lack of a strong, experienced Product Manager.
Sure, we could’ve accepted the project without asking those questions, but if we want our designers to be excited and motivated, we’ve got to evaluate more than just the design challenge.
What if You’re Not an Agency?
When you’re managing an in-house design team, you occasionally get a project that doesn’t seem so great, but you might not have the choice to turn it down. Let’s assume you’ve already raised concerns, but business sponsors and executives are steadfast; your team has to take the project.
What can you do when you think a project won’t be successful?
Start by reframing success. For example, if you’re not seeing a lot of business success in this project’s future, seek out something in the project that will provide a success for the team or someone on your team.
Maybe this project will allow your team to try a new design tool. Maybe there’s a new technology or interaction trend that the team hasn’t yet been able to experience. Maybe there’s an individual designer who needs to develop a certain set of skills and can be coached during this project.
We had a strategist that was transitioning to a design role. She had never used Photoshop before. We were about to sign her up for an online course. Then, a mini project came along that didn’t satisfy all our typical selection criteria: it wasn’t particularly profitable, it didn’t involve a lot of creative opportunities, and we weren’t sure it was ever going to be built. But, it was an excellent project for our Strategist-turning-Designer to get right into Photoshop—with the direct support of our Design Director. That became our own specialized measure of success, and it went great.
If you can’t reframe success, you might have an option to punt, get it off your plate, pass the buck. The best way to do that is with outside resources. If a project is just going to be a drag, and if you’ve got budget, maybe you can get a contractor or a vendor to do the project. Your team will manage the vendor, but they won’t be entrenched in a soul-sucking slog. Of course, you don’t want to do this all the time, but in a pinch…
It’s Our Responsibility Anyway
Successful projects are more satisfying for your designers. That alone is reason to think about the business case, the users, and the likelihood of success.
But, it’s also our professional responsibility to speak up for not just our designers, but for the sake of the users and the organization.
I learned this first-hand years ago as an in-house designer for a Fortune 100 company. The business sponsor was friendly, easy to work with, and smart. They had a product bundle that was enjoying proven success in the brick-and-mortar stores. Our design team’s job was to create an online version of the product bundle. I had the requirements, the design challenge was interesting, we were hitting our early internal reviews, the business partner was happy, and everything was fine.
Except that it wasn’t.
I was reviewing the project with a couple designer colleagues. They were looking at the bigger picture and asked, “Do you really think this is a good idea?”
I started to answer, “Um, yeah, the user selects the bundle here and can modify…”
They politely interrupted me, “No, we mean do you think it makes sense to even do this? Sure, we’ve been selling bundles for years in the store, but in this case, it doesn’t make sense online.” I won’t go into the mundane details here, but they went on to explain how bundles didn’t make sense here.
It was immediately clear as soon as they explained it, but I hadn’t even considered the possibility. I was just doing what I was supposed to do, which was to design to the requirements. I was too focused on the deliverable and not the bigger picture.
We advocated and negotiated with the business sponsor and it was eventually escalated; all ended well.
In the end, you can’t control everything and you can’t predict the future. However, you can look at the big picture beyond the specific design challenge and evaluate how likely the project is to succeed. You’ll retain more happy designers when more of your projects are successful. It just feels good to see your hard work mean something.
