Reflections from my design leadership experiences.
Scaling product design efficiency: 3 vital pillars [1/3]
Introduction & Chapter 01: Human Capital [People]
Introduction
After 10–12 members, a design team becomes a department. It needs different management approaches and growth plans to maintain quality and efficiency at various scales and yet be prudent with budget and resources.
Simply hiring a group of extraordinarily talented individuals will not make a team an effective one. Likewise, an extraordinary leader with an incompetent team cannot magically deliver extraordinary outputs.
I strongly believe that the strength of a well-managed team is greater than the simple sum of its members’ capacities. For a team to operate at its maximum potential, ongoing efforts from various perspectives are essential, extending beyond the mere optimisation of tactical project execution.
From my experiences(good, bad & ugly) so far in building and managing design teams at different organisations, I consider the following three as the core pillars of product design team management. (The largest team I managed was ~30 members).
1. People = Human Capital
2. Process = Creative Capital
3. Output = Operational Excellence
My belief system, rooted in two decades of professional and academic experiences in Design, Art, and Technology, continues to evolve with ongoing learning.
Chapter 01/03
Human Capital [People]
Human capital is the most important of all.
The basic premise here is, that every member of a team is unique with immense untapped potential. It is all about strengthening the soft powers and extracting the x-factor from the individuals that give every team a unique edge. Having better human capital influences and enhances the output from the other two pillars.
Just like how an actor’s quality of performance becomes polar opposite under different directors, and how the same sports team's performance differs under different coaches/ captains. It can change for good or bad- depending on the leader's ability to extract the best of human capital within their team. There is no single framework that will solve it all.
It doesn’t matter how competent your team is, nothing can be achieved without enthusiasm. Enthusiasm comes from the trust, and trust comes from treating the teammates as people, not as some replacable resources. Human capital cannot be explored without understanding people, their problems, aspirations and expectations.
As a leader, there are technical, tactical, strategic and emotional interventions to act upon to bring out the best within a team. Building a winning team requires a symbiotic relationship between its members built on a strong foundation of trust. For the leaders, they are as good as their team, and for the team, they are as good as their leaders.
Here are a few macro areas of influence that I have tried in my leadership opportunities in extracting better human capital.
(I) Building a culture with a shared sense of purpose & pride
It is the shared sense of purpose & pride that helped humans to survive this wild and dangerous world that it was, and it is central to their story of endurance over millions of years.
A team is strongest when they have a shared sense of purpose & pride towards the larger goal. The characteristics of such intangible qualities are heavily dependent on the leader and not on its members’ individual capacity. In fact, the quality of this collective sense within the team can make or break the mission the leaders have taken up.
A sense of purpose cannot be achieved if there is no passion. Leaders must focus on keeping the team’s intrinsic motivation and inspiration alive and always high towards the larger vision. There are a lot of examples from sports where coaches fire up the passion among the players just before the match, and they go on to the field and achieve impossible things as a team.
A sense of pride cannot be achieved where there is no sense of security and belonging. It comes from the feeling of being in the right place with the right set of people. It is again the leader's responsibility to build a symbiotic and non-competitive relationship where people truly stand up for each other.
A culture of genuine social facilitation plays an important role in building the sense of security and appreciation among people. As a result, these qualities help them commit to the larger mission as a well-organised unit, even when there are disagreements and differences on personal fronts.
It is not about doing those customary(artificial) team-boding meetups, but has everything to do with how we hire and onboard, appreciate, and even have a set of unwritten rules & privileges the team enjoys. Eventually, it becomes a cult within the larger organisation that will bind every member together and help them improve their human potential rather than engaging in occasional team-building gimmicks that do not contribute to the purpose and pride in any manner.
(II) Bringing self-awareness & role clarity within the team for better growth
Having a clear understanding of one’s true potential, and what is expected of your role in the team is extremely important to define success as a professional.
However, there are no global standards or apparatus to truly measure one’s self-awareness levels. Self-awareness here refers to one’s ability to take initiative in meeting the macro-micro expectations from the role one plays in the team. It is highly influenced by the leader's ability to translate the team’s vision and the industry benchmarks on one side. On the other side, it is also influenced by the team member’s ability to synthesise and act upon the feedback given to them.
Different leaders will have different benchmarking methods and it is best discussed at the time of hiring or when a new leader is introduced to an existing team. It is important to have clarity alignment and awareness to be able to have a productive work environment. It also helps in performance reviews and evaluations.
However, often leaders assume what they know must be obvious to the members of the team. Things might look obvious to the leader in hindsight, but the team may not have travelled the route that you may have. So leaders must take time and hold that mirror in front of the members so that they can see who they are.
The peril of over-communication would be much better than the mess you might end up with under-communication. So when in doubt, take a chance on over-communication, every time!
It is the leader's responsibility to bring alignment through multiple dialogues and pragmatic discussions to clearly explain the priorities without blindly forcing it on the team members. Leaders should make enough environment for the team to come up and share the challenges without fear, and enable them to even escalate concerns if needed.
The art of giving feedback and mentorship is very important here. A mentorship need not be limited to internal only, the leaders can find external parties to mentor the team members for specific cases. While giving feedback, it is better to avoid acute criticism and toxic positivity. Doing so may lead to insecurities among the team members, toxic internal competition, imposture syndrome and unhealthy relationships among teammates that may distract them from their core responsibilities.
The leader’s honesty and transparency will certainly help the members to build better self-awareness and bring role clarity in the team. But, it is extremely important for the leader to earn the trust from the team first. Else it would just be counter productive.
By no means a leader is always the right one. Leaders too come with limitations and gaps. But the leader needs to succeed by acting upon a specific plan that he or she believes in, especially since the assumption here is, that the organisation has already put its trust in the leader and has an alignment about the leadership style he/she wants to carry out.
P.S.
These articles are personal notes, reflective of my leadership style, which may not align with all approaches. Nonetheless, I hope they contribute to young designers gaining a better understanding of their competencies within a product design team.
I believe in prioritising and promoting design quality through competency-focused, systematic, and collective problem-solving within the team. This emphasis extends from the hiring process to our daily operations, playing a crucial role in the growth of each team member
(III) Empower individuals by helping them find a unique voice, and higher agency to build a sense of real ownership
Voice and agency play an important role in designers’ success in their career ladder. These are some of the most important soft skills required to have professional success. Right people with higher agency display a true sense of ownership and will stay away from creating optics of progress. Internal mentoring alone might not fill all the gaps in the soft-skills.
Considering the role of design comes at the crossroads of business and user needs, it is expected of the designers(different levels at different degrees) to do user and solution advocacies. They must speak for the user through evidence, data points and user stories. On the other side, solution advocacy through effective communication, and articulation through numerous presentations and pitches.
Lacking a sense of agency and a distinctive voice may hinder individuals from fully embracing their responsibilities. Empowering them fosters a robust sense of ownership, providing control over their actions and consequences, and instilling intentional behavior. Offering support in times of failure serves as a cushion, reinforcing their ownership mentality. Ultimately, I believe this approach enhances team outcomes to a significant extent.
Ownership is not about taking up more work or burning the midnight oil, or about accepting all the blames to oneself. It is the process of getting to the right solutions efficiently with courage to act upon one’s accountabilities as a subject matter expert. A true ownership also means the willingness to deliver their responsibilities to the fullest despite personal disagreements. Micromanagement by leaders is the number one reason that kill the senese of ownership among team.
(IV) Adaption of new tools & techniques with time to maximize individual capacity
Change is the only constant may be a cliché, but a recurring truth especially evident in today’s corporate landscape. Embracing new tools and techniques is vital for delivering beyond our current capacities. The optimisation of time and cost is fundamental in any business, pushing us to maximise human capital to unprecedented benchmarks. Furthermore, the rising influence of artificial intelligence will fundamentally reshape numerous careers, challenging traditional practices that have been in place for years.
Leaders at different levels have different objectives to meet. Leaders at tactical or strategic levels should closely experiment with what’s new in the industry and adopt them when it is the right time for the team to do so. Many design leaders ignore these responsibilities for later, as they do not come as immediate business priorities of the organisation. Well, it will never be.
Adoption of new tools and technique might mean there are inter departmental changes to current processes and best practices. It often attract a lot of friction as people are in general averse to change from usual course of action. But here is when a leader with strong voice and agency helps the team to see the benefit for bringing the best in them benefitting the product/service and its vision.
In the dynamic landscape of today, software evolves rapidly, and techniques become obsolete as industries mature. Overlooking the unspoken needs of a team could prove detrimental to both the organisation and its members. Therefore, as leaders, it is imperative to proactively experiment and implement intentional changes to stay ahead in this ever-evolving environment. Embracing adaptability is not just a strategy; it is a necessity for sustained success in the face of continual transformation.
<End of part 1/3>
Cheers,
Dhaneesh Jameson
