Day 68 — Creative PM series 2/7: “Quality Enhancement”
The quality of deliverables is one of the most important things people evaluate to determine whether a creative project is successful or not. Is the idea creative enough? Is it well thought out? Does it fit well within the given constraints? What are the values that the solution brings to the users? Is it appealing? Is it intuitive, and easy to use?
In today’s article, I’m going to share my knowledge of Creative PM skills, specifically around Quality Enhancement that can benefit UX/Design lead & director. Let’s break it down into the following structure:
- The Value of Quality Enhancement
- When to Use It (Timing Is Everything)
- Strategic Quality Enhancement Approach
Value of Quality Enhancement
As creative talents, there are many reasons we want to ensure we deliver quality product/ service to our partners/ counterparts. Here are some key benefits of better quality delivery:
- Contribute design/ creative value to the team & firm;
- Build team portfolio and reputation;
- Inspire the team, create healthy competition about pursuing great quality;
- Shape culture by rewarding creativity, craft, and effort;
- Measure individual’s performance to determine compensation.
When to Use It (Timing Is Everything)
With different types of creative talents, timing is the key to a effective quality enhancement process. If it’s too often, it might come off as “micro-managing”, or even “control freak”; if it’s not timely enough, you might risk the project delivery with a loose/no control over it. In my experience, some general guideline might be helpful as a quick pointer:
- General Principle: When it comes to high stake/ high risk delivery, it’s always important to have a review session to ensure that the team is aligned with the key decisions. For example, when it’s a key project milestone and the product demo is meant for: 1) angel investor of a startup, 2) shareholder of a corporation, or 3) MVP for the media/press, it’s quite important for teams to be on the same page before it gets out of the building.
- Top performer: It’s my experience that top performers usually need space to think and breathe, and come back with home-run ideas. Constant check-in not only take away valuable time for them to brew “the next big thing”, also has negative impact on the trust and relationship. Therefore, upfront alignment, alongside with passive check-in, tend to work better with top performers. Besides, they are usually excited about their big ideas and want to share with everyone; so don’t worry, even if we don’t go to them, they will come to us.
- Mid performer: There might be different reasons for people to stay in the mid-tier in terms of performance. It could be either they don’t have clear guidance about how to be successful, and keep trial-n-error, or they lack of motivation to do great things. Therefore, proactive support could be a nice way to both provide timely guidance, or build their confidence to elevate their performance.
- Low performer: Whether it’s lack of interest to perform, or not clear about the expectations, low performers are fine with where they are and need extrinsic motivations to enhance their performance. Therefore, a hand-holding approach with more aggressive intervention might be required to ensure the delivery quality.
Strategic Quality Enhancement Approach
Based on my experience and what I shared/learned from other design directors, I developed a 4 quadrants matrix to help determine what approach suits for what situation:
1. Competency -H, Motivation -H
General Principle: Reward the good results and passively monitoring.
When having a team of driven and capable bunch, usually as a Creative PM, we don’t have to worry too much about the details. As long as the strategic goal is clear, and the general direction is right, the more freedom they get, the better the results yield. Therefore, just ensure the early-stage alignment, and keep track in milestone review. Another way to facilitate the passive monitoring is have the design assets uploaded to a central location (Dropbox, Invision board) so that we can asynchronously review the progress.
2. Competency -H, Motivation -L
General Principle: When working with capable talents but not motivated, it’s important to figure out why they’re not driven as we want them to be. Removing the roadblock and re-motivate them so they can be self-reliant. In terms of quality enhancement, the most successful ways I’ve seen are reigniting the passion and creativity inside them, and leave the “creative energy” plateau behind. Simply challenge the team with interesting tasks, new and fun design methods, or even popular industry trends. If they’re up to even bigger task, let them try a new design process/ framework (e.g. Google Design Sprint version 2), and explain why this method fit better in the product and UX vision.
3. Competency -L, Motivation -H
General Principle: Recognize their effort and provide structural guidance. There are times that we encounter ambitious/ excited creative talents that they tend to bite off more than they can chew, whether they’re aware of it or not. In order to make sure the quality in iterations, this type of team requires a little bit more hand-holding with structured ways to deliver. For example, utilize design method like Crazy 8 to generate lots of ideas to choose from; host Design Crit to help them learn from the rest of the team, and grow their design competency. Setup a formal process for them: competitive analysis, UI pattern analysis, research on best practices, etc. When it comes to client presentation, ask them to adopt the Sandwich approach: come up with 3 ideas, meaty one in the middle.
4. Competency -L, Motivation -L
General Principle: Active quality control, setup ground rules to follow.
On one hand, it’s still important to understand why the designer/ team is not motivated; is it a short term symptom? or it’s simply personality traits? If we don’t have the resource or time to solve the motivation issue, we’ll then need to focus on quality control. A proactive way is to setup clear expectations with S.M.A.R.T goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-boxed). Make sure they understand what’s expected by asking them to playback what’s asked; if there’s a gap in the playback, help them work on notes-taking skills. Once they start working on the task, schedule daily check-in to provide timely feedback. Also ask them what they learn from the process to ensure if they’re paying attention. Design Crit in this case is still useful way, it helps them understand the expectation from the team. Another way to help them is to utilize Pair Design, using a design buddy to offer fast-pace feedback/ coaching.
Conclusion
- Quality enhancement skills are imperative for whoever is in the Creative PM role, whether it’s creative director or design lead;
- Choose the right timing/ cadence to provide quality control so that it doesn’t come off as micro-management or lack of leadership;
- Depending on how motivate the individual is, and their level of design competency, we can leverage the group feedback and online resource to inspire them and provide proper support.
What are some challenges you encountered when helping team to enhance the quality of delivery? What are some lessons you learned? I’m curious about your thoughts.
ABC. Always be clappin’.
To see more
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not represent current or previous client or employer views.
