The SalesforceIQ Design Culture (Part 1)

Note: Earlier versions of this article referred to our company’s former name, RelateIQ. We rebranded as SalesforceIQ in September 2015.

The SalesforceIQ Design team is responsible for not only designing the products that our customers use to power their businesses, but also for helping the team understand our users’ needs and how we can best address their goals within the product. We’re also responsible for producing all of the marketing assets for our website, campaigns, and events. Our success is highly influenced by how we operate as a team.

Building Products People Love

SalesforceIQ is driven by creating great experiences for our customers. Even our mission statement is very customer-centric: to power the world’s professional relationships with products people love. In that sense, the entire company is responsible for our customers’ experience, not just the Design team. Everyone contributes to creating high-quality products that inspire our customers.

Our Drive

Our Design team is responsible for embodying our mission by designing products that are easy to use, delightful, and that effectively drive our customers to succeed. We do so by taking the task personally — we can only be successful when our customers are successful. We’re also driven by our own desire to learn and grow as Designers by working on complex challenges.

How We Work

Design at SalesforceIQ is highly collaborative, iterative, and adaptable. We work hard to ensure that we are working effectively across the entire team.

• Collaboration: The best way to summarize how we work as a team is that we are collaborative. We work together across the entire team to understand problems and how to fix them. We involve the whole team throughout the Design process, and stay involved from the beginning to end of a project. There are no design “hand-offs” at SalesforceIQ. Instead, we are in constant contact and communication during the entire effort.

Design at SalesforceIQ is highly collaborative, iterative, and adaptable

• Small team within a large parent company: SalesforceIQ was acquired by Salesforce in August 2014. We’re still a fairly small team, operating much like a startup, within the larger company. The benefit of this to the Design team is that we get to move quickly, get to have more influence on our projects, but we also get the support and resources that come from being within a large company. It’s truly the best of both worlds.
• Iterative approach: We make sure we have the time to explore many ideas and iterate on them before we decide on a final approach. Additionally, our work is never done after it ships. We continuously evaluate the metrics after launch and identify ways in which we could improve the product.
• Resourcing based on personal goals and project fit: When figuring out who will work on different projects, it’s a balance between the skill-sets that are needed and personal interest in the problem. It’s very important that our team gets to work on projects that are of interest to them and that help them get exposure to new challenges to help grow their skills.
• Ownership: Everyone on the team acts a leader on their respective projects. We give each Designer the chance to lead project discussions and present ideas to the team. Being on a smaller team gives you more chances to own and take responsibility for your projects compared to much larger Design teams.

Everyone on the team acts a leader on their respective projects

• Fight Club: We’re really not supposed to talk about it, but Fight Club is a dedicated time each week for us to share and critique each other’s work. We also use this time to discuss how we can operate better as a team and share knowledge with each other.
• Pairing designers on projects: We always aim to have multiple designers working on big projects together, such as a Visual Designer working closely with an Interaction Designer. Not only does the balance of skill-sets help the project succeed, but it also helps the team learn from each other and get feedback from different perspectives.
• Getting continuous feedback: Feedback is a critical part of our culture. We give specific, actionable feedback to each other continuously throughout the year and while working together on projects. We also get feedback from our team members in other disciplines so we can get a wide range of perspectives to improve how we work with others.

Where We Work

Your working environment has a significant impact on your effectiveness and happiness as a designer. We pride ourselves on making sure our Designers (and broader team!) have a great environment to work in.

• Design Room: The Design team has the luxury of having our very own Design space to work and collaborate as a team. This space is large, has plenty of natural light, and even has a few cozy arm chairs and a bar cart to welcome other team members in to hang out with us. Most importantly, this space allow us to put up work on large magnetic white boards so we can get feedback from the Design team and from others across the organization.

We have our own space to work and collaborate as a team

• Sitting with Product & Engineering: We don’t always sit within the Design room, however. We frequently sit next to our Product and Engineering teammates to work through problems together and to collaborate in real-time.
• Unique office spaces: One of our offices spaces, one of our first as a company, is a large basement underneath West Elm. The basement has its own quirky character and style, and is where we like to get together as a company to have meetings and eat meals. While the basement is endearing to all of us, we also appreciate having other office spaces that are above ground, with windows!
• Getting out of the office: Working within the office is great, but it’s just as important to venture outside of the office to get the creative juices flowing and to work in different environments. We also love visiting our customers and getting to see their workspaces, helping us to better understand the context in which they use our products.

Join Us

Does this sound like an environment that you’d enjoy? We’re always looking for new, talented designers to join our team and our effort to build products people love. If you’re interested in speaking with us, please email Designer Catriona Cornett (catriona@salesforceiq.com) with your resume and portfolio. We’ll be in touch!

Check out The SalesforceIQ Design Culture (Part 2) for more on how we learn, how we play, and how we keep improving.