02 | How to grow with every project

A couple of tips on how to expand your design skillset.

18th December 2015
Today I was biking back home, thinking about this 10 weeks project that I have just finished. The day was pretty cold and the city lights were reflecting on a snow, brightening the way up the hill. My tiredness pushed me to bike really slow. As usual, mind started to wander around about last hours. I started to reflect on my final presentation.

On one side I felt amazing, I worked so hard and the final result was great! The feedback from teachers was also positive, not amazing but still…On the other side, I realised that I don’t have a feeling that I learned something new. I couldn’t even find a way to measure if I improve on anything…

Tricky to see a progress

Seeing a progress or growth of skills in the design field is a challenging thing. It is really hard to take a step back and look at yourself not as a person but more as ‘a tool’. ‘A tool’ that you are in charge of sharpening during your whole career. Generally, small steps of progress are really hard to notice in almost any creative field. Designers are not sportsmen that can measure their performance defined by time of a run or height of a jump. Quite often an acquired skill — especially the one from a soft skill side, so smoothly jumps to our skill set that we are not even aware of its presence but during a design process we are using it naturally and with confidence.

So this whole progress thing stuck in my head and I decided to figure it out for myself. I asked around and talked with more experienced designers about their ways of adding new skills to their skillsets and their approaches to measure it. In general, there is a lot about the perception and confidence that you are learning and growing as a young designer or design student. Because you are for sure. It just requires some measurement tools and guides. Here are some of the most important tips that I gathered. They are divided into three categories depending on the project phase.

Before a project starts

It is really important to take some time before the project start and think a little what you would like to learn the most in this project. It can be a soft skill such as ‘I would really like to improve my interview skills’ or more related to a hard skill like ‘I never used Adobe XD, I would like to learn it’. Try to not choose too many things. You will definitely learn many things during the whole project but writing 20 skills on ‘a wish list’ is too much and will only blur your focus. I would probably choose two design methods and try for one hard skill, preferably three of them will be spread during the project time and I will use them in different project phases.

Next step would be to think about the level that you would like to achieve with this particular skill. Of course in case of learning new software is quite easy — you can set yourself a goal that you would like to become fluent in using it or maybe your goal is to just try it, explore its features and have a basic understanding. When it comes to skills that are not software related, I quite often look for an inspiration amongst my colleagues. I could say that ‘I would love to do interviews with users as good as my classmate Joanna because, in my opinion, she is amazing at it’.

Of course, try to not set those goals too ambitious. It is crucial to not get stress too much about achieving the dream level because that will kill the most important part of every student project which is to have fun and do cool things!

Before a project starts it is worth to mention to your teammates that during this project you will be trying to work on those skills. If you mention that at the beginning you can also ask them to help you in achieving those goals or giving you feedback about your progress.

During the project

When you are ready with your project plan and you have a basic understanding how the schedule will look like it is a good idea to map the chosen skills on a project plan and think a little about how to prepare the best for a moment when you will start using them. Maybe you have to borrow a book to explore a topic a little deeper. Maybe you have to watch or read some tutorials. This step is really important. Trying to open a new software for the first time when a deadline is approaching and you and our team are nervous is not the best idea. It is hard to expect great results without any previous explanation in your own time. So take small steps, learn a little more by yourself before you will be ready to use it in a team. You will learn a lot when you start taking your knowledge from tutorial or book into the practice. It can be challenging but also really rewarding.

It is always harder to learn something only by yourself. If you know someone, maybe from your team, class or staff, that is good at the skill try to ask for a help when you get stuck. A 20-minute session with an expert can save you hours of figuring it out by yourself.

I am aware that in many student projects, team members are doing the things that they are the best at. It will definitely improve the overall quality of work and maybe give a chance to win some awards but it is worth to think is this is beneficial for a sustainable growth. If you only do the things that you are good at you will not have a chance to develop other skills.

After the project is done

It is a good idea to have a meeting with your teammates, tutors or organize a one on one chat with each of them to discuss their thoughts on obtaining skills that you choose at the beginning. As I mentioned before it is hard for ourselves to judge it but a feedback from someone that was close to you during this process can give you a different perspective. During the talk try to explain what level of a skill you were aiming for and ask if they think that you achieved it. Try to ask how you could improve it and always be open on constructive critique.

Not always we will be happy with the development of a skill. Actually, it can happen quite often. Maybe the project was too intense to have time to explore a skill, maybe the goal that we set for ourselves was too hight. But what is worth to mention is that we made the first step to obtain it and can always try to build on top of that during the next project.

Last words

Not always we are able to maintain a new skill during a project. Sometimes it is really hard to judge if we learn something. But those guidelines can be a starting point that will help to have a tangible feeling that you improved and that is as important as a skill itself.

Let me know what are your approaches to setting and tracking your design growth.