The greatest adventures and personal achievements during almost 5 years of running The Gradient
Recently, Telegraf.Design visited our Lviv office and talked with our Founders about projects, changes in business due to the pandemic, and their greatest adventures and personal achievements during almost 5 years of running The Gradient.
See more in an interview on the YouTube channel.
You can find the interview version in Ukrainian here.
To survive 2020
The impact of the pandemic on The Gradient was moderate: there were times of uncertainty, but we did not have to take serious measures such as layoffs or wage cuts. According to Denys and Oleg, the most difficult were March and April 2020, when at times they could not plan further than the next week.
“In general, it was unclear what would happen next. Several clients suspended the projects, negotiations on future projects and sales were on pause too. But from May to June, things started to recover. Probably everyone understood that the situation would last for a long time, so it makes no sense to make a pause. To date, everything has more or less stabilized and we are even reaching planned growth,“ says Oleg.
“Now we have a lot of new requests for cooperation. It seems that everyone took off the switch and started investing actively, ” adds Denys Skrypnyk.
The primary goal during the most turbulent period was to keep the team. Although we were forced to suspend pay increases for 3 months but generally, during the quarantine period we hired 4 new people to the team.
Another challenge for the team was switching to remote work:
“We’re always been advocates of offline cooperation and office work. Before the pandemics, we did not believe that remote work can be normal. The past year has shown that it works, but with one nuance: although projects are going forward, people are losing the feeling that they are working in an agency. They can feel that nothing is happening in the company at all.”
So now The Gradient is back to the hybrid work mode: everyone who wants and has the opportunity can work in the office, but has an option to work from home at any time.
How the team operates
At The Gradient, each Partner works with one or more teams and projects. The team usually consists of a designer and business analyst working closely together, by the analogy of how a copywriter and designer are working together in a creative agency.
“Designer is focused on the interface part of the project, while the business analyst is working on the system part, that is on how the system operates, how the data is structured and handled, what are the APIs, and how those all elements are working together.”
This team composition is explained by the linearity of the design process and the need to validate design decisions. It also ensures the high quality of the design implementation.
“We have our most common question that is ‘what if…?’ A business analyst constantly comes to the designer and asks him “what if…?” And the designer immediately sees what they did not take into account. “
Additionally, there is a design director role in the agency, who sets the strategy, determines the general approach to solving the client’s problem: the team composition, the design discovery process, specific solutions, as well as how tasks would be split between the team members. Currently, Oleg acts as the design director on most of the projects, but we also want to help people grow for this role within the team. We already have a new design director who was promoted internally and also are looking for new people for this role from the outside as well. Although, it is problemattic to find people for such roles on the market:
“Sometimes we meet people with five or even three years of experience who call themselves senior design directors. Well, honestly, that sounds ridiculous. Professional growth in design does not happen that fast. There still may be cases, but not the ones we have encountered. It takes time. And a lot of time and a lot of experience. “
“We do not work with toxic people”
The fundamental difference between a large company and a small agency (The Gradient’s maximum “psychologically comfortable” number of employees is 50) is the significance of each employee’s contribution.
“In our experience, large companies often attract the so-called careerists, people with extraordinary soft skills who can impress everyone with a presentation at a meeting, look the smartest in the room, say very smart things, but in fact do not do actual work. And such people are often promoted to top-level positions very quickly. But in a small company, you can talk but then have to go and do your work. That’s why you can see actual results from each team member very quickly“
At The Gradient, we do not cooperate with “difficult people” and are even ready to hire a junior designer who communicates well rather than a senior designer who likes to complain:
“We have a very clear internal criterion: when we do not want to go to a meeting with a person, feel discomfort or lose energy during it, we have to say goodbye to this person. We made a couple of hiring mistakes in the past and are now trying to fix them at the very early stages. Because it’s easier not to hire someone than to say goodbye later. “
Key skills of the designer at The Gradient
We at the agency create utilitarian interfaces that are focused on solving the client’s business problems, take into account their needs, budget, etc. Also, we do not separate between UX and UI designer roles. The designer must take a full ownership of their solution.
One of the key skills of the interface designer is the ability to “combine a brilliant UI design and a fully functioning solution”:
“We have a rather utilitarian, pragmatic approach to design. We design tools that are functional but we also make them look beautiful. For this type of a design role, a person must have a broad outlook (taking into account as many things as possible and capturing different areas), as well as the ability to have a deeper perspective.”
“The goal is to find a balance and the best compromise between the business challenges, user needs, and technological constraints. To take into account the cost of design. And also not to aim to make a beautiful Dribbble shot, but a working solution. This is probably the key skill“
Clients and projects
The Gradient portfolio consists entirely of international clients, from Canada, to Britain to the UAE. Although Oleg and Denys say that they really want to make a product for the Ukrainian market.
Also at The Gradient, we prefer to work on high-complexity projects, in which our team will be able to showcase our agency approach and experience.
“Customers who come specifically to work with us have a deep understanding of the value of design. Therefore, they listen to our opinion, and we, of course, to theirs. It is important to build relationships.
“Some clients give us all the power to make our own design decisions. On the one hand, this is a plus, because we have the opportunity to work on complex things that we did not have the opportunity to do before. But, on the other hand, it is a minus, because we take a lot of responsibility. But that’s how professional growth happens. “
Over the years of the agency’s work, the projects we work with have become more complex. While we started with designing small applications, now we are working on complex product ecosystems.
“We are interested in working on complex products, with complexity coming at the ecosystem level. For example, one of our portfolio projects is Swan, which includes an application for the end-user which includes functionality for scanning and paying for goods at the supermarket. Plus, we worked on service design — what happens to the order after it’s placed. Another example is when we worked on a very complex interface for a small number of doctors who study the human brain and are already accustomed to the old patterns, so the design should “do no harm”.
“Sometimes, the right chemistry with the client plays a decisive role in choosing a project in the initial stages: “A good chemistry is a sign that everything will go smoothly. If something feels wrong from the beginning, we will prefer not to win the project. “
Business solutions
Running your own service business requires constant learning. Our Founders say that in almost 5 years of running The Gradient they have learned many things they have never done before.
“There are a lot of different problems around, on all fronts. And every day we choose which of them to deal with and to look for a solution. “
“We see the most growth during challenging times when something awkward is happening. When everything is going well, both with money, projects, and the team, it is more difficult to motivate yourself to take on a problem. Especially if the problem is not burning right now, but it actually could in six months. And when troubles come, for example when someone on our team leaves, or we do not win the projects, then there is no other way out but to dig in, analyze, change the processes, broaden your horizons and gradually implement the changes. “
In the future, we as the agency plan to invest in new products, startups, and possibly in joint projects with clients:
“We have an idea this year to test the fund model and make a couple of investments. We want to explore the opportunity to grow by investing in startups, both externally and internally, and will consider opportunities for joint investment with clients.”
During these 5 years of work of the agency:
Denys Skrypnyk: “These were the most intensive almost 5 years in my life in terms of professional development. I learned a lot of things, from how to manage people to running finances, etc. It seems that we actually learned how to run a professional service business. “
Oleg Gasyoshin: “I made a transition from “I am a designer” to “I am an entrepreneur.” And it’s been intense. When you are used to doing all the work yourself, it is difficult to start delegating this work to others. “
“All three partners have become calmer. What used to be a catastrophe is now just a task. “
