A day in the life of…Nicola Francis, Product Design Manager at Waitrose & Partners Digital
We’ve asked Nicola Francis what is it like to be a Product Design Manager at Waitrose Digital
So what do you do all day at work?
Lots of planning and organising! I manage a growing team of Lead Product Designers and Senior Product designers who work on our web shopping journeys and our mobile app. A lot of my time is also spent on stakeholder management and understanding the development roadmap and priorities for our products to ensure teams have the right product design resource allocated at the right time.
What are the people like?
I love the people I work with and they really do make a difference to my day. Everyone in the online team is friendly and great to work with. We collaborate on design ideas, challenges and feedback. The product design team is very dynamic in their skill sets — some are very strong in UX, some in UI, others are more multi-disciplined, so there is always someone you can learn from or bounce ideas off.
And the best bits are?
Seeing the team grow, develop and explore innovative ways to make our online experiences the very best. We’ve had to adapt to a new way of working and everyone is so passionate about making things the best they can be for the future. The team is so adaptable and keen to learn, and as a Manager, I couldn’t ask for more.
What gets your goat?
I love seeing new features, improvements and experiences being delivered and nothing frustrates me more than standing still! There are so many exciting digital improvements happening all the time which can be used to make our shopping experiences amazing — and I’m looking forward to seeing how we can implement them at Waitrose.
What do you get up to when you’re not working?
I’ve always been a very creative person and I do a lot of drawing and painting. I love to sketch animals and wildlife, and also enjoy doing watercolour paintings. I’ve also just started learning how to do digital artwork which is quite different from my usual style!
I’m also into my running and cycling and will do a bike ride or run most days, but following Covid-19 I’ve changed to mainly running on the treadmill and cycling indoors, but with the use of apps like AppleFitness+ and Zwift, it’s not quite as boring anymore!
And finally, I feel very lucky to be working for the Partnership who is sponsoring me to study for my MBA in senior leadership through the partnership apprenticeship scheme. It takes up a LOT of my time with uni workshops, study days, and assignment writing, but it’ll be worth the challenge in the end and having the flexibility, opportunity and support of my team has made it a lot easier!
