6 Month “Survival Check” As a Sole Designer @ Startup
This is a*Thinking In Progress* article. It is recommended to share *Work In Progress* early and often, so it must be okay to share *Thinking in Progress* early and often, yes?
Let’s be real: Being a solo designer isn’t the career path I’ve planned for myself. But things happen, and I need to adapt.
Here are some potentially controversial ideas I have — ideas that deviate from “UX Design Advice” from designers working at more mature design orgs.
#1 Sometimes, you can’t be proactive; the best you can do is being reactive and “give the best reactions.”
Example: Project planning. As I’m writing this article, there are 7 product squads at the product team. They each have UX projects from time to time. And I need to manage 7+ different timelines.
One way to get better at planning is to be proactively involved in each squad’s quarterly planning meetings. But hey, if I were to join 7 differnet teams, I’ll be sitting in meetings all day and have no time to design.
So in this case, I ask PMs for all the projects that havee a “UX” need for the quarter and create my own timeline. Then I negotiate with PMs in advance so I have a little bit more leap time.
#2 Sometimes, seeing big pictures by itself doesn’t drive results; knowing when to “go after the big fish”, when to “focus on tasks at hand” is more important.
This really is a case-by-case situation. But maybe these following questions can help identifying whether you want to catch the bigger fish or not?
- Are we creating more design/tech debt, by focusing only on tasks at hand?
- Is the motivation of the project “reactive” in nature?
- Is the project a huge blocker to other initiatives?
- Do you, the designer, have the time to step back to think about the bigger picture?
- How important “time” is in this project?
