or, How a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits Came Together to Make Pretty Things with Computers
During the first 30 days, I lost almost half my team. As the brand new manager, how am I supposed to recover from this? Did my presence, or the change I represented, cause this? What is going on. Eight months ago, I started this journey and one of my major responsibilities at my new job was to define, build and mentor the digital design team. On the day I started, that team was seven people, including myself.
Change was coming…
On day one, I was told that one of the designers would be fired sometime that week. I was given the option of stepping in. This seemed like a bad move, considering that my boss had already made the decision. I chose not to get involved. This did immediately put a hole in the team–and created the first opening to fill.
About a month in, two more people on our team resigned and a third took a leave of absence. One was my direct charge and the other worked in a odd solo role. The third, was part of the print team, and had been there a long time. They were instrumental in the daily workload. This loss would be felt for months, maybe even years. My team was soon down five people and the workload was starting to cause some pain with my crew as we picked up work from the print side to help.
What was I doing?
I was doing four things during this early time.
First, I was trying to get to know the team.
• Who are these people and what are they good at?
• What motivates them and why do they come to work everyday?
• What do they really want to do as designers?
• How can I help them?
Second, I was trying to understand the workflow of the team.
• What kind of projects are we doing?
• What does the team excel at?
• When do things go off the rails, and why?
• Are there more efficient ways to tackle these projects/problems?
Third, I was trying to learn the dynamics of my new office.
• Who are the people here that make the decisions?
• What is the culture: meetings, side conversations, what?
• Who likes each other and who does not?
• How do I help my team get things through?
Fourth, research and more research (links at the bottom)
Growth and growing pains
I knew before accepting the job that the plan was to grow the team. After a lot of discussion, three new positions were approved. I argued to replace the one senior designer with two junior designers. So, the new structure looks like this. Lighter boxes are un-filled positions.
The team was dealing with the workload and before I get into how I built out the team, I should explain a little bit about the team that I inherited. In the simplest terms, the people I was put in charge of are awesome. They are super hard-working, talented and smart. I was very lucky to have a solid core to start with. I can’t say enough about these human beings.
Creative Team Mission
During this evaluation period I realized that we needed a direction, or philosophy about the team’s work. This was my attempt to put something on paper that we could drive towards.
Purpose
Serving the needs of product & marketing teams through strategy, wisdom and action while promoting a more data-driven approach to drive higher sales and better customer experience.
Our Vision to Support the Business
Communicate, execute and embed quality to strategicially further our corporate purpose through creative problem solving and forward-looking technological solutions
Our Core Values to Support Our Vision
Develop strong, reciprocal relationships internally and externally
Provide clear communication
Think strategically using data
Cultivate a creative environment
Acquire and retain top talent
back to the mission of finding people…
As I filled these roles, I did my best to focus on the skills and chemistry of the team. We have a lot of tasks and not all of these tasks are super creative. We needed to build a team that was technical and able to execute maintenance projects efficiently. But, I also wanted to keep my eye on the long term vision of a team that was capable of strategic web planning, UX, UI and other high-level creative work.
prod. = production
How do I find and interview designers?
My approach may be different than others. I am not an HR person, but I’ve been a designer at every level over my career. I know these roles well, I’ve lived them. I use everything available to find people: LinkedIn, Slack, local job boards, friends, Facebook and recruiting agencies.
I start with the portfolio and I try and digest it as a narrative–what is this designer’s taste? what have they worked on? where are their strengths and weaknesses? I try not to get over-hyped or bummed on the content of projects. Some of us are lucky enough to work with big brand names and others don’t get that chance. There is a lot of luck involved and that doesn’t always correlate with someone’s ability. This is especially true of designers in the first five years of their career. I look for potential.
If they have good work, I will read the resume. I look for the same things as everyone else. Where did they go to school, past jobs, anything interesting. Pet peeve: resumes longer than one page–just don’t do it.
The next step is a twenty minute phone call. I want to talk with the candidate and have an honest, informal chat. I want to get a feel for how they think, how they talk about their work and what their motivations are. This is a big ask on a short awkward phone call, I know. But, I try. If this goes well, I bring them in-office for a meeting with the team.
The in-office interview structure is this. Meet and greet with me. Hand off to the senior designer for 20 minutes. Then hand off to a few of the other team members (2–3 at once) for fifteen minutes. I come back and finish up for another fifteen minutes. My interview style is very informal. I don’t have set questions. I want to know if I will be comfortable with this person for forty hours a week or more. We don’t have to be best friends, but we need to be able to communicate, respect each other and work toward common goals. After the hour, I get the team together to hear everyone’s reactions.
The design test
If they are given the thumbs up from the team (and I agree) then we ask that they complete a short design test. The test should be something the team does regularly. It shouldn’t take more than four hours and needs to be deep enough to see how the designer solves a problem. That is the goal: to see how they use design to solve the question asked. Do they understand the question? The result of this phase is the deal breaker usually. I’m often surprised to find that someone really doesn’t understand the nature of the work when I see the result of this test. Once in a while, you are blown away and learn something about the business that you never saw.
Skills Vs. Need
How do you balance the immediate needs while looking towards and planning for future needs? How do you hire people to fulfill both roles? Are these things possible, or even necessary? I thought about this a lot. I probably overthought it.
Ok, enough. Who did I hire?
The first hire was a web designer. She worked in a smaller office and was essentially running the show alone. She wanted to be part of a team, wanted to learn more digital and our office was close to her home. She did not have all of the technical knowledge that we needed. But, she was willing and excited to learn. Being a great designer is always helpful. She fit in really well and her personality, while different from many on the team, meshed well.
After that I got lucky and three hires happened almost at once. The first was a junior designer–she is straight out of school and a very talented designer. Again, she wasn’t as technical, but excited to learn. The other junior designer I found on Slack through a local design group. He is very well rounded: a great designer, UX savvy and technical. The third was for one of the web designer roles. He worked at a company where he felt under-utilized and while a little less experienced than I was searching for, he had the whole package. He was very technical and hungry to learn more, even considering himself somewhat of a front-end developer. His design work and UX work was very strong. He’s become a great addition to the group. He’s quiet, but quickly gaining the trust of the staff and continues to push everyone forward.
After these wins, it got a little tricky. Things do go sideways, this is normal.
We hired another junior designer, straight out of school. She was bright, technical with a modern design sense. You could tell that she thought about the screen first. She started and all seemed well, but then on day 4 she let me know that she would be leaving. Yes, I was a little bummed but, it was probably for the best. She found another job and decided it was a better fit for her. I have no ill will towards her. She is doing what we all need to do: look out for what is best for us.
We found another web designer through a recruiter. She had been working as a contractor for a large corporation and wanted the things that come with the in-house job: benefits, stability, and a team that works together. I’m still surprised by this one. She is super technical, quiet and smart. I haven’t totally figured out how to use all of her talents.
So, we are still down one junior designer. But, the team has grown a lot and works really well together. We have an amazing group of creative, diligent, compassionate people. It’s been a joy to work with them and help guide them forward.
The future
I spent a fair amount of time looking at what the team might be in 3 years and 5 years. How would the team grow and evolve to best serve the business? Above, is one of these plans. The colors correspond to the skills from the diagram earlier (skills vs. need). These areas will overlap. Recognize people’s strengths, but designers shouldn’t be siloed off into one zone for eternity. Collaboration and cross-pollenization of ideas is necessary and this is the best way for good ideas to affect other good ideas. How these all work together isn’t simple and definitely not something I figured out. This is a dream state.
And…
So, after 8 months, I have resigned. A new opportunity has presented itself and I’m moving back to California before the East Coast winter comes. I feel really proud of the team I helped build. They are capable of great work and I will be watching from afar. I do feel bad. Part of me wishes that I could continue to guide this group through the chaos. I’m confident they will do fine without me.
Thank you to the team. You made this job easier than it might have been. Your professionalism, talent and brains are not lost on me.
The Research
These were helpful…
How to Build a High-Performing Design Team
How to Hire a Designer & Build a Design Team
Unintuitive Things I’ve Learned about Management (Part 1)
The 8 Qualities of a Great Design Leader
“We only hire the best”
Unicorn designers don’t exist. Generalists do.
7 tips to create high functioning design teams (Part 1)
(Design) Lead Starter Kit
The not-so-dark art of design management
Less helpful for me…
How To Design Your Design Team
Forming A Design Team, Part I: Structure
The Structure of Optimizely’s Design Team
Creative Teams Title Structure
How to Structure a Creative Agency
Creative Operations: Getting Your In-House in Order
The new creative team and getting it to work
How to Structure Your Culture for Innovation
These didn’t help me so much, but maybe you’ll get something out of them…
Building the In-house Design Agency
Rethinking The Advertising Agency Team Structure