In my most recent role, I worked with other leaders to transform the design team from a group of siloed designers into a strategic organization with framework for professional growth.
Where it was
Several individual designers with no design organization
Each designers “belonged” to a product team and worked exclusively on an area
No clear professional growth framework
No connection and collaboration between designers in different locations
In Nielsen Norman UX Maturity Framework, it was between level 2-3
How we shaped it
With our VP of Design, we iterated and formed a scalable design organization based on Org Design by Design Org by Peter Merholz and Kristin Skinner.
Design teams were aligned with merchant’s journey, from awareness, application, and onboarding to making transactions, managing orders, tracking finance, and managing assets.
What I did
I grew the team by 50% in its first year (during pandemic).
I expanded my responsibilities to include back-office experiences for business owners and managers, in addition to front-of-the-house experience for servers and clerks.
Set up designers to own broad areas, allowing them to work on various related projects and develop their expertise while defining the experience across different platforms.
It’s FIKA time!
To connect designers in different locations and to build a sense of community, the team got together virtually to play trivia, share random knowledge, or play games (although we hadn’t figured out virtual karaoke!)
