Things I wish someone had told me

I joined Samsung on a startup within the Visual Display division. One of the main attractions to the opportunity was joining early and getting to build out a team. Over my tenure at Samsung, I had the privilege of doing just that. I interviewed people across disciplines, and I ended up growing a small design team of 3.

Being able to interview candidates was by far one of the most rewarding experiences I have had in my career. I found it fascinating how different people thought through similar problems. I wrote a short post about that experience. But I digress, this post is about my experience leading a design team.

I am what you would call a full stack designer. I span the entire design discipline. I also venture into the product management and front-end development side of things. When it came time to grow my team, I first wanted to find other full stack designers. I wanted to structure my team so that each designer could own a project from start to finish.

As things usually go, life paid no attention to my plans. I interviewed two designers who were particularly amazing at and had great potential. I hired one UX designer and one Visual designer. I still wanted them to own projects end to end, but lucky for me, we had a culture of transparency and growth in our team. Failing is the best way to learn. We welcomed it and expected everyone to fail every once in awhile. It means you tried but you were just off of the mark. It helps you hone your intuition, and make you faster and more efficient.

lucky for me, we had a culture of transparency and growth

Process

I always knew that a team needs some sort of structure to succeed. Over the course of our first year, I worked closely with all aspects of our product and team. I had developed a pretty good idea of what our design process was. I drafted up a visual guide for our process, and showed it to my first hire. She agreed with it, and we presented it to the whole team.

When you show someone a process that looks structured, the knee jerk reaction is to think it’s a waterfall process. It is important to note that Agile isn’t the absence of structure; it’s the adoption of scoping smaller for a more iterative process. That process looks a bit different when it comes to design. Design has a lot of phases within it; especially when you are building a product from the ground up.

I made sure to note that our process was more of a checklist to keep us honest to our craft. Each project had different needs. Designers need to think through things, and this flow corresponded to that thought process.

our process was more of a checklist to keep us honest to our craft

For more about the design process we settled on, check out my article on A Modern Design Process.

Roles & Responsibilities

How your team works with other disciplines is crucial to the success of your team. There are many successful companies that have a culture of “us vs them.” In a growing startup, that mentality can’t survive. Teaching your team to respect others, their discipline, and the relationship between the two is essential.

respect others, their discipline, and the relationship between the two

Coming from a larger company with a waterfall process, it was easy to fall into this trap. Forcing yourself to speak about the entire team as “We” and not “the PM” or “the Engineer” has a profound impact on how you subconsciously think about them. Showing your people that you respect not just them, but others in the organization sets the right example. It helps you create a positive environment that will help your people grow.

Assigning Work

It is important to grow your people by challenging them. That doesn’t mean that you don’t take advantage of their expertise. I had two designers who were on the opposite ends of the design spectrum. One loved the thought that goes into the experience of the product. The other had a background in traditional visual and print design.

Each project requires a particular skill set. Each project also requires knowledge of various, different skills or areas of design. That said, one of those is the primary skill required. Assigning the right designer for a project should correspond to their particular strength. You should consider what the secondary and tertiary skills for each project are. Then see how those opportunities might be leveraged to help your people grow.

see how those opportunities might be leveraged to help your people grow

For instance, a new complex flow required the creation of new paradigms. This was much heavier on the UX side, so I assigned my UX designer. She wanted to grow her interaction design skills, and in this particular flow, motion could play a key role in simplifying it. I challenged her to try new prototyping tools to help further her interaction skills, while adding a new software to her resume.

Encouraging Growth

How do you help someone grow? More than that, how do you even start to help someone who is content with what they are doing? This is by far the hardest question to answer as a lead. It is also an answer that is different for each individual in your team, and that’s important. There is no one size fits all solution when it comes to helping people. To be a good lead, you need to know those whom you lead.

To be a good lead, you need to know those whom you lead.

Understand what makes your people tick, then understand where they want to go. It is your job to get them from point A to point B. Do that by giving them assignments that give them the opportunity to grow into what they want to become.

E.M. Kelly once said: “The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, ‘Go!’ — a leader says, ‘Let’s go!’.” When it is all said and done, this is the key to help your people grow: lead by example. You are not perfect, and you need to know that you aren’t. The important part is that you identify the things that you lack and grow yourself. In doing so, your people will grow too.

Critique

I believe critiquing your team’s work is essential to the growth of the team. It goes deeper that just playing the devil’s advocate. It’s about educating your team with the knowledge and thought process to defend themselves. I learned the most when my managers and bosses ripped my work to shreds and helped me build it back up again. I learned from those mistakes, and didn’t make them again.

Doing this in a safe environment is what made it a learning experience. Set up formal reviews, and force yourself and your team to present as if the CEO was in the room. Force yourself to tell the story out loud. Don’t give your brain the chance to fill in the gaps and then you end up catching the holes in your story. Pointing out these issues helps you train your brain to catch itself.

Don’t give your brain the chance to fill in the gaps

My Visual designer was shy and softspoken. We used these critiques as opportunities for her to challenge herself. I wanted to get her ready for when I wasn’t in the room to provide assistance. I critiqued not only her work, but how she presented. By being the bad guy in those meetings, she was better prepared to face those who were not primarily concerned with her growth.

Networking

Networking is an essential skill for growing and surviving in a corporate environment. Your ability to network becomes a benefit or hurdle for those who rely on you. Learning how to network is crucial, and teaching it is an often overlooked lesson.

The more you network, the better you can position yourself and your team. The size of your professional network can help you with all the above points. Most importantly it can help you help your people.

Getting buy-in from the right people helps you secure the best opportunities for you and your team. Knowing who is who, and making the best impression raises your team’s status both within your company, but also amongst the industry. It also broadens your horizons on what is happening in your field, so that you can stay up to date.

By connecting my Visual designer with other designers within Samsung, she was able to stay current on platform design language, but also contribute to them to move us as a company forward.

Negotiating

Like networking, the skill of negotiation is a prerequisite skill to being able to achieve major goals as a leader. As an independent contributor being able to negotiate is the difference between finishing a project on track or missing the mark. As a lead the stakes increase. Your ability to negotiate can win your team projects, get you funding, but more importantly build the connections you need to help your team thrive.

the difference between finishing a project on track or missing the mark

The usefulness of negotiation is visible when dealing with stakeholders from different disciplines. As a designer, the ability to negotiate and get buy-in from engineering to build a seemingly complex experience that will ultimately position the product in a better place is often a hard argument to win. Negotiating with Product Managers to increase the scope of the MVP include the foundations of a good UX might be an easier argument to win. Feeling out who needs what and how to get everyone on the same page is the key to negotiating in the workplace.

Lead by Example

Steve Carell’s character Michael Scott in the TV series “The Office” perfectly captures the mayhem that can ensue from a boss who so desperately tries to be everyone’s friend.

Psychologists often prescribe patients a simple treatment: journaling. In doing so, they are prescribing something much stronger than just simple writing. They are prescribing a treatment that will eventually rewire the patient’s brain. It is often the case that many new leads reflect on their previous experiences. Though their reflections may not be as formal as a journal, our brains think of the extremes. A common reaction to this reflection on the extremes is to want to be your direct report’s friend and not a boss. Become aware of the actions you take, good and bad, and use them to learn from and teach your team.

Become aware of the actions you take, good and bad

Going back to the quote from E.M. Kelly, the key is to not look at your position as you being “the boss”; instead as an opportunity for you to be a leader. You don’t have to bark commands at your employees. Change your perception of the role from being the person in charge, to being the mentor who want’s to see their people succeed. To lead means to lead by example.

Protect Your Own

Humans are herd animals. In modern terms, this means we still like to feel safe. If we don’t feel safe, then we consider our environment to be toxic. To this our autonomic reflexes give us two options: fight or flight.

As an independent contributor, the environments I felt the safest in were the ones I knew someone had my back. Unsurprisingly, those were also the environments in which I grew and thrived. In contrast, the environments that I considered toxic were the ones in which knowledge is horded. In that environment there was no time to learn or grow as you constantly have to look out for yourself.

I felt the safest when I knew someone had my back

As a lead, I wanted to make sure that I was able to create an environment like that for my direct reports. A big part of doing that meant discarding my Ego, and taking the blame when it involved them. This isn’t to say that there are no consequences. Let your people know that you will protect them. Doing this will help ensure you are creating an environment in which your people can thrive.

The Bottom Line

To me, the bottom line of being a lead is being everything but that. It is not about holding a title, or the power and authority that might come with it. Being a lead is about being selfless for those who trust you enough to follow you. Commit yourself to your team; be honest and humble, and they will return the favor. As a leader you curate your team's culture. You have the opportunity to create an environment people will look to find in the future or one that they will run away from. Most importantly, have fun.

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Fostering an environment of growth

[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color="custom" style="double" el_width="50" accent_color="#b69853"][vc_column_text]I’ve been working in the industry for a while now, and in that time I have had the opportunity to work for and with some amazing people and some not so. I feel most fortunate to have had the opportunity and experience of interviewing, hiring, and growing a team in a startup like environment so early in my career.

Being that I was one of the team founders, I was uniquely positioned to help craft our team culture and create an environment that excited. Actually, we all were really excited about the prospect of molding a team and creating an environment that fostered innovation at a pace our parent company had never seen. One of our first team events was attending the Wisdom Conference session with Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, on Compassionate Management. I am also a huge fan of Simon Sinek and his work on what it means to be a true leader from a biological and evolutionary stance.

Reading books and attending seminars make not a good leader. Synthesizing the principles and the knowledge bequeathed to you and integrating them into your own personality is only the first step to becoming a great leader. You have to actually lead and practice those principles; personalize and apply them to your own life.

How do you find the right people?

As is the case with many start ups, we couldn’t hire fast enough. Our quality bar was high, and working on a stealth product didn’t help attract candidates. We wanted to create something that our industry had never seen. We couldn’t afford to hire solely based on relevant or prior work experience. So we turned to potential and culture as our gold standard.

We didn’t invent the idea, nor did we perfect it. Many companies have approached hiring in the same way. We interviewed for skills, potential, and cultural fit. The second two factors are very subjective, so how do you evaluate against it? “Stripe” came out of nowhere and turned the payment processing field on its head, and did it with an amazing team. In a talk, Stripe said their make or break factor for hiring was one simple question. “If this person was working on the weekend, would I come in and work with them?” It is the question like this that helps you quantify and evaluate candidates against the subjective aspects.

By distributing the hiring principles across multiple interviewers, we were able to establish a measuring stick and keep evaluating each candidate against it. By asking strategic questions to probe thought process, and allowing the interviewee to take the conversation forward, we were able to understand their potential. By asking them personal questions, and putting them through short series of “stress tests” we could see what they were made of and if they were a cultural fit. Culture is also a thing that should excite a candidate. By describing how we worked, and how our team bonded together we would either elicit excitement, apathy, or disinterest.

How does this foster growth?

Before moving forward, I would like to state that the above do not and should not translate into hiring “yes men”. It is imperative to bring people with different experiences, backgrounds, and genders into an environment unified by one mission and culture, in order to foster not just growth but creativity.

Hiring friendly people, or ones that believe in the same things as you may not seem to directly create an environment that fosters growth, but looking at it through a sociological lens; it makes all the difference.

When individuals are surrounded by people who they can relate to, then they feel safe. If they feel safe, then they are willing to share information. If they can utilize their colleagues to fill in knowledge gaps, they wont be afraid to get out of their comfort zone and make mistakes. They will learn from those mistakes and share it back into the collective pool of group knowledge, which will feedback into the cycle.

This might be an overly simplistic view of the inner workings of a team, but none the less, it proves the logic behind the rational. Hiring people who believe in a common cause and get along with each other creates a culture in which they challenge each other and grow from one another’s collective experiences.

How do you help your people grow?

I once watched an interview with Satya Nadella in which he was asked “what was one the things about becoming a CEO that he did not expect.” His reply was simple, everyone knows what a CEO does, the boring business stuff, but how does a CEO fit in with their employees? He said that a CEO’s primary obligation to his employees is curating the culture, sustaining it and giving it direction and then making sure that the right atmosphere is struck.

As a leader, it is your job to curate that culture. Help your people grow by challenging them, and protect them when they fail. Understand what they want to accomplish for themselves, and see how you can enable them to reach those goals. Ensure that they have an environment that they can thrive in, and know that they are protected. Let them know that you are only a human, and that you can make mistakes as well, but you own your mistakes. Be transparent in your decisions, but protect them from anything that might unravel the culture.

Wrapping it all up

You can read as many books as you can get your hands on, or attend as many workshops and seminars on being an effective leader as you can, but at the end of the day, you are a team. You are not as weak as your weakest link, but you are as strong as the collective group. Finding people who can be more than just colleagues but friends helps ensure that the environment you work in is a safe one. If you have that base, as a leader, you must be the catalyst to create a culture of growth by fostering growth within your team, and by challenging them and protecting them when they need it.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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Demystifying and integrating design within a non-design organization

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What is this post about?

In my career, I have spent a lot of time working with people who are not design oriented. If you’re not a designer, chances are, it all looks like magic. In goes some thoughts and out comes a design. I personally am of the position that all design must have a logical and defendable explanation behind it or it’s not design, it’s art.

Over the past couple of years, I worked under extreme deadlines and ever changing conditions. I found myself asking “how do I, as a designer, really fit into an environment that produces a real and operational product?” Through many rounds of revisions, I came up with a process that really integrates Design into the real world, and I want to share it with you.

Before I get started, I just want to lay some of the ground rules to this post.

Who am I?

My name is Mohsin Amjed, and I am a full-stack/unicorn/generalist designer. I should also mention that I am self-taught but mentored by some really amazing people along the way.

What does that mean?

Basically, I scope like a project manager, think like a UX Designer, design like a visual designer, animate like an interaction designer, and code HTML & CSS like a web developer. I do this all in my own way. It may sound ridiculous but it’s true.

Why is this important?

This diverse background helped me craft a process that works not just for me and my design team, but for my greater multi-disciplinary organization.

Background

I joined Samsung almost two years ago, in a brand new startup like team, working on a stealth project within the Visual Display Division of the company. I was the sole designer for a year, outnumbered by engineers. Within a year, we built a product at breakneck speeds, and I helped take an idea from the conceptual stage, and turn it into a real product.

Another thing you need to know is that my boss was a perfectionist, and fancied himself as a designer.

What does this mean?

I can’t tell you the specifics of how this process evolved, or what I built, due to confidentiality issues.

Why is this important?

We had very little time to go through the stages of team development (Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing). I had to trim down my process, compromise on steps, but keep the quality bar high. Most importantly, I had no one around me who understood a thing about Design, it’s principles and practices. Despite all this, I was expected to fill in the gaps and educate people to get the job done.

The Process

I am sure you have seen dozens of diagrams and infographics depicting the cycle of a design process. They all have the same basic parts, but none of them really explain how they relate to or integrate with an engineering  or a product development organization. Starting on a brand new team with no likeminded people; I ended up spending my energy on consensus building most of the time. I was forced to take a step back and look at the situation not as the designer or even the employee, but as a co-founder to this startup like team.

When I arrived at Samsung and walked through the door, I met my boss, the product manager, and the engineering generalist*1. We had nothing but a crazy idea. A month and a half later, we had a preliminary proof of concept, and pitched it to upper management for survival.

This process doesn’t have to be a hard fast rule, but it should act as a checklist to make sure you did your job properly. As a designer, the onus is on you to show why the final product is the best option.

Roles & Responsibilities (R&R)

In order to speak about a process, I have to define the roles and responsibilities. It took us a few tries to get this right, but without it, nothing works. These roles are highly simplified and might be a bit controversial.

Product Manager (PM)

The person in-charge of keeping everyone on track, but most importantly, getting everyone what they need to do their respective jobs. This person scopes out the product and gives it meaning.

Engineer - Generalist

The person who codes, and brings everything to life. Without this person, you might as well be unemployed.

Designer - User Experience

The problem solver. The person who takes the requirements and designs a solution for it, and makes the solution beautiful.

White Boarding (Optional)

This falls more on the PM side of things, but is equally an important part of the design process. Before the PM puts together the Product Requirements Document (PRD), the designer and PM should get together and white board the scope of project. Both individuals may view this differently, and ultimately will ask different questions. The goal is to get the PM what he/she needs to write the PRD.

Product Requirements Document (PRD)

The design process starts here. The PRD serves as your True North. The journey might take you to a different destination, but having a solid base will make sure that all disciplines move together and go through the same thought process. I look at this as one’s perspective alignment. If I am standing on the 5th floor - on the left side of a building, and my PM is standing on the ground floor - at the right side, we might be looking at the same thing but will have two very different perspectives. We both might be right but agreeing on what we see might be a challenge. The PRD ensures that everyone is starting on the same page.

Research

This should look familiar. Any good design process starts with some form of research. Research should include anything and everything that is relevant to the product defined in the PRD, including the PRD its self. Look at existing work samples, similar features in adjacent industries, competitors, and the industry in general. You need to really understand what problem you are really trying to solve, why it exists, and how others have attempted to solve similar problems.

This step should, in most cases, result in a mood board of some form.

Research Presentation

It might not seem like a step, but this is an important part of the overall process. Present your findings to your entire design team. As one unit, you should look for any unknowns and try to answer them. This meeting should reveal what additional research is needed, or if you are ready to move on to the next step. If you did everything right, you should have a good sense of what the UX flow might be.

Wireframes

I like to say we wireframe for three things. The PRD, Engineering scaffolding, and the UX flow. What does that mean? Going back to our Roles & Responsibilities you want to make sure that you check off all requirements in the PRD. You also want to make sure that you unblock engineering to start architecting the front end. This provides you with a whole lot of time to do your due diligence as a designer. Sync up with the feature team regularly to make sure you don’t go too far down the rabbit hole; sync ups are a hard requirement for everyone.

It is worth notifying the engineering team that the wireframes are for flow and that items may get moved around.

Wireframe Review

Again, this is step might seem meaningless but it is for accountability. The entire feature team should already be on the same page, so this review is for the entire extended team. Invite all team members interested in joining this review. Vet the flow as a team, and let everyone poke holes. Wireframes are the base of your design and the product; make sure they are strong ones.

Visual Explorations

Since you already unblocked engineering, you should have plenty of time to do some visual explorations. You should keep the feature team in the loop, but share ideas as the solidify. It is important to have your design time flush out ideas and not contaminate or bias people with bad ones. However, you shouldn’t disappear for a month and comeback with something new. This step should yield at least two explorations to review.

Design Direction

Once you have enough visual explorations and you feel comfortable, set up a design review with just the design team. This needs to be a safe environment, so avoid having other disciplines in the room. As a design team, go through the designs and poke holes where ever you find vulnerabilities. Remember, design should always have a logical explanation. As a team, come up with a direction and flush it out and start planning your design review.

Design Review

This is where you show your amazing design to the whole team. It is also the place where you have to prove your design to the team. Always structure this review as a presentation. Present the base research, the wireframe, the design recommendation, and make sure you put some explorations in an appendix. Ask the team for their comments, and do a last round of examination. You want to make sure that you have buy-in from the entire team. Take notes and embrace constructive criticism.

Improvements

Use the notes from the design review, and use them as your preflight checklist. Patch any remaining holes and limit your improvements to a day. Get the design ready for lockdown.

Design Lock

Setting the expectation and criterium to a “design lock” is paramount. Use the R&R as your saving grace. The only subjective feedback that matters at this point is from the design team. You have kept the feature team in the loop throughout the entire project, and incorporated their feedback. Now is not the time to use them for that purpose.

Lock the design with your design team, then move on to the feature team. The PM should agree that this design solves the problems it needed to, and the engineer should agree that the design is within reasons. If these conditions are met, call the design locked.

Publish the design document to the team as the locked design. This is your PRD, this is your code review. Make sure this document is pixel perfect and an accurate representation of your skill set.

Redlines

Never redline before a design lock. It only adds to the chaos. Redlines are your official deliverables as a designer. It is what you use to hold engineering accountable, so make sure it is detailed and comprehensive. Go the extra mile and make this document as engineering friendly as possible. It might be a pain, but it ensures that your design gets implemented and most importantly, the users get the experience they deserve.

Interaction Design

I set this step as an optional one, because not every project needs extra interaction design time. You should always be thinking about the Ix, and it should be apparent in all of the previous steps. That being said, sometimes the project is more complex and it warrants significant time for prototype development. Prototypes come in many different shapes and forms, use what is right for the project.

Fit & Finish

This is one of the most crucial steps. Set the understanding with engineering that they will be held accountable for implementation. You should spend a good amount of time working with engineering to fit & finish both major and minor design and UX bugs. This is where you sign off on the product as the Design stakeholder.

Final Thoughts

This process may not be a perfect fit for you and your requirements might be a bit different. However, you should be flexible enough to mold this process into not just what  you need but to what each project may need.  Each person brings something different to the table, but the key to success is to show respect and work with everyone. I may have been lucky to work with an extremely seasoned and mature PM and a incredibly talented engineer, but at the end of the day, design is not an island; you must learn how to work with non-designers; educate and integrate them into your process.

Let me know if you have any thoughts.

 

1. there were two other individuals who I’m leaving out

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