Originally published on Medium
How we do things is important
Like many (every?) Design team, as we stormed-formed-and-normed we sat down and workshopped through our team tenets.
Originally published on Medium
Like many (every?) Design team, as we stormed-formed-and-normed we sat down and workshopped through our team tenets.
It’s really important to discuss and agree — together — what is important to you all as you go about your designy-things. Like in any relationship, teams need to put effort into truly understanding each other. It also shows the rest of your organisation that the “how” is just as important as the what.
Here are a few interesting things we’ve learnt about establishing the right operating principles:
Allow ideas to run freely! There is plenty of time to filter and cull but this shouldn’t happen before a concept has a chance to see the light of day. Sometimes great things come of wild ideas. It is better to overstretch and pull it back than to never hit the mark.
We are visual people and communicate best in pictures on paper, not arm gestures in the air! Take the time to sketch — no matter how basic — to remove ambiguity.
When someone presents a concept, ask questions, ask them to sell it! Don’t say “that won’t work” or “you haven’t thought about …” Instead, ask “how would someone …” or “could that be used to …?”. This not only builds a safe culture without judgement but helps that person fill in the gaps.
Beginning, middle and end. Start with clear goals, diverge, explore, converge and close.
Like anything, a great workshop rarely happens by accident. We will arrive at better outcomes through structured activities and boundaries. Ironically, the more we do this, the more spontaneous we can become.
We will allow people to explore ideas and concepts both individually and as a team. Sometimes, it is best to work on an idea and then share. The magic happens as the group extends, challenges and pushes the concept forward.
Explore possibilities. Think how to scale different solutions in terms of complexity and effort.
You can’t solve everything at once. Start with simple, common scenarios and work up to edge-cases and curly problems, otherwise, nothing will get off the ground.
There are no heroes. It is our responsibility to make each other look amazing.