Process and Mentoring
As I walked around the office I was often asked “What do you do? Did you design our logo?” Our company grew and so did my team. It was natural people were slightly confused with the purpose of the Product Design team.
I decided education was the path to success. I requested to participate with our onboarding sessions with new joiners. I figured catching them as soon as they entered the door to immediately remove mis-expectations. I created a slide deck and collaborated with the design team to make sure their voice was heard. The design team then took turns participating with onboarding new joiners. It actually was a great way to meet new people in the organization.
I quickly realized I developed a micro network effect. Product designers evangelizing our mission and staff approached designers with problems they normally would not have.
A win win situation.
Later, I evolved the presentation into a confluence page so everyone in our organization can have access to the content and I could create several reference documents that could be helpful for any project. For example:
Team leveling
As a manager it’s important to have transparency into roles, responsibilities and expectations. I created a creer matrix to guide designers to a success full path.