Co-creation
One of my biggest aha! moments when getting into leadership is how effective the everyday toolkit of a designer is for things other than design. After being in countless meetings where the goal of the meeting wasn’t clear, success wasn’t defined, and discussions went in circles, I decided to use the most powerful tool in the designer’s toolbox, workshops.
I am a believer in collective intelligence, the idea that the wisdom of an unspecialized group will outperform that of an expert, I have used co-creation to develop shared understandings within the design team, such as a team charter and our more recent career framework. In addition, I have led and facilitated workshops each year with the broader product and engineering leadership team to map out and plan our product strategies, as well as across the organization to create visionary journey maps.
Inclusive practices
Hand in hand with the ideas of collective intelligence is the practice of equal conversation. All participants in a given meeting should have the ability to express their ideas in equal proportions. If one voice becomes louder than the rest, the collective intelligence decreases. In out remote and async world, making sure all team members have contributed becomes of even greater importance.
I have worked with our design team to implement these types of inclusive practices across the board from Design critiques, Retros, to whole day offsites, where half the team might meet in person, contributing to a shared doc, while the other half contributes asynchronously. We meet up to cluster and review, and I take the time to surface the larger learnings.
Many of the workshops and discussions I facilitate within our product and engineering leadership team use methods such as silent reflection and separate together brainstorming. Every meeting has a pre-read and begins with 5 minutes to gain context in silence. All of these methods, while not groundbreaking, do allow for the more introverted or remote members to capture their ideas and offer feedback without having to simultaneously process or become influenced by the input of others.
Empathy
All of this is based on the simple idea of empathy. As a one moves away from doing the actual work into more strategic and operational areas, you begin to forget what it was like as an individual contributor. Active listening has been key in being able to note problems across the organizations and identifying patterns and trends.
Listening tours have also been essential for understanding the pressures and motivations of your peers and stakeholders, allowing us to make mutually beneficial decisions for our teams as well as the organization.
In fact, I recently restructured the design team topology using this method in order to elevate design as a more strategic partner, reducing fractured user experiences, and increasing collaboration across our team clusters.
Reach out
If you’d like to chat or would like any more information about the above, feel free to reach out via email or find me on Linkedin.
🧭 I am also looking for my next opportunity at a mission driven organization.
🔥 Interests include, DEI, privacy first, healthcare, or education tech.