Project Structure

Throughout my education and in practice, I strive to use the standard design thinking process.  Start with research, move to ideation, prototype, test, build, test again. Then repeat. The truth is, sometimes it’s not so simple. Working within realistic deadlines and last minute requests mean that product design teams I work with have to be adaptable, and make the best decisions we can with the information available. This means, gathering our research, doing competitive analysis if time is tight, or making the best choice we can with the time and data at hand. Over the past few years, my teams have been paired with design researchers which has been an amazing partnership to have and to work with throughout the design process. As a lead, I spend a lot of my time making sure my team is supported, that they have a solid understanding of the problem before we dive into the solution.  As we move through the design phases, I help guide the team and hone in on solutions that are 1) User-centric, 2) Feasible to build and 3) Make good business sense. 

TEAM ORGANIZATION

In my current role, I lead a creative team in product design for an international bank’s mobile consumer app. We have >60 creatives on our account with ~10 people resourced to each project. Projects can vary in size from small maintenance updates spanning a few days to large redesigns taking 4-6 months.  

My experience with project team’s size and make-up has varied, but the current structure is: UX/UI Creative Lead (me), 2 User Experience Designers, Visual Designer, Copy Writer, User Experience Researcher, and a Digital Product Manager.  We are also partnered with a development pod consisting of engineers, tech leads, QE and a scrum master.

My role in a given project begins by understanding the user or business need to be addressed and to review any current research we have. From there, our team may be able to user test early concept work before moving into higher fidelity mock-ups. I work alongside our user research partners to identify what questions we need answered and developing highly functional, polished prototypes. Additionally, I help the Digital Product Manager (also a Business Analyst on some teams) to define and gather requirements.  I schedule weekly check-ins and working sessions or reviews with the team to allow for work-shares and to help remove blockers and maintain momentum. I help to drive strategy, create final designs, recommend options for testing and answer questions for our development team before building begins.

Project deliverables typically include but are not limited to:

• Competitive Research

• User Research

• Strategy Decks

• User Flows

• Prototypes/Proof of Concepts

• Full Specification Decks (wireframes & user flows with in-depth annotations)

• Creative Specification Decks (creative comps primed for coding)

• Copy Decks (All written content for the experience)

PEOPLE MANAGEMENT & STRATEGY

In addition to leading project teams, I also manage 3-4 User Experience designers.  I like to set up a meeting cadence with each UX designer to meet once every 2 weeks or more often as needed. 

I believe that even the newest and most junior members of our team bring an important and fresh perspective to anything we do and should be given an equal chance to voice their ideas.  I encourage my direct reports to pitch new ideas and concepts to our leadership team and help build their presentation skills and experience with our client partners.

Each year I work with my direct reports to set goals they want to achieve and establish check-points along the way.  

Some goal examples include: 

• Gain experience in certain types of project work (i.e. Research and strategy vs. production heavy projects)

• Build presentation skills

• Take learning courses

• Participate in company programs

• Start a new process for the team 

• Build team culture 

• Work towards a promotion by building certain skills and experience

DESIGN OPS 

As an Experience Lead, I help with certain account oversight/operational tasks.  

Examples of my current duties include: 

• Run monthly team meetings for 40+ designers as a work share and Q&A

• Act as an escalation point for team members

• Assist with project scoping and sizing

• Resource for projects and PTO 

• Candidate screening, interviewing, hiring and training