The Everytale team grew quite quickly. After a year of being the only designer, I needed a design team.
I had previous experience leading people (up to thirty volunteers). Nevertheless, I had never been a design manager before and had never done it remotely.
In the eye of a storm
After many years of working in a startup, I forgot how challenging it could be for unprepared people. The designers I hired didn't have this type of experience, so I had to help them adapt to some aspects of work in a startup and shield them from others.
Pivots are quite common for startups, but they can be highly frustrating. Imagine being hired to work on one product, only to find that one day, it becomes an entirely different one. That's precisely what happened with my team.
I've spent hours explaining and discussing the logic behind the decision with my team to minimize the frustration. We talked together and one-on-one until everybody understood the reasons behind the pivot.
The problem of features' deprioritization due to shifted priorities was similar to the pivot problem. But it hit considerably less hard because I could remind about such tasks, and sometimes priorities change back. For instance, poll functionality was implemented half a year after being designed.
Some designers needed help to handle uncertainties like regular process changes (reflecting company growth). I always addressed this anxiety with complete transparency and an explanation of the logic that stands behind those changes.
Dealing with stakeholders is always challenging, so most communication was on me. Nevertheless, from time to time, I needed the participation of another designer. I always prepared them as hard as possible: I explained behavioral strategies, trained them, and was ready to help during presentations. As a result, all demos and presentations were perfect and received a lot of positive feedback, while designers got useful experience.
Design daily
Design daily was the backbone of everyday work. Its' format was a relaxed online version of a daily scrum meeting.
I wanted to create a cozy atmosphere and avoid formalities, so I didn't use The three-question method. Instead, I just asked designers to tell what they were working on and how it was going. Over time, the answers' structure crystallized, and everybody started actively using these meetings to:
Find a solution to a problem
Get feedback and a different view of a problem
Check that nothing was forgotten, everything is correct, and there aren't better solutions
One-on-ones
Once a month (without exceptions), I had this meeting with every designer. I understood from the start that this meeting was crucial to ensure every team member was happy and to sustain a healthy atmosphere inside a design team.
These meetings were as relaxed as possible: no formalities, any work or non-work topics were open for discussion, and absolute confidentiality.
Not all ideas I managed to implement. For instance, the 360° designer evaluation didn't work because the team was too small. Personal growth plan wasn't as efficient as want it to be because of a lack of free time.
Nevertheless, 1:1s have always been a source of great ideas: organizing work through checklists, optimizing time and number of calls, social meetings, etc.
Results
Managing a team is a huge responsibility that requires empathy, communication skills, and work.
It also greatly paid off. If I had replaced designers on my team with my own clones, we wouldn't have done even half of what we did. We made a fantastic product as a team of designers with different skill sets and backgrounds. Our work was so good that other Everytale teams started to copy our approaches.
Another thing I loved about the design team was the unique atmosphere of safety, professional growth, and optimism. Although the company closed half a year after I left, I'm still connected to my former team members, and we are still good friends.
Social meetings
The idea of these meetings appeared spontaneously during a one-on-one.
Most of the designers never met each other in person. While they needed to know each other better to create a better atmosphere and more productive work.
To solve this problem, I started these meetings in which we discussed and did anything except work. Sometimes, we played games, and sometimes, we just talked.
Despite seeming simplicity, these meetings tremendously helped during the most challenging times.