City of Calgary’s Post

🚀 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠. But it brings some 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 too! Growing a team is more than just hiring. It’s about maintaining  - 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲,  - 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝  - 𝐀 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧. Why does it get tough?⚡ 𝐀𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰, 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭. New workflows emerge. Cultural cohesion becomes challenging.  Every new hire changes dynamics. 🔧 Old processes may no longer work. Design teams need a strong foundation. Clear roles are essential. ✅ Proactive communication is a must. 📞 Adaptive systems are crucial. These factors keep teams aligned.  They also keep teams motivated. 💪 Efficiency follows when these are in place. Want to learn more? Check out our carousel for deeper insights. And 𝐥𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 if you’re scaling your team!🤝 #DesignTeamGrowth #DesignMonks #TeamScaling #DesignLeadership #ProductDesign #UXDesign #GrowthChallenges

Are you Adding or Scaling your Design Operations? Here are some Ops Managers You Should Consider Hiring: - Lisa de Larios-Heiman - David M. - Scott Purcell - Jason Armstrong - Dana Bruschi - Bill Townsley - Jen Nordhem - Alexis Bussa This was a cursory search on LI for green badges in DesignOps. These and other exceptional leaders can make a meaningful and lasting positive impact on your operational excellence. Did I miss you? Add yourself to the list in the comments - share with hiring managers. #hiringdesignops #opentowork #amplifydesign #designleadership

“We must hire a design leader with experience in our industry" Why? 99% of the time I don't understand why you need to hire a design executive who has got the exact experience working for a competitor. Design leadership does not have a set path, they come in many forms. For many CDO's/SVP's this is their first time in a big role. We lack data to show us the "path" of a CDO. As long as the leader can demonstrate: - Successfully integrate design. - Manage upwards, side and down. - Build high-level teams, attract world-class folks. - High levels of emotional intelligence. - Thinking about the why, not just how and what. - Being able to capture the value of design. - Keep senior sponsors engaged. - Demonstate a strong legacy from previous roles. The domain is secondary in many cases. P.S I specifically mean digital product design here, I understand physical design is different for example if an automotive brand is hiring a CDO, they must have design cars before. But for the average SaaS B2B software company hiring a digital design leader, let's get it real.

What do different design leadership roles mean in *your* company? Recruiting for design leadership has proven more challenging than expected, sparking my curiosity. Roles like Design Team Lead, Group Design Lead, Design Manager, Design Director, Staff Designer, and Principal Designer vary widely across companies. For example, at Guesty (850+ employees), our team leads handle both senior design work and full managerial responsibilities, while in other companies, team leads seem to focus on design delivery, with management reserved for Design Managers or Directors. Additionally, our Senior Product Designers have end-to-end ownership, which some companies consider a form of leadership. This variation makes the hiring process more complex for both applicants and companies. What does each of these positions mean in the companies you've worked for, and how does company size play a role? Idan Segev Sigal Teller Uriya Ben David Uri Ar Ronel Mor Allie Vogel Gitit Kelmer Nadav Rikover Ran Liron Yatir Kaaren Shlomi Zigart🎗️ Yonatan Turkin #productdesign #design #designleadership #hiring

Want to hear about the hiring straight from the horses mouth? 👂 I recently came across this article, written by a first time product design hiring manager. Might be worth a read to some of you in my network, I'll link it below 👇 #ProductDesign #HiringManager #DigitalDesign #DesignCareer

When a leadership team is not deeply technical and lacks product/design chops, you're beholden to hire layers of people with the sole job of being the translation layer. This may be worth it—a business is built on many areas of domain experience, and tech/product/design is but part of that. But it does come with overhead, and you have to go into that situation with your eyes open.

I strongly disagree with the assertion that industry or subject matter expertise is not important for senior design leadership. For too long, UX/design types felt that all that mattered was their practice proficiency. That their 'subject matter expertise' is their methodology or adherence to craft. But to be a senior executive is not to be a UX/Designer. It's to be a business leader. And if you're going to lead the business, you need to understand the business. And so it makes all the sense in the world that a company hiring a senior executive would want that person to have experience in the industry. In fact, hiring a design leader without that experience sets them up for failure, as they will not be seen as credible by those who do deeply understand the business, and their team will simply be seen as a service to execute on what the business leaders have decided.

The Best of the Best Design Leaders value their time. And as a highly skilled Designer and Leader, that time is typically focused on the Product and Strategy that will set that company up for success by having the best Designed product they can. But right now on average companies are burning through $5k+ a week on attempting to navigate growth and hiring without specialised help. Fielding 100's to 1000's of messages and responses when it comes to hiring for a Design Team. All the while diverting focus and attention away from the success of the product itself. Everyone is being expected to do a lot with a little right now...but the value of time seems to be almost forgotten!

Throughout my career, I’ve learned A LOT about hiring and building a product team. Early on, I thought I should be hiring people like me: a generalist who loves developing strategy and is skilled at User Research and Executive communication. But as we scaled our organization, I learned (painfully) that we needed the opposite. We needed technical product folks who could go deep on specific problems. We didn’t need everyone to be able to craft a strategy and present it to the CEO. That was my job. Once I understood what the organization needed, I built the best product org. of my career (shoutout to Jiajia Zhang, Eve Taylor Robinson, Jaime Bussell, Gustavo Vivanco, and Meghan Birch). What have you changed your mind about as it relates to hiring?

Are you a good manager? I’m not. I get by, but this isn’t where my strengths lie. So I’m excited for tomorrow. We welcome a new recruit to the Event Site Design team. Someone who’s going to make me look good 😉 We’ve had a lot of changes over the last 6 months and we’ve really grown up. New systems in place, restructuring of roles. I think it was Bill Gates that said we shouldn’t hire smart people and tell them what to do. I think we should hire smart people so they can tell us what to do. So I’m bringing in someone who’s going to show me up. Not hard, I hear you say 😅 The team at the moment are incredible. The level of design, planning and thought going into each #CADmap and #3DRender is inspiring. And they need someone who can guide them through the busiest period to date. #recruitment #management