Design management
Managing Design Ops in Shenzen, China
The goal
As Senior Group Design Manager for Skyscanner Hotels & Car Hire, I managed 6 designers based in China.
I won a company award for the transformational change in performance I created in this team.
Watch my interview for the Design Management course at Interaction Design Foundation!
The Challenge
Working with a team 9 hours ahead, whose second language is English brought unique interpersonal challenges.
Design standards, team performance and operations had to be created from the ground up.
Problems to solve
1. Unhappy, underperforming design team (not their fault).
3. Designers flooded with requests which lacked prioritisation.
4. All decisions being made by Product Managers with no use of data or research.
5. No innovation process to guide product development
Changes I made
1. Establish respect and trust
Working with the team’s 8 product managers, I built a solid relationship built on trust, by servicing all new design requests myself.
2. Started up design ops
I created a triage system to capture design requests and assign priorities. Created the design roadmap with Product. Worked with Product Managers to form new design briefs with clear outcomes, success metrics and data-backed hypotheses. Coached designers to self-manage their planning, execution and milestones.
3. Create a design culture
Set up a cadence of rituals which included design reviews, and feedback sessions. Facilitated team building games and activities to build team morale and personal connection. Set clear performance goals and milestones for individuals, coaching them on their strengths and weaknesses.
4. Build team capabilities
Upskilled all designers on user testing, to ensure all designs were evaluated and iterated based on user feedback. Coached Chinese designers on communication skills, made the case for business language lessons, gaving training sessions on articulating design. Sensitively created a performance improvement plan with under-performers who struggled to speak English at satisfactory levels.
5. Lead design strategy
In a team which was working with very little user research, I gathered new and existing data and insights to define our problem spaces for both Hotels and Car Hire. I organised and led design thinking workshops to define opportunity areas. I lead ideation and helped set the long term design vision for both product verticals.
My impact
I built a strong sense of care, respect and trust with my counterparts.
I coached and supported my team, and transformed the team performance. A low performer in the team went from an ‘Inconsistent’ rating to an ‘Achieving’ rating. One of my designers went from ‘Achieving’ to ‘Surpassing’.
All designers are now literate in user testing, design briefs, planning and roadmapping independently.
Team culture is stronger and more open. Weekly design reviews and rituals are still being maintained.
My innovation workshop defined their 12 month product strategy for car hire. helped see a shift from tactical to strategic product development – led by design thinking.
I was given the quarterly company award for my management impact, which was achieved within just the first 3 months of joining my team.
My work enabled Hotels and Cars to define their 12 month product strategies, led by design thinking.