This talk has been presented by Nicolò Volpato and me at Agile Business Day, in Venice on September 15th 2018.
Since 2013, our company has grown from 5 to 16 people. Over the years, we've spent lot of effort to define our values and what we care about when we design. Now we have a shared understanding about how our process works, why it needs specific roles, how each role can evolve from junior to senior, how we can support our team and contribute to a project.
The role matrix we have shown is helping us to communicate with our colleagues about their career paths. It is also helping us to see our strengths and weaknesses, to make better business and strategic decisions.
The shape of our role matrix is never done and we guess it will keep evolving as our company does.
4. • team of 11
• end of year retrospective
reveals some mismatches
• Agile reset
• team of 5
• clearer vision
• mindset switch
• we start building a
team
• team of 13
• culture and values - round 2
• Talent Canvas
• skills matrix
• we launch our new brand
2013
2004
2016
2017
• team of 8
• we look for a brand
that tells who we are
2015
2018
• 2 people
• small design studio
• team of professionals
who work together
• team of 16 (+1)
• retrospective: how do I
grow? how can I
contribute? how do I
… ?😓
• roles matrix and career
paths
2014
• we start working on
culture and values
as as team
Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
18. RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECH
Role = skills + responsibilities
SKILLS RESPON.
IXD
Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
19. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Junior
Mid
Senior
Director
PM SD RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL
Interaction Designer Service Designer
20. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Mid
Senior
Director
PM SD RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL
IxD as the foundation
Service Design as an upgrade
21. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Junior
Mid
Senior
Director
PM SD RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL
UI Designer Brand Experience Director
22. PM SD RES IXD UI FE TECHGLOBAL
Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Design Ops is definitely a thing
DESIGN
OPERATIONS
23. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Junior
Mid
Senior
Director
PM SD RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL
Frontend Developer Design Engineer
24. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Junior
Mid
Senior
Director
PM SD RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL
Vertical growth is possible
25. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Junior
Mid
Senior
Director
PM SD RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL
Horizontal growth is possible as well
26. Specialists
• specific skills
• innovators
• “evangelists”
• technicians
• efficient
• focus on quality
Generalists
• cross-discipline
• enablers
• coordinators
• big picture
• effective
• focus on outcomes
Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
PM SD RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL PM SD RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL
27. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Junior
Mid
Senior
Director
PM RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL ICON ADMINSD CONTENT
Project Manager is not a role
but a set of responsibilities and skills
28. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Junior
Mid
Senior
Director
PM SD RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL
Design Director
Work in
progress…
29. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Managers used to be practitioners
and have strong design experience
Mid
Senior
Director
PM SD RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL
30. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Management is a choice.
It’s not a promotion,
it’s a career change.
31. Designing teams is a design exercise
and is human-centered
Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
33. Junior
Mid
Senior
Director
PM RES IXD UI DOPS FE TECHGLOBAL ICON ADMIN
Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Help Tangible grow as a company
business + market + people
SD CONTENT
34. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Help team growth
• Hire more accurately
• Set clearer expectations about roles
• Balance teams
• Stronger competences
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Venezia, September 15th 2018
Help individual growth
• Clear career paths
• Different options to grow
• More objective one-on-one reviews
• Better spending of the training budget
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Venezia, September 15th 2018
So far, so good ❤
• Feedback
• Talent Canvas (thanks Marco!)
• Conversations
• Team morale
• Trust
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Venezia, September 15th 2018
Tricky… 🤔
• From personal to relationships
• From rules to a playbook
• Feedback from the market
• Scalability and sustainability as a
company
39. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Possible shitstorm ahead 💩
• Hierarchy: needed? How much?
• Economic transparency: desirable?
• Salaries and bonuses: how are they tied
to the roles matrix?
40. Things to monitor
• Eyes open on behaviors (unhealthy
competition, envy, conflicts…)
• One-to-one followups and updates
over time
Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
41. Things to remember
• It’s a process, not a tool
• Alive and iterative, never done
• Shared and explained
• The goal is autonomy, not control
Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
42. Doing the work of translating someone else’s methods
to fit your culture is hard work. It needs to be designed.
It needs to be assimilated, not just applied.
—Dave Malouf, IXDA founder
Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
44. Agile Business Day
Venezia, September 15th 2018
Ilaria Mauric
Head of design
@ilariamauric
ilaria@tangible.is
Nicolò Volpato
Founder
@nicolovolpato
nick@tangible.is
Thank you!