Designer collaboration - how others do it, and how we do it at Redgate. Slides from Cambridge Usability Group Unconference, Dec 2019.

1. Designer collaboration
Neil Turner & Alicja Leszczynska
How others do it, and how we do it at Redgate
Dec 2019

3. How do designers collaborate?

4. Wikipedia
“Collaboration is the
process of two or more
people or
organisations working
together to complete a
task or achieve a goal.”

5. Conversation, not collaboration

6. Natural collaboration

7. Nurtured collaboration

8. Why is collaboration
between designers
important?

9. “What we almost never
saw in this cohort of
successful companies?
A single designer on a
team outnumbered by
engineers.”
Explore the DNA of the world’s most
successful product design team

10. People Process
Tools

11. People

12. Where do you put your
designers?

13. Designer org models
Centralised Embedded Hybrid

14. Which model is ‘just right’?

15. Centralised designers
Designer
Product
manager
Engineer Engineer
Engineer Engineer Engineer
Engineer Engineer
Designer Designer
Engineer
Designer Designer Designer

16. Embedded designers
Designer Engineer Engineer
Engineer Engineer Engineer
Engineer
Product
manager
Engineer
Product
manager
Engineer Engineer
Engineer Engineer Engineer
Designer Engineer Engineer

17. Hybrid, ah ‘just right’
Designer
Engineer Engineer
Engineer
Product
manager
Engineer
Product
manager
Engineer Engineer
Engineer Engineer
Engineer Engineer
Engineer Engineer Engineer
Engineer
Designers

18. A diverse design team
• Experience
• Skillsets
• Background
• Domain knowledge
• Gender

19. Collaborating through your workspace

20. Process

22. How do you build collaboration into the design process?

23. Regular design team meetings

24. Regular design reviews

25. Compatible design processes

26. “When a designer is working on a cross-
functional team, the frequency and volume of
meetings can increase exponentially, as the
designer is juggling being part of both the
design team and the cross-functional team.
This can lead to zero time for actually doing the
design work.”
Design Org Design for Design Orgs

27. Tools

29. Aligning tools & ways of
working
• Terminology
• Techniques
• Files & formats
• Templates
• Standards & practices

30. Tools that support collaboration
Slack

32. Redgate Design Team ~10 Product Designers

33. We do care about collaboration

34. People Process
Tools

35. People

36. Designers embedded in product teams
Designer
Engineer
Engineer
Tech Lead
Engineer Engineer
Engineer
Product
manager
Engineer
Designer
Engineer
Engineer
Tech Lead
Engineer Engineer
Engineer
Product
manager
Engineer

37. Designers embedded in solution groups
Designer Designer
Engineer
Engineer
Tech Lead
Engineer Engineer
Engineer
Product
manager
Engineer Engineer
Engineer
Tech Lead
Engineer Engineer
Engineer
Product
manager
Engineer

38. Why did we choose that model?

39. Process

40. Initiatives promoting collaboration
• Design Academy
• Joint initiatives
• Honeycomb Community
• Sketching session
• Mentoring
• Organising UX events together

41. Design Academy
Mission: 'To provide a
community for learning,
practicing and sharing design
and research best practice
across Redgate in order to
improve how design and
research is carried out'.
Regular
meetings every
second Friday +
additional
activities
Designers
explore / solve
different
problems
together
Different
forms of
sharing and
learning

42. Joint initiatives

43. Honeycomb Community

44. Sketching sessions

45. Mentoring

46. Organising UX events together

47. Tools

48. Tools that help us collaborate
Design Playbook
Design System (Honeycomb)
Software promoting collaborations
+
+

49. Dedicated space for working together

50. We also promote sharing between designers
• Weekly stand-up
• Video lunches
• Slack: sharing work, resources, interesting articles
• Shared boards around the building

51. Visibility of research and feedback
Research sessions scheduled
Research sessions write-ups
Feedback from customers

52. Conclusions

53. Conclusions
• Collaboration doesn't necessarily happen on its own – it
needs to be actively encouraged
• Team organisation, processes and tools can promote
collaboration
• There is no right or wrong way, look around and keep
experimenting