Introduction
It's no secret that designers hold the power to turn a great idea into a successful product, but they're often left out of the conversation when it comes to scaling. This is especially true for design teams that are still in the early stages of their growth. As companies grow, however, so do their design teams—often without much planning or understanding about what this means for everyone involved. If you're looking to scale up your team, here are some tips on how it works:
What is "scaling" a design team?
Design orgs are often small and agile, but they need to get bigger to meet business needs. Scaling is a process of growing the design team in a way that allows it to retain its agility. It's one thing to add people; another thing entirely to keep them happy and productive.
A common misconception about scaling is that it's about adding more people--which is only part of the equation. A more nuanced view is necessary: scaling starts when you realise that your small group of designers can't actually accomplish everything on their own anymore, so they begin seeking help from others outside the core team (contractors or interns) or other departments within your organisation (e.g., product managers).
Why do companies need to scale their design teams?
Why do companies need to scale their design teams?
- Product team growth. As your product grows in size, you'll need more designers to keep up with the demand for new features and styling.
- Business growth. The more revenue a company generates, the more it will have room for design talent—and the more it will need that talent to help grow even further.
- Acquisition or IPO. When a company acquires another business (or goes public), there's an additional influx of resources that can be used on scaling its design team by hiring UX professionals from outside sources like agencies or freelancers
The three modes of a design org
You might think that transitioning between modes is easy. Your designers are ready to move into production, and they have already designed all of the assets they need. In many cases, though, this isn't the case.
In my experience with scaling design teams at Made to Engage, it's important to recognise that each mode has its own challenges:
- Design phase: This is when people are getting used to each other and figuring out how things work together. You're still figuring out what kind of work needs doing and how long it will take. There's not too much pressure yet—it's just about learning how everyone works so that everyone can get comfortable working together later on.
- Design-to-efficiency transition: This is when you begin developing an understanding of your process as a team (or group). You'll start setting standards for design quality based on previous work; you'll also start figuring out ways to make sure everything gets done in a timely fashion while maintaining high quality standards (which may mean changing certain processes).
- Production phase: Here comes the crunch time! Everyone knows their jobs well enough now so they should be able to hit deadlines without any problems, right? Wrong! There are always hiccups along the way because there's no such thing as perfect planning in real life—schedules change all the time due to outside factors like illness or unexpected events happening at home/work etc., but hopefully those small interruptions don't derail your entire project schedule too badly!
When to invest in scaling during each mode
You should scale during the growth mode. This is when your design team is growing and you want to hire more people, but it’s not yet clear how much growth there will be going forward. If a design team is growing organically, it can be hard to tell when to start scaling because there are no benchmarks against which to measure performance.
If you decide that scaling your design team is right for your organisation, here are some steps to take:
- Identify what needs scaling (ideally this would have been done before now). For example: new products need designers who know how their concepts will work in practice; marketing campaigns require visual creatives, and IT projects may require technical writers.* Map out where the gaps are in terms of skills needed by those projects.* Create an interview process that ensures they have those skills (either through training or hiring someone with those skills)
If you want to scale your design org, know the why, when and how.
Having the right team in place is only part of the equation. If you want your design org to scale, you need to know why, when and how (and we’re talking about scaling literally here).
- Why: You should be clear on what problem you are solving by scaling. If your goal is just to have more people on board, then stop thinking about scaling and go hire some interns right away!
- When: This may seem obvious at first glance but don't get ahead of yourself before assessing whether or not scaling is even necessary at this point in time.
- How: Knowing when and why helps determine how exactly you should go about it; do it all at once with a big bang approach or gradually over time with small changes along the way? The answer will depend on several factors, including team makeup as well as company culture structure so think carefully before making any moves that could disrupt either one too much for comfort level reasons alone.
Conclusion
Scaling a design team can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. By understanding the three modes of scaling and knowing when and how to invest in each mode, you can successfully scale your design teams as they grow. In fact, by following these steps, you may even find yourself with an organization that is ready for further growth before it even needs it!
