Hi Reader,

Today I’ve invited Grace Tai, Brand Design Team Manager at Contentful to take over the issue and share advice for managing a design team.

Last year I interviewed Grace for the Inside Marketing Design series (watch or listen to her episode here) and learned so much from her about organisation and bringing new team members up to speed. I’m honoured that she’s taken the time to share some of her management advice with us today. Even if you’re not in a management role I think you’ll find the prioritisation piece in this article incredibly useful.

Take it away Grace!

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Three ways to better manage your design team

Recently, a friend of mine called – she had been promoted and was about to start managing her first design team and wanted some advice. As I was coaching her, I realized that this information might be helpful for others. Even if you’re not leading a team, these techniques work when it comes to managing relationships with other stakeholders.

The examples below are from my perspective as a brand designer manager in Marketing, but the principles work no matter what part of the organization you’re in.

1. Set your ship's course

As a manager, one of the most important parts of my job is captaining the ship that keeps my team moving forward and focused on their priorities.

When I’m planning out the quarter for my team, I spend time at the beginning reaching out to other team leads to identify the big projects that they will need design support on and setting expectations for those projects up front.

Oh, you want custom branding for a new event? And you want how many pieces of promotional assets? Ok, then design is going to need 4 weeks lead time.

I try to commit no more than 75% of my team’s time upfront, leaving 25% open for all the inevitable projects that will pop up throughout the quarter.

And of course, document everything! You’ll be amazed what a difference it makes having notes to look back on when you’re halfway through the quarter and everyone has forgotten what was previously discussed.

Write down your team’s goals and refer back to them often, especially during the beginning of the quarter. I link our quarterly goals in our team meeting doc, so it’s easily accessible for everyone. When everyone on your team knows what is expected, it empowers them to deprioritize distracting requests.

Manage scope creep (a.k.a: don't give mice cookies)

We’ve all been there. It starts out with a small request and next thing you know, it’s become a huge hairy beast of a request.

This is most often caused by improper scoping by a requester who is reacting to what they see, instead of being proactive. When you give this mouse a cookie, he’ll ask for a different color, the same thing but in five other variations, or my personal favorite, how about this completely different idea instead??

Of course, you’ll have to evaluate each request on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes the change is driven by something outside of the requester’s control (e.g.: C-suite requests), or is based on new information. But eventually you’ll notice some repeat offenders – this is where you’ll need to step in to protect your team’s time, which is too valuable to be pulled into endless back-and-forth on small requests that are not going to move the needle on the business. We’ll discuss some tactics on how to do this in the next section.

You’ll also need to coach your team how to handle these requests before they snowball, because it will most likely happen on their watch. Make sure your team is flagging snowball situations, and equip them with the old standby:

“I’d love to keep helping you with this request, but my manager wants me to shift focus to my priorities. If you’d like to do more exploration, please run the request by her first.”

3. Say no - with a smile

Confrontation can be a scary thing for a lot of people, so as a general rule, I always assume that the requester has the best intentions – they’re not trying to make life difficult for your team. They may have come from a company with a dedicated designer for their function, or they may just be really excited about the design process because, hey – design is awesome! Change your mindset from “confrontation” to “coaching” – you’re training the requester on what realistic expectations from the design team looks like.

First off, define your request criteria. I run a small team of two full-time designers and three freelancers, servicing the entire company. So there’s no way that we’re going to be able to say yes to every request.

For example, my team will always prioritize external-facing assets over internal-only assets, because of the business impact that comes from external assets. That is a clear criteria that my team can easily use to decide where they should put their time.

Here are some of my tried and true methods for deprioritizing requests:

Redirect

It’s rare that I flat-out say “no” to a request – even if we can’t complete it, I will always try to redirect them to another resource. For example:

“Sorry, we don’t have the capacity to create custom artwork for internal assets – but have you looked through our illustration library, or on Unsplash.com?”

This method is ideal because you are still providing a solution to the request, even if it’s not exactly what they asked for. Most of the time, people are just looking for some direction, because design can be intimidating for non-designers.

Negotiate

Controversial opinion: I believe that most deadlines are arbitrary. Someone puts a stake in the ground and everyone scrambles to make it work. Instead of trying to create a Jenga tower with all your request deadlines, try to negotiate for more time, fewer deliverables, or staggered delivery.

“Sure we can do it, but with that amount of lead time, we can only deliver X. If you’re able to push back the deadline by a week, we can deliver what you’re asking for.”

“Happy to help, but if we prioritize this, it means that we’ll need to push back the timing on Y project – are you comfortable with that?”

“We can complete a first wave of deliverables by your deadline. That will take care of your immediate needs and we’ll deliver the rest of the assets two weeks afterwards.”

You’ll be amazed how many deadlines aren’t set in stone and how much easier you can make life for your team if you’re willing to push back or get creative with unrealistic timelines.

Postpone

This method works best for important requests that are not urgent. It sounds something like this:

“We don’t have capacity for this now, but if we can postpone it to next quarter, we can make it a priority.” (If this doesn’t work, then go back to negotiating).

Pay-for-service

If you have freelance or outside design resources, this can be a very helpful method. For instances where a requester is being very insistent with a non-priority ask, you can offer them to pay for freelance services.

I do NOT recommend handing over your freelance contact – this gives the requester unlimited access, which is not great if you need your freelancer in the future. Instead, offer to creative direct the project in exchange for the team paying for design service from their budget.

If the requesting team does decide to pay, then it is a little more work for you to manage your freelancer, but at least it frees up your team’s time to focus. But most of the time, it helps people to pause and ask, “how much do I really need this?”

Being a design manager can be an immensely rewarding experience. I love seeing my team grow and thrive and helping them achieve their goals. With the three steps above, you can create an environment where your team can be focused, productive, and their amazing creative selves.

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So much great advice from Grace in that article. I particularly love the mindset of training people in the company with design needs on what a realistic request looks like, and her solutions for saying no in a way that still helps the requester get what they need.

If you’d like you can connect with Grace on LinkedIn, and I’ll make sure to pass along any replies to this email to her as well.

There won’t be an issue next week, as I’m getting my wisdom teeth removed 😬, but I’ll see you back here the week following!

Charli