Developing a Design Culture

Lightning Talk

The problem

Working in a new team in a very big company means you can feel alone in the dark. That’s why we needed a stronger team culture that aims at finding our identity, improving how we work both together as individuals and as a team in a big company, in order to be cohesive and achieve stronger outcomes for our users.

Study design

We wanted to break the corporate rules, so we ran an unconventional workshop in a former warehouse, no post-its, no sharpies and no hierarchy. We wanted people to focus on themselves and on the interaction with other humans.

Results

After the workshop, we defined our core and aspirational values as a team, and we are currently using them to change our design ceremonies, how we interact within the team, and with other teams in the company, without losing our souls.

Conclusions

We changed the Design Review session based on our newly-defined values, improving how we ask and give feedback, and, ultimately, increasing the quality of what we ship to users. We are improving the interactions among the members of our team and we are much more mindful of what we do and how we do it. In the future, we are planning to look at all our design sessions, methodologies and the time we spend in the office, to create an ideal workplace and deliver great design to the world.