Feedback. We all need it in order to improve.

Growing up we had our families to provide feedback and help us course-correct and grow. It was normal and expected when your parents might have told you to sit up straight or stop talking with your mouth full of food.

Yet in a professional context feedback has become something we fear. We put it off to avoid conflict or awkwardness. We often wait too long, putting it off, so any feedback often comes too little and too late in a work setting to have the intended impact.

The ideal scenario is to have more open feedback more often, normalising it like it used to be and baking it into the bedrock of an organisation’s culture. But this is an ideal that’s seldom the reality.

When it comes to exchanging feedback, the variance in personal styles makes it difficult. Some people are great at giving feedback but find it hard to receive it. Others prefer keeping quiet whilst others crumble when any feedback is provided to them (either good or constructive).

Then there’s the middle where the majority of us sit. We’re aware of the benefits of feedback but find it inherently awkward. It’s uncomfortable to provide feedback, and so we put it off until ‘later’.

The Designer’s advantage

Fortunately designers tend to have an advantage when it comes to feedback.

Design reviews or critiques are typically forums in which a designer must demonstrate and defend their work to their peers or team.

A design review’s secret sauce is what all seasoned designers know: the critique is about the work, not the person. This detachment or decoupling gets easier with time. Once instilled it makes feedback what it ought to be: a rich source of ideas, new avenues to explore and novel ways to grow.

Creating a feedback culture

Creating a company culture where feedback is common and normalised isn’t easy. There’s no single formula or turn-key solution that turns a company into a feedback-friendly workplace overnight. The number of contributing factors requires a tricky balancing act of timing, people and a culture that includes trust, honesty, candour, open communication and more.

Yet one rubric that can help kickstart a feedback culture was created back in the 2000s by NYC-based LifeLabs Learning. Using playing cards as the metaphor and vehicle (who doesn’t know playing cards?) LifeLabs classified feedback into 4 distinct categories mapped to the suits of a playing card deck:

Hearts ♥️

This is positive feedback that lacks specificity. Think of Slack heart emojis… the feedback is positive, but not particularly actionable.

Diamonds ♦️

This is positive feedback that has specific, actionable points. Not only positive and encouraging, this feedback also — crucially — cites examples and gives evidence.

Clubs ♣️

This is negative feedback that lacks specificity. This type of feedback is uncaring and directionless. Consider it the villain of the group.

Spades ♠️

This is negative feedback that has specific, actionable points. The converse of Diamonds, Spades are the closest to the concept of design critique.

In a work setting this rubric provides a great way of classifying feedback.

If giving feedback, aim to provide Diamonds♦️and Spades♠️. Avoid Hearts♥️ and/or Clubs♣️.

If receiving feedback, it’s in your best interest to classify the feedback you’ve received. Call out vague or non-specific feedback (aka Hearts♥️ and Clubs♣️)

Thanks for that feedback but it’s a bit of a club♣️. Can you be more specific? An example of asking for better feedback

If you find yourself giving feedback about the type of feedback you’ve received, you’re in the right place! How very meta. Happy feedbacking.

We quantified a lot of our trip, both during and after. The number of flights, hotels are easy, but it was the more qualitative data - the fun memories and more - that were harder to track. That's what our photos are for.

The data visualisation below has been both a foray into the design of data as much as an homage to a trip that was truly life-changing, and created thousands of memories that made it beyond worth it.

Aizlewood Family Adventure Sabbatical Data Visualisation

View the full-size image (11.66MB file size)

Aizlewood family adventure sabbatical © 2023 by Jonathan Aizlewood is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Say it with me: no one on your team will be there forever.

If you want high-performing teams who share your drive and passion, help your employees outgrow you. Give them the opportunity to develop their personal brand and provide input and advice on freelancing, job hunting or portfolio building.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but it’s worth it.

The dream of any employer is to have employees who are 100% aligned on their company’s culture and vision, sticking around for several years helping achieve it.

While that blind dedication might have been more common for previous generations, today – and especially in tech – long-term job loyalty is no longer the norm but an exception.

The average job tenure in the UK is hovering around 1.6 years, trending lower since the pandemic and alongside a shift to remote or hybrid setups. More and more knowledge workers are subscribing to a ‘gig’ or portfolio career path where the pursuit of meaningful work wins over loyalty and, in many cases, financial reward.

So how might agency and/or product leaders excel in today’s low loyalty, high turnover job market?

Make peace with the fact that your best employees will leave.

In the limited time you have with your great teams, drive a positive experience by creating mutual positive outcomes. Help your employees succeed after you and you’ll have happier, more driven employees when they’re with you.

How?

Help and co-build personal brands

Personal brands are incredibly powerful. A CV, a personal website or even a strong stance on industry topics all contribute to one’s personal brand.

Designers tend to rely on personal brands to showcase their unique talents. Whether a portfolio, their writing or another employable craft, portfolios, blogs or websites are a proverbial shop window for prospective employers.

As an employer, helping to grow your team’s personal brands could be one of the most valuable (and perhaps counterintuitive) things you do. Employees with strong personal brands create a network effect. They attract people interested in their work or approach, which in turn can lead prospective customers to your company or agency through affiliation.

Rather than try to command and control employees and asking them to toe the company line, fostering their personal brands can empower and enable.

Ways to amplify your team’s personal brand

• 📣 Help to find potential public speaking opportunities that are aligned to your agency’s current or desired work, industry or sector.
• ✍️ Actively encourage public writing. The ability to form cogent and coherent thoughts about an industry topic doesn’t come easily to everyone. If you have an employee who shows an interest, jump on it. Find publications, newsletters or blogs for them to share their thoughts.
• 🙊 Top tip: Don’t censor. Everyone has a voice. Good staff won’t disparage the company they work for.
• 🔦 Spotlight your team. If your company has a platform of any sort, highlight your staff to give them a kickstart.

Build a mutually-beneficial portfolio

A subset of a strong personal brand is a great portfolio.

As designers, a portfolio does a lot of the heavy lifting… long before an actual face-to-face or screen-based interview takes place.

Helping team members create a strong portfolio might feel awkward, but in the long game it’s mutually beneficial. The network effect again applies here. A strong designer will go to great lengths to create a compelling story that outlines their processes, approaches and outcomes for a project they worked on and enjoyed at your company.

With a growing audience of their own, your team member’s ability to communicate their abilities is a mutually beneficial skillset.

Providing the time and space to hone these skills makes for staff who are proud of their work and – importantly – can articulate their accomplishments in a compelling and engaging way.

Tips for strong employee portfolios

• 🩺 Portfolios are like the proverbial cobbler’s shoes. If a team member is too busy doing the work, they can’t find the time to create a portfolio. Help by carving out time and space for your them to consider how they’d publicly talk about their work with you, via a ‘portfolio clinic’.
• 🎭 Provide critique on your team member’s portfolio, just like a design review. Be objective and open, and avoid censorship or heavy editing.
• 📖 Focus on the narrative, with a strong focus on outcomes and not pretty pictures.

Building skills for career growth

One of the increasingly common questions I get asked when hiring designers is ‘do you have a career framework’? And it’s a great question.

Having the tools in place to help your team progress in their careers is becoming the expectation today, no matter the size of your organisation.

Career development frameworks help track and identify gaps in an employee’s knowledge and skills. Finding these gaps and helping your team progress their careers can benefit all involved.

While the tracking and indexing of an employee’s progression framework may differ per framework or org, the outcomes remain the same: Frameworks help identify what training, opportunities or focus is needed to progress a team member’s career from point A to B.

The irony isn’t lost here: career progression frameworks hasten an employee’s time with you by equipping them for their next role. But that’s the point.

By co-designing a career, you’re building long-term trust and empowerment with your team. Career progression tracking might highlight a designer who could benefit from public speaking training, or a developer who might benefit from design courses.

These are all opportunities that can benefit your organisation in the short-term, and your team members in the long term.

Play the long game

Hiring, nurturing and caring for a team who will one day leave you is a necessary pain in life. Turnover isn’t a bad word, it’s expected. As an employer or leader the sooner you accept this golden rule, the better.

By helping your team become their best selves, your organisation can only benefit. More, the staff who appreciate it will pay back in kind, be it through strong work, loyalty, or both.

Helping to build their personal brands, their portfolios and their careers is a more modern and empathetic approach to employment.

Long gone are the ‘command and control’ concepts of industrial era employment, and rightly so.

As a fun experiment and in the spirit of WIKN (now defunct) I've compiled 20 mini-tips.

This content was originally posted on LinkedIn.

Be constantly curious.

We’re lucky to call one of the fastest-moving industries our home. Staying curious will help you navigate the rollercoaster that is Design.

From finding new tools to exploring new frontiers like AI, keeping your finger on the pulse will always keep you interested.

Overindex on empathy.


Being empathetic to your users, customers, colleagues and stakeholders will get you further than hard skills alone.

That means speaking to them, engaging with them and remembering that you are one. Real empathy goes a long way.

Realise Imposter Syndrome is healthy.


If you’re nervous that you’re just winging it, good. We all are.

Some just hide it better than others.

Ignore gatekeepers.


There will always be territorialists; people who feel a topic, sector, discipline or similar is all theirs. They’re wrong.

If you’re interested in something, just go for it and don’t look back.

Get business-savvy.


A designer not knowing their business objectives is like riding a bike with no wheels 🚲.

Knowing how your business, industry or sector operates (and how design might improve it) will make you a better designer.

Remember a tool is a tool, not the job.


Figma. Sketch. Adobe XD. Invision Studio. Dreamweaver. They’ll always be replaced by something new.

Tools will come and go. Focus on your soft skills instead. You can (and will) learn new software.

Develop your soft skills.


Focus on being able to communicate well, articulate ideas clearly, share complex concepts with stakeholders and peers, and build empathy with customers.

Hard skills – like learning software – will come and go. Soft skills are paramount.

Learn how to code.


One for the Designers. An old chestnut, and for a reason. Learn HTML & CSS at least. If you’re feeling adventurous, level up to Javascript.

You would expect an architect to know what materials they’re using for a building, or a carpenter to understand the type of wood they’re working with.

Learn the design basics.


Developers, learn the basics of design.

Knowing the fundamentals like typography, layout, colour and basic UX patterns will make your life infinitely easier. And make talking to your design colleagues far easier.

Understand the importance of narratives.


Whether you’re agency or product side, learn how to put together a good story.

Whether it’s in a deck, written, verbal or otherwise. You’ll get better outcomes and better retention.

Improve your deck skills.


The closer to ‘the business’ you get, presentations (and spreadsheets) become the dominant currency.

Being able to wrestle disparate concepts and ideas into a coherent story – for an audience that lacks your knowledge and understanding – is priceless.

Work on your T-shape.


It’s better than no shape. Try to focus on the stem of your own ‘T’ before focusing on that wider cross bar.

That being said, sometimes a ‘jack of all trades’ is a superpower onto and of itself, but be sure you’re in the right role first.

Be self-aware.


Don’t be a brilliant jerk. And definitely don’t be an asshole.

Be a radiator, helping and supporting those around you, not a drain who brings everybody down.

Appreciate that people don’t know what you know.


We’re lucky to be in an industry that happily shares and learns.

You definitely know something that others would love to know. Share it with them.

Define a hard line between job and not job.


Keep them separate. Your job doesn’t define you. If that line gets blurry, you’re venturing into burnout territory. Beware.

Critique the work, not the people.


Keep them as separate as oil and water.

Expect a career framework .


They should be table stakes.

Although we love what we do, we’re exchanging our time spent with loved ones for time working. Make sure it’s worth it by progressing in your chosen field... and getting rightly rewarded for it.

Accept that the grass will always be greener.


Only lived experience will help you truly decide where you should go.

Don’t rush it.

Recognise there’s no get rich quick.


Boot camps will never be the substitute for lived experience.

You can’t become a senior designer within a year of graduating from a boot camp.

That’s not gatekeeping, just the cold hard truth.

Beware the Designer Domino Effect.


Your innocuous design decisions can have profound impacts on people and their lives.

Design can be used for great things, but it can also be used to trick and deceive. Be careful with your steps.

Colophon

For the nerds, the slides are set in two of my favourite fonts, Adelle Sans + Adelle, designed by Veronika Burian & José Scaglione, released in 2009 by TypeTogether.

This is an introspective recap of my first year at ASquared: a Brighton-based, purpose-driven digital agency putting social and environmental issues at the heart of everything they do.

As Design Director I helped embed and mature design. I focussed on strategy and direction, grew the design team and imparted my agency experience onto an ambitious, hungry team.

Back in February 2022 I was coming off the back of a Covid-induced burnout. I left my previous agency having co-steered it through the worst of Covid.

I took a few weeks to regroup before starting at an ambitious and growing agency in Brighton, again as Design Director. I was to be responsible for leading and maturing design where dev historically ruled the roost.

Over the course of a year I helped assess, organise and deliver the foundations of a design heritage, at an agency where it was new and unrefined.

🙋‍♀️ Automation who?

Back at Clearleft I passed an app-specific project over to an agency formerly known as Automation Squared: a nod to their original automated testing offering. I had the upmost confidence in their abilities seeing as long-time friend and excellent app developer Nick Kuh was then their Senior-most Dev.

The project was for Resolve to Save Lives, a medical organisation where the Head of Product Design was fellow Canadian and long-time design luminary, Daniel Burka.

From that initial introduction stemmed many exciting chats with both Nick and ASquared’s magnetic founder, Ant Stonham. Every bit ambitious as he is enthusiastic, Ant’s drive and determination was contagious.

Ant recognised the potential value of Design but admittedly wasn’t sure where to start. The agency had a strong strategy around mobile app development using React Native, but Design was seen as an add-on, not a starting point. The agency had designers, but the overall design approach and maturity were still nascent.

✅ Challenge accepted

Coming from an agency where top-class UX and Design were part of the DNA, the challenge of starting fresh was hugely appealing. Using my experience to embed better design practices and processes, influence strategy and raise the maturity level to win more design-led projects was hugely enticing.

What was also tempting was making the jump to native apps. Design is about understanding a problem and finding viable solutions regardless of the medium, but native was always a bit new to me. Admittedly I've always been a little web-centric.

Looking back it’s been an eventful year with lots of challenges, learnings and wins. Here are some of the things accomplished.

🚦Shifting Design from an add-on to a starting point

As a primarily dev-centric agency, ASquared’s prowess in Native apps was excellent. Previously won projects focussed primarily around the tech stack, and started with Dev.

Design for the most part was predominantly surface layer: UI and tactical UX to aid in delivery. The incumbent designers were rushed, and their impact commoditised.

My first challenge was changing the internal perception of design from a delivery mechanism to a starting point. That required pushing back on what were historically small estimates for design time, which were costed per hour. I pushed to grow the estimates to accommodate the time and space needed for good design, now costed in days.

That change in turn required a leap of faith in the new business approach internally. Externally it required budgets to grow to accommodate more time for design.. and of course it required clients who had more complex requirements and needed deeper solutions.

Upgrading Discovery
ASquared already conducted discovery sessions, but they were small, 3 hour journey mapping workshops to validate an estimate. This is great for smaller delivery projects, but prone to risk in larger and more complex projects when scope starts to creep.

I pushed for larger and longer Discovery phases with mature research approaches and validation, including ample time to explore concepts and solutions. Internally I started to work on design education to shift the expectations of design from delivery-based to outcomes-based.

Changing this mindset is never done, be it internally or with prospective clients. But starting projects through a discovery phase is a great way to maximise knowledge and minimise risk. I wrote about what I dubbed 'the discovery paradox' previously.

🧭 Tackling differing design maturities

Winning design work means winning trust in a process that might be abstract or complex to those unfamiliar with it.

Design to many startup founders and entrepreneurs (ASquared's target market) tends to focus on the stylistic outer layer. Get it up and running, make it look good and go to market. This approach can work, but the most successful startups have valued design much higher, and far earlier.

In fact many startup founders go to agencies because they need something built. They might miss or deny the fact that good product thinking starts with Design, which in turn lessens the risks when building their product.

On every intro call, proposal and pitch, I’d ask about clients about their users and customers. In many cases this was an afterthought and not a starting point, and was always a catalyst for deeper conversations.

Thankfully I've got ample experience in the communication, evangelism and propaganda of design, given the number of digital transformation projects I've worked on (long before they were labelled 'digital transformation'). The common evangelism thread has always followed roughly the same formula. Build trust by advocating for design & user-centricity, explain and demystify the design process and demonstrate the outcomes from good (and bad) design.

🔬 Looking inwards

The same lack of design maturity understandably existed within ASquared.

As a result, design education and discussion was important not just for winning new projects, but for sharing within the company. Establishing design as a viable way to grow revenue and create great work was – and is – the goal.

As a historically dev-focussed organisation, how might we grow a mature design team? How can we attract the right people? How might we start to operationalise design and embed it, and tackle larger and deeper problems for our clients?

Measuring Design maturity
In and amongst several design-led workshops I conducted with my fellow leadership team and board, I also conducted a design maturity audit. Its wider goal: to have design inform more of the agency’s long-term strategy.

By recombining approaches from Artefact Group, Nielsen Norman and Moment Design, I created a framework for growing design maturity. They all remain applicable and in use at ASquared today.

🧬 Using New Business as a test bed

An agency’s New business will always be one of its most important functions. Winning new work is the catalyst for growth, the lifeblood of the agency, and a petri dish for experimentation.

Assuming a steady stream of leads on which to experiment (a challenge in and of itself), each new business interaction could act like an A/B test. Which conversation landed better? Which angle on the proposition, approach or services provided led to a won project?

I treated the new business function like a trojan horse. I created a new visual design direction for all outbound collateral, thereby improving the company’s communication design. From new process diagrams to storytelling and case studies, the use of a new presentation style and narrative approach allowed information to be presented in a more engaging manner.

The improved approach also helped enhance the general understanding of design internally. As a side effect it helped me better understand ASquared’s React dev processes and project management approach.

Client workshopping
Client-wise, I led on many project kickoffs with new or prospective clients. In these virtual and face-to-face workshops I conducted customer journey mapping, empathy and role mapping, project canvases and brand explorations.

Marketing
In the absence of a marketing manager, I assumed the responsibilities of both marketing and the website. I created proto-personas for the main customer types, and wrote blog and case study content for new projects and topics. I also kicked off conversations around a new brand & messaging (still a work-in-progress).

⚙️ Embedding processes, rituals & workshops

As per L. David Marquet, author of Turn the Ship Around!:

Personalities come and go but institutional mechanisms [processes] endure and embed the change in the organisation.

Progress stands for nothing if it’s not embedded and established over time. In a quest to drive a more user-centred and design-mature culture, I introduced a few specific meeting types to embed change in the organisation.

Open design review

Firstly an open design review, where the design team would demonstrate their active work just like a normal design review. However by making the meeting open to all, it allowed ‘design curious’ staff to attend and listen in. This is a proven way to democratise design and avoid it becoming a siloed discipline.

Open clinics

Another meeting type was open clinics for various agency functions. With small teams busy on active projects, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s happening outside of their immediate project world. Having open clinics acted as a ‘pull’ mechanism. Those with the inclination, interest and time could attend the meeting to understand what was happening and provide input.

Brown bag lunches

A carry-over from my last agency, I introduced brown bag lunches to ASquared. These are informal presentations from staff members about something of interest to the wider team. Brown bags are a great way to help teams improve their public speaking, grow a sharing culture, and learn about a wider topic like design.

Design workshops

No design role is complete without some good old-fashioned design workshopping. The leadership team needed to unpick a number of business aspects, from brand to value proposition and strategy.

I conducted several workshops at a strategy level, including RACI, role mapping, and many others. Yet looking back my favourites were a brand sprint and an end-of-year retro. The former unblocked a raft of thinking that then unblocked new business and messaging. The latter was praised as

One of the most successful workshops I’ve ever been a part of

...as per a fellow leadership colleague. Great stuff.

Measuring success

If there ever was a success metric for measuring one's impact in embedding design, it's witnessing over time the new use of distinct design language, processes and terms. Plus a new adoption and appreciation for design which sees it become a mindset and a value driver, and not an afterthought.
All of these things have happened in recent discussions with my peers at ASquared, and it's great to see.

🎢 A thrill a minute

As mentioned, agencies really are a thrill-a-minute rollercoaster rides.

One month you’re flying, trying to resource concurrent projects at once. The next month you’re trying to keep the wolf from the door.

Typical agency issues will always exist, like tricky clients and the constant need for new business. Or hiring new designers or dealing with inter-personal politics. Or my living introduction of Kim Scott’s seminal ‘Radical Candour’.

Yet coming from a well-established agency in the strategic and UX design space, my time at ASquared has been exactly what I hoped for. Challenging but rewarding. I’ve been fortunate to work with a group of lovely and non-toxic people who truly love what they do. The culture is one of the warmest I’ve worked with, and the ambition and hunger are next-level.

As an agency leader, agency life is categorically not for the faint-hearted. But it’s great fun.

⚠️ Update H1 2023

I’m currently on an ‘adventure sabbatical’ with my family.

5 months ago I told ASquared of my intentions, ready to go fully unemployed.

As a further testament to how lovely a bunch they are, Ant and the ASquared team were happy for me to continue on a pro rata basis during my time away. I’m hugely appreciative of the opportunity and have been providing 1 day/week consultancy for the team back in Brighton, from afar.

—

Sometimes it’s handy to remember what was said in a meeting a few weeks ago. At other times it’s great to know what you actually accomplished, given your work might be so fast-paced that you often forget to reflect. You might find yourself juggling so many things at once that having the ability to recall and recount important things when needed is crucial.

Since I can remember, I’ve taken notes. Surely like many others, what were initially scribbles & random words in a paper notepad have since become more software-based and (ideally) a bit more organised. Yet my reason for keeping notes has evolved.

When designing interfaces and working directly on projects I’d keep notes for my active client projects: stakeholder notes, priorities, evolving design principles or to-dos and so on.

I always make a singular file called a ‘sparkfile’ per project. The term was coined by Steven Johnson in 2012, and reading his post it turns out that I use it in much the same way. It’s a monster document that houses everything regarding a project, role or specific topic. We’re talking anything, from ideas, to-dos, things to remember, important details, and much more.

The Spark File, Steven describes, is a process/tool that he uses to collect "half-baked ideas" and then revisit them. For eight years, he's maintained a single document with notes and ideas with zero organization or taxonomy, simply a chronology of thoughts. He calls this document his Spark File. LifeHacker

Yet as my roles and responsibilities have evolved, so too has the need to track more things. For the past 5 years or so I’ve used the amazing Bear App, notably because it doesn’t try to overcomplicate things (plus it uses Markdown). It helps you make notes quickly, cross-reference using tags, and create to-do lists quickly and easily. Plus, it syncs effortlessly between phone and laptop.

Nowadays I’d be lost without it. In my Bear App I have hundreds of notes, all tagged (and icon’d) accordingly, and all cross-posted between categories where there’s a relevant and meaningful connection.

If you’re interested, here are some of my best practices for how I create and use notes in Bear.

Per-role scratch pad

This is the evolution of the aforementioned Sparkfile.

For each role I create a singular sparkfile or scratchpad. This becomes my canonical root; a source of all updates, updated at whatever frequency I’m able to accommodate with the newest always at the top.

Feature wish for Bear. Timestamps for new additions in a single document, accessible in the same way as iOS messages (ie by dragging to the right). This would be so useful to remember the days and times that I added a note within my main sparkfile.

In this main scratchpad note I record any and all important meeting outcomes, to-do lists and updates that need a follow up or action. I add dividing lines between days or thoughts, and over time the singular note becomes a behemoth. But that’s not a bad thing. It acts like a diary, giving you the overview and progress report in your role to-date.

Recall & memory joggers

The main reason for any note taking is of course the recall function. With a days full of back-to-back meetings and context switching, it’s easy to forget everything that was said just a few hours ago.

A few select bullet points in Bear helps me recall main action points, next steps and to-dos. I find this a lifesaver, as I reckon my memory is getting worse the older I get.

Wins and Losses

It’s all too easy to bypass positive moments in one’s role as the days fly by and you’re so busy that you forget milestone events.

There will always be moments we’re proud of, either micro or macro wins. Recalling these are useful for performance reviews or when asking for pay rise. Equally there are moments where things could have gone better. This is important as a task or to-do list: these are the things you intend on fixing or addressing.

I keep a wins/losses document for every role, just like my sparkfile. I add to it periodically, but at the end of stretch of time it’s helpful to go back and reflect on the things that are important.

New thoughts and ideas

I use Bear to write blog posts, just like this one. Being an emoji fan, I use a ✍️ emoji to denote posts ‘in progress’.

Once I finish an article or post, I change the emoji to a check mark ✅. This makes it easier to scan my notes in Bear and see what’s published and what’s a WIP (work in progress).

Categories, tags and in-post references

The Bear App’s true strength is its disarmingly simple way of organising your content. I’ve been reading a lot of chatter as to how LLMs (large language model) AIs like ChatGPT will eventually take the onus of organising our personal notes for us.

For now I’m happy to have full control over how things are organised. I have loads of categories ranging from personal and professional to receipts and cooking recipes. Adding a # to any word creates a new category that you can cross-post to. It also lets you add direct links to other posts in your Bear App by using double square brackets.

There’s no limit to Bear App. I’m a huge fan (this isn’t a sponsored post, btw) and I highly recommend it. I also hope you’ve found my usage of Bear useful for your own needs.

Good luck!

I do love talking shop – especially around processes and how design and agile still isn't 'cracked' – and this was no different. It’s gone live today and worth a listen if you’re interested in design and agile, or interested in hearing my opinion around product, mentoring, agency life and design processes and practices.

Listen and subscribe to Aamna’s podcast on Spotify, or listen below.

First, what are case studies for?

It’s important to agree on what case studies are used for at your agency.

Showcasing your skills and prowess

Do you have proof that you can do what we say you do? Your case studies are a reflection of the quality of your work and describe what you have done for previous clients.

Building trust & loyalty

Case studies should reflect positive outcomes for your clients. As a byproduct, they’re proof that the client trusted you and gained a successful outcome. They prove that you’re trustworthy, reliable and build relationships.

Prequalifying clients

Good case studies can attract like-minded prospective clients who can envisage what it’s like working with you on a problem similar to their own. Prequalifying clients results in higher quality leads. As a result you spend less time qualifying them in a lengthy pre-sales process.

Fostering good processes

An often under-appreciated aspect of case studies: they’re a great way of recording what you do on client projects. They solidify good processes and remind project teams to think about and consider what should make it into the end case study.

Who are you writing case studies for?

If you know why you’re writing case studies, it’s equally important to understand who you’re writing them for.

Who are your key client types? For example:

• Startups with new, formative ideas
• Established B2B corporations in the healthcare sector
• B2C charities with low budgets but interesting problems to solve

With these archetypes in mind, what might they look for in a case study from your agency? Prospective clients have a small devil or angel sitting on each shoulder, whispering the following questions into their ear:

😇 The angel says:

• Can this agency help us achieve our goals?
• Can this agency help us understand what we should be doing?
• Has this agency done what we need for other people/orgs like ours?
• Does this agency have the skills and expertise to assist us?
• Does this agency seem like a company we could learn from?
• Can we align to this agency’s values? What do they stand for?

😈 The devil says:

• Can this agency do what they say they do?
• Is this agency competent?
• Does their work look boring and repetitive?
• Do they look like every other agency we’ve looked at?
• Do they seem like they’d have our best interests in mind?
• Do they seem like an agency we could work with?

The selection process

In most cases, prospective clients begin shortlisting agencies once they have established a need for external assistance.

This is often borne out of a specific need (pain point) or problem they’re trying to solve. In most B2B cases, prospective clients will create a brief, which they can share with selected agencies. However in the case of startups or small companies, a brief can often be bypassed in favour of a phone call.

Agency selection typically starts with the agency being found. This could come from the following:

• They’ve been referred by someone they know and trust
• They’ve found the agency on a directory, forum or word of mouth
• They’ve searched (Google) using keywords they feel represents their problem
• They’ve looked at their own competitors or sector, and understood which agencies specialise in those areas

Prospective clients will visit the websites of a long list of agencies. They’ll then shortlist the agencies they align to or are curious about. It’s at this stage that case studies (along with about pages) are crucial.

So what does a good case study look like?

Knowing what we now know, what makes an effective case study?

Good case studies will always:

• Tell a compelling story
• Attract interest
• Showcase the why as much as the what and how
• Demonstrate how a problem was solved
• Share what skills, expertise or technologies were used

Overall your case study should connect with the audience by addressing the elements that are important to them in their decision-making process:

• Demonstrable outcomes
• Clear and obvious competence
• Substance in the case study, not just screenshots or pictures
• Social proof (are the clients real people, and what have they said)
• Clear value. Does the range of work across case studies reflect the potential budget required (aka is the agency too cheap or too expensive)

The anatomy of a case study

There might not be any huge surprises here, but this is a format that works.

It’s helpful to compare a good case study with a great story or film, complete with a trailer, a plot, a climax and even critic reviews.

Instant attraction (The film poster)

A short executive summary of the completed project

Scene-setting (The movie trailer)

What’s the sector, who is the client and why should I care?

Problem statement/ Problem solved (The story, part 1)

What was the problem that you helped solve through experience and expertise?

The solution (The story, part 2)

How was the problem solved? What processes, approaches, methodologies and tools were used (and why) to achieve the desired outcome?

Results and outcomes (The conclusion)

What were the real-world results and outcomes that show prospective clients they’re in safe hands?

Social proof (The quotes)

What has your client said about the work provided?

Bonuses (The post-credits)

Don’t forget to provide two things:

• An onward journey to read similar case studies
• A call-to-action. What do you want your prospective client to do next?

What not to do 🚫

Some tidbits of advice and things to avoid.

Don’t focus on just shiny things

Working with agencies means you’ll get something better than what you have (typically). But as an agency don’t over-egg the deliverables and outputs. Focussing too much on the looks or superficial outputs risks typecasting you as an agency who cares more about vanity and looks, more than true substance.

Don’t talk about yourself

Make your clients the champion in your case studies, and take the spotlight off of you/your team. It’s tempting to talk about yourself and your wins in an agency case study. But by putting the spotlight on how you solved a client’s specific needs, you’ll align with prospective clients at the start of the same journey.

Don’t be lazy

Case studies are hard work. Getting them right requires time and effort. Prospective clients have an uncanny ability to ‘smell’ poor case studies, especially when they’re shortlisting and visiting several of your agency competitors. Putting the appropriate effort into case studies will — over time — provide the same value in gaining mindshare and persuading new clients to work with you. Write them well, balance substance with style and keep focus on telling a compelling story.

Good luck!

This article was originally posted on Medium as @aizlewood

Here are some tips for those who find themselves at that proverbial fork in the road, unsure whether to go right or left.

First, some home truths

At Leading Design 2019, one of Deliveroo’s first designers Simon Rohrbach shared the following phrase that has stuck with me ever since:

What got you here won’t get you there
Simon Rohrbach, Leading Design 2019

As designers we take years to hone our craft. We gain experience that improves our abilities and capabilities. We use and create new tools, products and services. We collaborate with others to improve processes and outcomes. Being a designer blends soft (durable) and hard (perishable) skills into lasting outcomes.

Yet at some point for the senior, principal or lead designer, their career path will result in that fork:

1. Remain an individual contributor (IC) forever, or
2. Jump, fall or tumble, feet-first into management

Taking the IC route means doubling-down on craft.

I’ll never forget a colleague who — when asked if they intended to go into management — replied with a vehement ‘no’ without hesitation’. Their path would be IC, no matter what. The world of design needs more contributors than managers, hence this route being the natural choice for many designers.

Taking the management path presents a paradox. It comes with a seismic shift in different responsibilities and accountabilities. Some tools and skills can carry over, like stakeholder management, mentoring or juggling of priorities. But full-blown management means you’re now responsible for people and all their intricacies. A far cry from pixels.

1️⃣ Appreciate that people are complex

Designing experiences and interfaces for end users is challenging in its own right. Design — rightly — is becoming more entrenched in everyday business. As a result designers are — rightly — playing a more pivotal role. Whether they’re improving a user’s experience or increasing conversions, an IC’s design role can be complex.

When conducting qualitative user research, designers are reminded just how complex people are. Humans are intricate and multifaceted. Yet when we’re interviewing or researching ‘people’ for a project, it’s often a means to an end. At some point in the project those signals and inputs get turned into artefacts. They manifest as design decisions for a project or product roadmap.

Design leadership by contrast stays in that people phase.

People have problems and issues outside of work. They have expectations and requirements of their employer and colleagues. They have real needs like compensation, respect and recognition. People have differing or opposing communication styles, and complicated inter-personal relationships and emotions. They are intricate and multi-dimensional, all in a way that no design project can match.

One hundred years of Figma, Sketch or Axure won’t prepare you for managing designers, developers, project managers or researchers… anyone who might work in a modern design team.

If you’re heading into design management or leadership, you’ll need to learn how to best communicate with a myriad of personality types. How to actively listen, and how to cater to a professional’s needs to help them grow and prosper. Never underestimate how complex people are, and how management needs to serve those people to achieve the best outcomes.

2️⃣ Language matters

How you conduct yourself — managing both upwards and downwards — is so important. Coming from design backgrounds we know the importance of communication, persuasion and critique. Thankfully these skills aren’t wasted in management.

Your style of communication is one of your most important traits. Good leadership doesn’t favour extroverts or introverts, loudness or charisma. It favours those who are able to communicate and articulate clearly.

The importance of language in leadership echoes Kim Scott’s ‘Radical Candor’ theory. If your style is too abrupt, harsh or direct, you venture into the obnoxious aggression camp. If you’re too sympathetic or too reactive to people’s feelings, you’ll flirt with ruinous empathy. You need to use your gut to find the right balance, keeping in mind that everyone you interact with is different. There’s no singular way of managing a team. Every team member requires a different management approach, one that suits their needs.

Think of Goldilocks, with each of your team a unique story. Each person requires a ‘just right’ communication style that caters to them. Show respect by adapting and calibrating to their style, appreciate their efforts, and help them grow.

3️⃣ Experience matters

Steve Jobs once decried that good managers have to be excellent at their craft. Whilst I agree, there’s an important distinction: time.

Design leaders must have lived experience to lead design teams. With a career in practicing design, the deep contextual knowledge gained means you share a lingua franca with your team. But your design portfolio then won’t be your portfolio now. A shift to leadership means you’re happy to focus on processes, workflows and recruitment. The notion that design leaders need to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in to everyday work is a fallacy.

Your team is your product. Hiring correctly and nurturing growth your focus. Getting involved in everyday pixels can lead to loss of perspective of the bigger picture. Your role is to carve out the time, space and environment for your team to do their best work.

4️⃣ Celebrate the wins

We’ve all had a boss who took management one step too far. They worked the team too hard, or in some cases took all the credit. Worse, there are bosses who give little room for appreciation or recognition, focussing only on getting the tasks done.

Designers can admittedly be a precious bunch. And these archaic forms of industrial revolution-type management won’t work.

When managing design teams, success is a team sport. Shining a light on the wins from your team should be natural, seeing as it’s them doing all the work. Often the wins might be micro-sized, but this shouldn’t make them any less important.

At a previous company we had a hugely-successful slack channel called #being-splendid. The studio could give ‘kudos’ to colleagues who had achieved something worthy of praise, whenever the situation arose. The behaviour bred a positive mindset and celebrated wins of all shapes and sizes. It was a great way of sharing successes rather than one person assuming the credit.

5️⃣ Feedback’s your friend

Annual reviews. 360 degree feedback. Anonymous feedback. If any of these things make get a bit uneasy, you’re not alone.

Yet feedback is integral to growth — both personal and professional. As a leader it’s your job to foster an environment where feedback is part of the wider process, not a cause for anxiety.

Inviting introspection can create long-lasting, positive outcomes. The ability to provide and receive feedback is a great way to build trust and candour, both of which are core tenets to high-performing design teams.

A word of warning: be aware that the depth of feedback lessens with an increase in hierarchy. In other words the higher your role, the less candid feedback you’ll receive.

As a manager you might naturally focus on providing feedback for your team. Don’t forget that it’s a 2-way street. Ask for feedback for your own style of management. You won’t always get it right.

I once wrongly assumed a team member wanted to talk only about work in their 1:1s. I thought it best to discuss their projects, priorities and processes and how we could improve them. As it turned out, they wanted more discussion about their personal life, and how it balanced with their work. Remember to be honest and open, able to course-correct based on the needs of your staff.

6️⃣ Fight for their right

As a designer you’re used to defending your work. In a critique session you state the case for the user, and accept feedback… knowing it can improve any final design.

When your work becomes people, the same rules apply, just in a different context. As a leader/manager you need to defend your team as though it’s your own project. Managing both up and down is the name of the game. Management isn’t only about direct reports. It’s how you interface with the rest of the business around you. How you represent your team and its needs or challenges. You need to make the case for the design you’re doing and how you’re doing it to senior stakeholders. Or defend a decision to use certain processes over others across disciplines.

In most businesses, design is still a nascent discipline. Though growing, it still needs its virtues and positive outcomes reinforced every step of the way. Whether managing one designer or an army of them, the same rule still applies: You need to fight their corner.

🏁 Embrace the challenge

This article started with the notion that you must throw away everything you know as a designer. ‘What got you here won’t get you there’. But as a design professional you’re a step ahead of others coming into management from other backgrounds.

You know how to build empathy with your users. You’re able to frame problems and find a solution in a process-driven way. You’re used to critique, gaining buy-in and communicating complex problems articulately.

If you chose to go into management at that proverbial fork in the road, you’re not alone. Thousands of other newly-minted design leaders and managers are learning on the go. They’re sharing their experiences, adjusting to their new surroundings and not looking back. After careful consideration their pixel projects have been replaced by people.

If it’s a decision you’re currently facing or you’re an old hat, I hope these reflections and insights have proven useful.

This article was written using both Bear and Hemingway apps.

🇺🇦 Note: It feels incredibly futile and privileged to write about things as mundane as worklife when there’s a war going on, with millions of people in Ukraine being unfairly and violently displaced, and thousands of innocent people being killed for no reason but for the ego and agenda of some small, unstable shithead. Yet like others, this is more an attempt at normality when everything else feels abnormal.

It’s been a month in my new role, as Design Director at a small but growing agency. In my view the first 30 days in any new job are like a glass, your mind filling to the point of overspill with everything: New information, new people, new relationships and knowledge, getting used to new processes and dynamics (“Oh, I’m used to doing it like this”).

It’s all been challenging but interesting. As my mental glass fills up, my clarity has improved for what needs changing or adjusting, and where best to focus my efforts.

I’ve been trying to keep a running log of some of the learnings across agency life, and I keep circling around four P’s:

People, Processes, Purpose, Proposition

A 4P framework?? How very trite and consultant of me, but hey ho.

People

The people at an agency are its lifeblood, besides new business. Without people there are no services provided. Get the people right early on and you’re golden. But it’s so much easier said than done. Within the ‘people’ column there’s a whole range of inter-personal dynamics including culture, management, HR, recruitment and many more.

Yet culture remains the bedrock. In the last few weeks I’ve referenced Dan Pink’s ‘Autonomy, Master, Purpose’ more than a few times.

Since COVID and the Great Resignation™️ so many people are re-evaluating what they’re doing, why, and for whom. The purpose of an employer has become such an important factor that it’s a primary criterion for many job searchers. What does your company stand for, and why? Can you, reading this, succinctly summarise your company’s purpose, without it sounding ‘very trite and consultant’?

Similarly autonomy is always a hot topic. At my last place autonomy was a double-edged sword as there was potentially too much. Senior staff were prone to plateau-ing when instead they needed direction. In my current digs it’s the other way; perhaps a little too tight. Too little autonomy can stifle great work. It’s a fine and precarious balance and it’s not easy to get right.

Processes

You know that feeling when you enter someone else’s house and it just smells different? They put their shoes in different places, and their coat hooks are in another room?

Processes between agencies are like that. They might amount to the same thing, but done in completely different ways.

Processes are also scale-dependent. At smaller company sizes processes are implied and innate. Things get done because the team is small enough to act and react as one. But past a certain size (typically 25) things start to break.

As a company grows in size the reliance on processes grows with it. Who does what? Where can you find certain information? With time, rapidly-growing organisations tart to show stress fractures. Processes and knowledge that might have been implicit or shared become difficult to find. As new people join, how are processes and knowledge shared?

If a company grows but the processes don’t, efficiencies are lost and the wheel will always get reinvented. Operationalising processes might feel ‘corporate’ but it’s the best way to share how things are done, while setting a foundation for how things should operate in the near-future.

One thing that’s becoming more commonplace is a company handbook. There’s one in the works at my current role and its already excellent. Packed to the rafters with all the info a new employee might need, with everything ranging from Slack etiquette to HR policies and line management best practices.

Purpose

This is all becoming very consultant if I reference Sinek’s ‘Start with Why’. Yet when talking about purpose it’s hard not to. The ‘why’ of any company is becoming more integral than it ever has been. Future staff want to stick their stake in the ground at a company that shares their values and purpose. It’s no surprise that a Google search for ‘purpose-driven agency’ yields a paltry 203m results.

Sustainability, environment and ethics are increasingly important core tenets in both business and human resources. Staff and clients want to know they’re working at or with companies who give a shit about what they’re doing. Gone are the days that agencies could attract people with nice client rosters and then burn them out, with little else to offer except money and exposure.

What about changing a purpose over time? An agency might not have a clear purpose from the outset, but it’s there somewhere. In chipping away at what the collective group stands for — what makes them tick and what makes them wince — it becomes clear how to refine and uncover a strong purpose that reflects the organisation and its raison d’être.

Proposition

That thing that you exchange for money: How does it differ from others? Can you defend it with conviction? How do you stand out, and why?

In today’s agency landscape it is so easy to fall victim to ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. A colleague one time described agency websites today as a ‘sea of sameness’ with every agency looking identical and saying the same thing. Worse are the agencies who try to remain relevant to prospective clients by throwing a bunch of buzzwords into a hopper and seeing what sticks (synergistic innovations for web3 blockchain that maximise revenue and leverage stakeholder engagement), seeing what entices them like an anglerfish fishing for its prey.

A strong propositional statement has to be real, and it has to feel like a gauntlet has been thrown down. It says to everyone ‘this is what we do, and this is why we do it’. The right proposition aligns with the right client, telling them you’re the right choice, and it tells them what you don’t do. If you offer all the things, what are you a master of?