Team leadership

Members of a high-functioning team need to feel that they are making a telling contribution and helping their organisation to achieve its strategic vision.

As a result, I have always made a big effort to translate the strategy for each individual on the team and help them understand how they can contribute. Where possible, I have made this part of my managees’ appraisal goals.

The need for this was particularly acute at Endava, where designers working in the D.U.s (development units) in Eastern Europe needed to understand a U.K. based client’s organisation. I gave team members a full briefing on the client and its key audiences, so that they could identify with the brand and design for it more effectively. If possible, we flew them over so that they could meet the individuals on the client team and witness the client organisation’s contribution to British society.

I’m proud that I’ve hired so many talented people during my career, and that a number of them have now gone into leadership positions themselves. I think that this may be partly because I have a good eye for talent and enthusiasm, but there are two other important factors - taking a long-term view and acting swiftly and decisively.

It’s important to take a long-term view and hire for potential and enthusiasm, and not think about how the new hire can help with your next project. Growing talent requires patience and commitment - if you treat hires as a quick fix, they will treat you the same.

And, when you interview the right person, don’t invite them back for a second interview next week, or as soon as your colleagues are free. If the candidate seems ideal for you, they are more than likely to seem ideal to another employer. So I always move heaven and earth to accelerate the hiring process. As for all the best things in life - if you don't want to lose it, act quickly!

It’s well known that the number one employee retention factor is learning. Team members will be loyal if they feel they are improving as practitioners and adding to their skill set, far more than being driven by salary and other benefits.

This is why I’ve always promoted a learning culture in the teams I’ve managed. For 3 of my previous employers, I created a skills matrix for the team that mapped each team member’s proficiency and interest against various design and research methodologies. This showed us where people wanted most to develop, who were the best people for them to learn from, and where training was needed for the team overall. It also helped the resourcing managers identify the best practitioners for a given project, and help me pinpoint learning opportunities through “buddying up”.

Training budgets can often be tight. So, to maximise the whole team’s learning, I stipulated a rule that anyone attending training or a conference should present back a highlights package of their learnings in our team meetings.

I’ve worked with too many managers who come into a new job and immediately dismiss the work that has preceded them with phrases like “I wasn’t involved in this…” or “I would have done this differently…”. This, I feel, is very demotivating for team members, especially when said in front of clients and senior colleagues.

My approach has always been to stand squarely behind the team and fully support them - I am there to make them look good, not the other way around. If I have an issue with any work that a team member has produced, that is a conversation to have 1:1, and not in the open.

As user experience design and research are relatively new disciplines, evangelising the value of UX to clients and internally has always been a key part of my role. This has become easier over time as awareness has increased, and the focus has now shifted to how UX activities can best add value within an Agile delivery process.

As a result, I have developed and honed slide decks that explain and promote the discipline of user experience, the capabilities of the teams I have worked with, and an Agile process in which UX designers and a researcher form the core of an Agile product team (also called the discovery team).

I’m always happy to spread the word even wider and have spoken at conferences, lectured at universities and given training in UX to clients, including Barclays, HSBC and Aviva.

TEAM LEADERSHIP