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Team Rituals

As the team grew, processes and rituals came into play.

Design Critiques were the first one we instituted. This was a design and research only session where designers could present their work to other designers. These would be weekly and designers were encouraged to show work in progress. To setup this session as a safe space, leaders need to be vulnerable and lead by showing their own work in progress.

With a need to showcasing our work and drive alignment with non-design stakeholders, we setup a Design Review. The format of the design review was formal compared to our informal design critique. The role of a design leader is to support their team during this session.

I used to be the only designer on my team based in India, but until the lockdown I did not think about instituting any daily standups. I used to frequently travel to Indonesia and everyone else was based in the same office. I felt that was enough. But when the pandemic hit and the designers started being isolated in their houses, Maji and I decided to setup a daily cooler talk. We called it Design Standup but we didn’t want it to be a ‘standup’. We encouraged folks to talk about their personal life, what they were going through and what they were doing. We played games, drew murals together on digital whiteboards and went down internet rabbit holes. Attendance was never compulsory, you could join in if you felt like it. We always posted the link and created a thread of what we discussed on our channel so that if you missed out, you could still follow what was discussed. This ritual couldn’t have be achieved without the team members especially Maji, Lauditta and Aryo driving the conversations.  I wonder if this is replicable or was I lucky to have this wonderful team…