D. Keith Robinson

A quick look into the work of a Lead Designer on a digital product.

I've meant to write a bit more about a lead designer's role, and with my Leading Design talk coming up, I think it's time to share a bit of context. This quick post is for the folks who will be watching me deliver said talk and anyone interested in what it's like to be a leader on the individual contributor (IC) track.

So, as tricky as I think this is likely to be, I wanted to try to give you an idea of what I believe a "lead" or "staff" designer does and how that might be different to, say, a senior designer. In my mind, it's that Senior -> Lead jump that signals a fairly significant change in one's career. Probably as much, but in a different way, to someone moving from IC into management.

So what does the day-to-day of an IC leader look like? What kind of work does a Lead (or Staff) Designer do? How is it different, both in terms of IC and in terms of management? I'll try and give you a quick idea of what my workdays are like, as I think it might be fairly typical.

Well, as you might guess, it's a bit of a messy, mixed bag. Mostly of goodies, though.

How is IC different from management? And what’s the day-to-day?

A lead is usually the one on the hook for outcomes of larger streams of work or focus areas. There are as many ways it can go as there are designers who advance in their careers. One of the things I'll cover in my talk is how we might better accommodate the many varied paths and skillsets that come with growth. In my experience—and my primary focus—most of the day-to-day effort falls in the place where the buck ultimately stops when it comes to user's experience for the streams I'm working on.

In the past, this has been for a specific product. But it could be a specific feature, vertical or focus area, depending on a variety of factors. Currently, my purview is a program of work that runs cross-product and within several different cross-functional groups.

I'm working on metrics, insights, and data visualizations, but I'm not limited to a particular product or stream. I've been in this specific role since before it there was a program of work, and I'm, at the moment, the only designer in a leadership position that works directly for the program. As well, we don't yet have a manager role for the program, so in my leadership capacity, I do a lot of what a manager would do without all of the people management responsibilities. Nobody reports directly to me, but I lead a variety of people across streams of work.

I think this is a pretty common scenario for leads; you might be in a spot where you're a solo designer or working with folks from many teams, doing both the day-to-day design work and all the things a manager might do outside of the "people" aspect. I attend many meetings, do a lot of mentoring, and represent design to cross-functional team members.

So my weeks are often relatively evenly split between "leadership" things like alignment and strategy meetings on one side and tactical product design work on the other. I do anything and everything from design explorations to supporting research to pairing with developers to get things implemented.

The most significant difference between a Lead/Staff and a Senior is the circle of influence. A lead's influence and areas of responsibility are likely to be wider (more people) and deeper (more responsibility). That will also like grow as you get on in your career.

For those looking to take a step, making a move into leadership without going down the management track can be tricky, and it's something we need to work on as an industry. Growing as an IC can be very rewarding; it's just a bit of a tough spot for many in the industry right now. We've got the scale, I think many organizations have the business need, and we've got people wanting to make that leap. What we're missing is the structure and the systems to support everyone and their growth quite yet. It’s a tough problem. But we'll get there.

🗣️A quick shout-out and caveat around growth. Wilson Minor recently shared some brilliant thinking on this and has some terrific insight into the subject, as well as the role of an IC in general. If you've made it this far and are still with me, you should read the interview. One of the things he points out is that it should be ok to "just hold where you are."

I 100% agree with this and can relate. I think we put too much emphasis on constant and unrelenting growth and feel like, especially later in your career, sometimes the best value you can bring to your work is by settling in and just being really fucking good at what you do. We need to normalize and embrace just doing consistently good work.

If this tickled your brain or are interested in learning more about the shift into leadership on the IC track and how we might make that better, please, check out my talk if you can and/or follow this space for more on that subject.

An overview of the system I use to plan and track my personal projects and growth.

I enjoy the yearly ritual of making plans, setting goals and intentions, resolutions, or whatever people do to kick off a new year. I find that, when I do a good job of reflection and planning, I start the year off on a positive foot that, sometimes, I can sustain and turn into a lot of positive action and growth.

But I tend to think, and plan, in much smaller blocks of time and I can’t sustain most plans for a full year. Maybe, more importantly, I don’t think most yearly goals really make much practical sense. So while it’s fun to lay out some ideas for what you want to accomplish in a year, I tend to focus on months and quarters and then try and map out how they might add up to something.

And, of course, there are years like 2020 that can ruin the best plans, so it’s best to be prepared for chaos.

IMO, the best way to approach a year is to focus on projects, actions, and habits, but I do start with some reflection and planning.

Plans instead of resolutions

I don’t generally do resolutions, theme words, or any of that, and I prefer my yearly plans to be concrete, measurable and within my means to achieve. That doesn’t mean I don’t have big goals or dreams, only that I try to avoid things that are overly fuzzy or impossible.

For me, laying out a structure for personal projects and growth is key. I need to do it or I won’t get anything on my “personal” list done. My work—my day job—takes up most of my time and energy, and I’ve got a whole separate process for managing that. Without personal planning, reflection, and a simple, easy structure, I’d probably be limited to fuck-this-shit-o’clock-and-play-video-games when I’m not working. Which wouldn’t be good for my personal life OR my work life, as my side-projects play a big part in my success at work. But that’s another post.

The new year is a meaningful break, but it’s also just a slightly special one of four quarters and one of twelve months to check in on things. Most of my yearly planning is reflection and intention and setting up a few goals, and projects to get out of the break on the best foot and ride it as far as I can.

I usually start big and break things down from there. I do better with structure and I find that a simple framework works pretty well for me and it fits just about anything I’m wanting to do.

A simple system

The harder any system is for me to use, the less likely I am to use it, and the more likely I am to be distracted and all over the place because I have no structure. So, I keep it simple and try to build habits around checking in with it. It goes like this:

I review, measure, and reflect
I define aspirations and goals
I devise plans and projects to support those aspirations and goals
I break those plans and projects down into actions
I work to develop habits that support everything
I review regularly

Not everything maps back to what’s above it, for example, I’ve got goals that aren’t connected to aspirations and habits that don’t support anything else, but they usually fit together.

I tend to revisit this loop once a month and once a quarter. I don’t really do weekly planning, as that’s too much with my day job and all the work that goes into planning there, but I do track things on a daily basis and that comes in handy when I take time to review everything.

Here’s a bit more about the individual pieces.

Aspirations

I like this word, but if you don’t like this word, feel free to skip on down to the “Goals” section, as it’s pretty much the same thing without all the high falutin shenanigans.

So yeah. Aspiration. It’s a fun word and I use it for the lofty, open-ended, or nebulous things I want to do; developing skills, difficult or lengthy goals, things that might require multiple goals, projects, and many actions. Big things. I’ve also tried to use it in place of “stretch goals” which seem almost purposely unattainable. Aspirations should be something doable, even if they’re a bit fuzzy. I like to keep things concrete, but we’re I to aspire to something a bit nebulous like “be exceptionally fit” it would go here. Of course, the more nebulous the aspiration, the more you’ll need to think about how to measure success. I’ve thought a lot about whether or not I even need both aspirations and goals, but find that they serve to push more than goals do, and there are some things I often want to work against that feel either too fuzzy to be a measurable goal or too lofty to achieve outright.

Another way to differentiate aspirations from goals is that they need to have a well-thought-out “why” attached to them. With a goal, I don’t always put as much thought into it. If I want to do it, that’s good enough, but if it’s something I want to put a lot of effort into, I want to make sure I spend some time thinking about why I want to do that.

Some examples: “become a published novelist”, is a good, concrete aspiration would that might be too big to be a simple goal. It’s tough but possible and easily measured. For a more nebulous aspiration something like “Build healthy eating habits” would work, just barely, as it’s pretty vague and a little hard to measure and track. It could work though because you could fold smaller, more measurable, goals, plans, and habits into it.

I like like to start out the year with a few of these, but I don’t spend much time working actively against them with projects and actions, preferring to focus down the chain on goals and projects. Also, they can be hard to come up with and harder to write.

Goals

Goals are similar to aspirations, but much more concrete, practical, and actionable. And, smarter, smaller, and very much doable within a yearly, or shorter, timeline. These are things I like to think I will, for sure, beyond any doubt get done. Assuming we don’t suffer a global pandemic or some other major disruption.

An example of a goal would be to “write a novel”. This is something I can probably do, yet isn’t as aspirational as getting all the way to publishing.

I will start out the year with a few of these, 2-3 or so, but I’ll add to them as the year goes on. For example, in 2020, I didn’t really have much to start with, and when March rolled around and the world shifted I sort of stopped thinking about all of my plans and aspirations for a while, picking them back up again around September.

Projects

The magic happens in projects. This is where the action is, where most of my efforts go. Projects lie at the center of most of what I want to do, smack in between my goals/aspirations and the tasks and habits. These break down goals a bit further into discreet chunks of work that can be planned, worked on, and completed.

An example of a project would be “write the first draft of a novel” or “prep for Nanowrimo”. They can be large or small but should be easy to measure and track progress against.

I generally try not to have many projects going on at the same time, maybe 3 max, but I do expect to have quite a few projects throughout the year. I don’t complete them all, but, generally, I expect to finish every project I start, even if the outcome isn’t what I’d like at the end. Assuming I’ve done my planning well (not as easy as it may sound) finishing my projects is probably the best measure I have for whether or not I’m on- or off-track with my goals and aspirations.

Actions

Actions and tasks are things you’ll need to do to get your projects done, these are tasks that usually role up to a project, but sometimes support goals or aspirations directly. This is the heart of how I try and get what I want out of my year. These are the actionable, trackable, daily, and weekly activities that build towards completed projects and goals and achieved aspirations.

I’ve got many of these. I try to start my projects with a good plan and tasks that support that plan.

Supporting habits

I treat these a bit differently to actions, as these should fit into some kind of cycle or routine and they don’t always line directly up into a project. For example, I’ve got habits I’m working on that support aspirations directly. In some ways, they’re more important than actions, and often I’ll want to work on building habits that support multiple goals or aspirations.

A good example of a habit might be “journal every day” and could map that to multiple writing or growth-related projects, goals, and aspirations.

Planning habits, and working to build and maintain them, is what helps me keep momentum towards goals while also limiting the active projects to a manageable level.

A bit of a side note: habits are also what made my 2020 somewhat of a good year for personal growth. (In addition to and enabled by excellent support, luck, and privilege.) It was very hard for me to focus on my projects or even daily and weekly actions, but I was able to build and maintain some habits that helped me channel energy into a few things here and there, and reflecting on it, I feel like it helped a lot.

So, there it is. I’ve been planning for the last several days and excited about some things I want to tackle in 2021. Hopefully, if you made it this far, there was something interesting or helpful in there for you too.

What does a lead designer even do?