Giving visibility and prioritisation in a crisis

The challenge

I came into a 60 strong design team in the middle of the COVID pandemic. There was a lot of stress in the team. 4 people were leaving every week. There was a huge pressure to constantly recruit.

I was tasked with reducing attrition. To do that I had to understand why people were leaving so I started with exit interviews.

A roadmap for Design Ops

The interviews surfaced many challenges. They gave 3 core areas to focus on. How we work together, how we get work done and how our work creates impact. I started on how we work together. To resolve issues such as:

• Most teams constantly had new starters. 
• Designers were brought in late in the projects.
• People worked in silos across disciplines and projects.

The system created the environment

Teams were desperate to get the work done with or without designers. In some teams, designers had little work and in others, they worked overtime. We needed a more fluid design team to match demand where it came from. A document affectionately known as “The Bible” was born.

• I centralised onboarding and offboarding so we could document where everyone was placed.
• Then we added all the projects and tagged them if they were running, paused or stopped, along with a priority. I established a ceremony checking this document onto pre-existing meetings.
• The loop on the system was then to assign people to projects. We could now see the roles needed at any given time on any project and team.
• I later added the cost of the projects so senior stakeholders could make quicker and better-informed decisions on where to spend their budget.

Outcomes

Visibility and prioritisation outcomes:

• 30% reduction in projects.
• Conversations were created around hiring and who should be on what team.
• The attrition rate reduced as people were employed for specific workstreams.