Design Leadership Skills - Growing and Managing a Product Design Team [UX UI Designers]

Want to take your UX UI design team to the next level through design leadership skills? Join Billy Sweetman, Head of Design at Headway to learn what we’ve implemented along the way to best lead our internal design teams, clients, and projects for success.
Free UX Audit Guide, Checklist, and Templates for Product Teams
bit.ly/ux-audit-guide-design-...
Become a Design System Pro with our New Video Course
bit.ly/shipwright-design-syst...
This product design and UX leadership event is for current and aspiring design team managers. Tune in for our best advice to shift your mindset from building a product to growing a team.
Segments:
00:00 - Introduction
00:28 - Individual Contributor To Team Builder
01:30 - Practical Tips for Design Teams
02:10 - Define Your Design Process
03:02 - Design Feedback Structure
05:55 - Design Critique AKA "Design Crit"
07:52 - Communication
10:11 - Listen With An Open Mind
11:55 - Clear The Way
13:09 - Clarity
14:16 - Keep Your Design Skills Sharp
15:51 - Transparency
17:46 - Find You Time
19:55 - New Team Members
21:42 - Constant Feedback, Early and Often
23:02 - Unlearn With a Growth Mindset
24:39 - Remix Everything
25:35 - Evolution Is Key
27:03 - Product Design Leadership Book Recommendations
28:13 - Q&A
#design #leadership #ux

[@headwayio]

Lead your team with our new premium design system course:
bit.ly/shipwright-design-system-course

[@TIZIROTA]

Have been a design manager myself i think this is an extremely valuable content for people who are starting managing a team.
I have learned many things along the way but i kinda hope i could find some content like this in the early days.
Thanks for this great content.

[@headwayio]

Wow. This feedback is so awesome to hear. Thanks for sharing that Andrea.
What is your role today and how can we keep helping? Would love to know what other content or tools we could create to help design leaders like yourself.

[@dotsona07]

Not many people on youtube are covering legit lessons like this. Refreshing to see real insights and not influencer UX fluff lol.

[@headwayio]

That's really great to hear. Sometimes it's easy to look at what other channels do and the views they get, but sometimes it feels like you said, "fluff" and not helpful.

[@chriswhalen2568]

Thanks for the comprehensive tips to the transition from IC to Lead. This is exactly wha it was looking for.

[@headwayio]

Good to hear! Breanna from our team just did a video on our channel about design 1:1s as well and speaks to the transition from her perspective too. Let us know if you have any questions.

[@muktasoni24]

This is really helpful, many thanks for sharing your learnings with us Billy.

[@headwayio]

Thanks for this kind comment. 🤗 Billy is a great teacher. Is there anything else you would like to see Billy to share with the design community here? What’s been on your mind lately through your design work?

[@ljoellie]

Thank you for this presentation, I have learnt so much from what you've shared. Think many of these are applicable to other design disciplines as well.

[@headwayio]

Glad you found it helpful and thank you for sharing!

[@jameslung-lv5ic]

Damn impressive presentation to me, a relatively new person to the field: I took lots of notes and appreciated the information density. Though I want to be an individual contributor, this is the same broad perspective my most recent boss was putting forward. Yes we need the skills and to do the project work, but the insights you share make for better results, better teams, better growth.

[@headwayio]

wow. this feedback is awesome. glad you found Billy's presentation helpful.
James, is there anything in the video you wish we talked more about?
We're always looking for ideas for new videos to help people on their design journey.

[@tlambo]

Great content very insightful

[@headwayio]

Glad you thought so! Anything else you’d like to see from our channel in the future?

[@nefelocartoon]

Great content!! Very enlightening, I'd love a bit more details on day-to-day stuff.
As an IC moving to a lead role the "How" side of things is a bit scary.
I loved the design crit and feedback guidance along with the example of team s.m.a.r.t. goals!!
Thanks a lot

[@headwayio]

This feedback is awesome! We’ll share this with Billy. We’re brainstorming ideas for this year and day-to-day stuff would be great to cover. Day in the life breakdown but not that crap you see where it looks fake. Lol.

[@nefelocartoon]

@@headwayio Exactly! That' d be great and super useful. Advice and generic guidance is cool but at the end of the day actionable points and seeing how the rest of the community do things it's invaluable. Thnx for everything!

[@juststuff01]

This video was incredible, thank you.

[@headwayio]

Love to hear it! Let us know if there are any other topics you'd like to hear from Billy or if you wish there was something he went deeper on within this video. We're always looking for ideas for new content to help others.

[@juststuff01]

@@headwayio I will. I never had design leadership so I’m feeling clueless in my new role and this video is helping me to create some structure and foundation to build on.

[@headwayio]

If we were to have a small private community or video course that went more in-depth on design leadership, would you be interested?

[@juststuff01]

@@headwayio I would be interested, yes.

[@headwayio]

Good to know! This feedback is really helpful. To stay up to date on our content by subscribing. If you’re up for it, feel free to email [e-mail] to let him know you’re interested in being a part of our future content research process. We meet with designers to test video course ideas and give us feedback for refinement before public launch.

[@jaffi008]

Wonderfull

[@headwayio]

You’re wonderful for leaving this comment. Thank you! 🤗

[@CJCreativeJuice]

Great tips. Do you have any advice on how to guide non-design team members in giving feedback? I work with product managers who have a lot of opinions which aren’t backed up with knowledge and it’s creating friction.

[@headwayio]

I’ll share this question with Billy. Thanks for your patience and will follow up soon!

[@worldzer0]

Great question! I think one of the biggest things we can do when asking for feedback is be clear on what feedback we are looking for and what feedback we're not looking for. Walking through our decisions with data or similar product features that other products share can help mitigate some of these friction points.