I have had opportunities to practice team leadership at several roles throughout my career. Coordinator, project manager, Product Owner, creative lead. Other than ongoing activities for our agency, I am leading part of the Belgian design team for a large financial player since the fall of 2016. We cover many aspects of the digital transformation with service design, concept design, User experience (UX), and user interface (UI).
This position happened both organically and intentionally. As I got entrusted with design for the investment domain, I noticed a pattern in the process. Newer financial regulations (MIFID II, if you’re curious) and UX were aligning to better inform prospective investors. Soon, every product page and every sales flow would follow a consistent design pattern. Now, the investment domain had an ill reputation among our designers for its steeper learning curve. They were reluctant to join these projects and found them hard to complete. So I stepped in to facilitate knowledge and onboard new members, and the first part of my team was born.
Experience design patterns alongside business domain knowledge. Fast forward to today and the implementation of the Agile Spotify framework, and I am Chapter lead for designers in three business lines — credit, insurance, investment. The purpose and value of the chapter remains the same premise. In practice, we support 9 squads with our four layers of design activities. Yes, 9 squads seems like a crazy number at first, but it is simply an organizational division, or a division of the mind, if you will: the knowledge per domain remains the same, and we capitalize on that.
A team leadership journal
As personal contributor for the agency and our clients, I now focus in detecting experience design patterns. I research, then facilitate co-creation workshops for value proposition, customer journey, or experience mapping. As chapter lead for our main client, I cross pollinate such findings to increase design and domain knowledge. This is the What. I thought of documenting some anecdotes and experiments on team leadership based on this ongoing experience and a blend of past others. The How and the Why.
As team leadership practice is what matters to me here, I do not intend to disclose identities or domain knowledge to preserve the privacy of our current or previous customers and colleagues.
Why a journal?
I found one of my notes about blog writing in the archives. It is dated April 2005. Rereading the post and its comments over a decade later, it was funny to see how my thoughts still resonate while my attitude is completely different. So much cussing! I remembered the struggle of freshly starting as a free-lancer. Then, I recalled handling my dwindling relationship. And today, when all of that was said and done, what remains? The essence, the unflinching factor that shapes our character.
There is beauty and wisdom and reassurance in discovering that. Have we remained true to ourselves? What trait could use a little nudge in a better direction? This sort of flashback would not be so immediate had it not been recorded. One way to do so is writing.
I still wish to write for the same reasons. To collect my thoughts in order to recall, introspect, and improve. I don’t have a physical journal, but I carry a notebook most of the time and definitely at work. My colleagues love my notebook at a glance, yet publishing online is a different matter. It forces you to consider the quality of your writing, and it also makes you accountable. This seems to me like a good foundation for interesting content. It is our intrinsic nature to leave a trace, and good human experience deserves to be shared. I want to contribute to that. A few years back, I used to blog more. I wanted to do it again, and this subject motivates me. Hello world.