How building a design process helped in digital project management!

How we built our process in order to improve our work, organization, and collaboration with clients.

A year ago, after joining Vitamina. the main goal was to improve the quality of our services, so we could provide our clients with a more consistent work and also to improve our communication with them.

From developing marketing campaigns to creating websites and designing a new brand image for the company, these were among the firsts steps I took in building a Design Process.

Things were not always perfect.

Projects went well, but there was always something missing.

There were some details that needed to be polished and there were key pieces of information that were lost constantly, from the briefing up until the project development.

After a conversation with the rest of the team, taking some courses and doing the research that I needed, we decided that the best way to improve the way we were working was to create a design process, in order to avoid loss of information and a lack of communication.

This process was inspired by the Design Sprint book by Jake Knap from Google Ventures and the Design Thinking process created and taught by Tom & David Kelley by IDEO, and last but not least some valuable information was taken from the Process Masterclass course by Nguyen Le.

With all the collected information, it was time to divide our process into these 6 following steps (before moving forward, check my other blog post: Design for your clients, not for your ego):

Understand;
Define;
Ideate;
Prototype;
Test;
Launch.

Why did we update our process?

Since the digital world is constantly changing and improving, it is important to keep up with new solutions in order to achieve our client’s goals and to be flexible enough to find a way that could be applied to most projects.

This means that you don’t need to look at it as a golden rule and follow it like a manual, since every client has different needs, but it's a way and you can adapt it and change it, according to your needs.

Next steps

As we are constantly striving to improve the way we work, the next step we want to take is to create a Design System in order to improve our design consistency and visual style guides, so if you want to know more, stay tuned for the next Design article.

SET UP

The question in my mind for a good 2 days while I was letting this book sit there on my coffee table was: Why should I read it?

I’m not starting my own business or managing a team, I’m between jobs leaving a company that I love which couldn’t love me in return for a job in the stressful world of a digital agency. And so, I felt that there were more accurate books that would be more helpful in that moment.

However, one day (while I quickly ran out of other things to do - that were sooo major) I started reading the first paragraph in the book. And two weeks later, I had devoured the whole thing.

THE HOOK

Rework is all about asking the right questions. Although, you might think that does not apply to you, it does. If you are part of an industry, of a company, if you are a CEO, a freelancer or an intern you should read this book.

Rework makes you think about your behavior in the workplace and questions your attitude towards different problems. The solutions might not be what you are looking for but what’s key is the crucial questions it raises.

MUNDANE CONCLUSIONS

Business plans are trash, long meetings are the plague, the phrase “long-term strategy” means nothing and the ideal work week has between 10 and 40 hours in it. Yep. You read that right.

The authors live by the premises in the book, it’s their guide and has help them found a small company that every year makes millions of dollars which is 37 signals.

Here’s my take away from their philosophy:

Develop something that you would want to use on your daily life.

Start with something that could solve your personal problems or your work problems.
Focus on doing one thing right.

Failure it’s not a premise for success, learning from mistake is overrated.
Problems usually have simple solutions.

Don’t sweat more than you have to. You usually know what the consequences are, deal with them. Be open, humble and transparent.
Meetings are toxic.

If a meeting is mandatory then something concrete must come out of it.
The time to launch is now not later.

An ideal setting is never going to happen. Find out soon rather than later if your idea works.
Before hiring for a specific area, do the job yourself.

Then you know what works and what to expect from your employee.

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SEE ALSO: Why having a content strategy matters? Rework preaches what worked for the authors: a revolutionary work philosophy that focuses on personal satisfaction, productivity and the pursuit of an ideal.

‍It’s up to you to take away the conclusions that might really work for you.

Our web designer, Rui Bogas, has a really strong opinion about how you should bond with your clients. See if you agree!Clients are not evil, they are just taking care of their business.SEE ALSO: DESIGN FOR YOUR CLIENTS, NOT FOR YOU

Every time we start a new project, we have to put ourselves in other people’s shoes in order to understand what are their main concerns and find a way to solve their problems, but there’s a thing that we seem to forget sometimes and we seem to be most afraid of (even more than our final users). I’m talking about clients.

Of course there are all kinds of clients all over the world, but why do we feel afraid of them most of the times? In a matter of fact, they run their business and they want to succeed. But just like the steps we take to discover what our user wants, why don’t we force ourselves to understand our clients deeper and build a better relationship with them? What if we were in the same situation as them? What would be our needs? What do we value and we would like to see in other companies that we work with? How can I trust in those companies?

These are some important questions, but there’s a lot more that we need to ask in order to put ourselves in their shoes. If we were on their side, I’m sure we would do the same thing.

Why to put ourselves in their shoes?

First of all, we need to meet our clients and get to know them as much as possible. What does he like? What’s the most important for him?

Then we can think about some questions like: What does he really want to do? What’s the work all about? Why would he even think about that? Why not? How can it benefit his business? And so on…

Getting to know the client can be extremely powerful and that’s when they start to feel confident about us. It’s a great way to introduce ourselves and show him how do we work and which are the procedures. Here’s where our key point comes in! What about if instead of only showing him what we do, we integrate him in the work process in order to work towards the same goal?

That way it will help us understand his point of view and he will understand our way of work, experiencing working along with us.

Here at Vitamina., we are starting to do that and the results are showing. The only way to improve our work and deliver a product that solves real problems is through collaboration with clients and there’s nobody that understand their business better than themselves and at the same time, we are “designing for our client, not for us.”

The main advantages of working together

Working together with our clients will help us building a better and healthier relationship between us, we will be able to fulfill their needs, so that we can create more opportunities to work with them in the future.

‍Together, we can create better products with a better user experience, that solve real problems for every user's needs.

‍This is not an easy task, because every client is different, but with a lot of practice we start to get some results and provide more value for our clients, only this way we can be valuable.

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There’s no running away from problems. You just have to own up to your mistakes and come to terms with the consequences. Easy, right?

Today, I’m going to talk to you about how you can help yourself not to make so many mistakes at work. This is a subject that hits close to home.

I’m a very easily distracted person, the sort of person that would leave the toaster on and go straight out the door without a care in the world. And that's all fine. Perhaps. Until it’s not.

When you want to be a hardcore professional girl, especially a professional in content creation, errors are simply... not acceptable. When a client’s image is on the line they can’t happen.

First of all, breathe. Then reflect on it. Then act on it.

STEP 1: Which one are you?

According to recent psychological studies, when it comes to mistakes, there are two types of people:

Type A: People that just stay calm and collect themselves in the face of a mistake. (oh, how I envy them!) They just need to adjust their focus and are much more likely to learn from their mistakes so they will not happen again easily.

Type B: People who panic. (uh, that's sooo me.) People who can’t get over their mistake are more likely to keep doing it in the future.

Choose carefully.

STEP 2: Understand your mistake!

Keep your mistakes on a lockdown.

Record and keep a personal log on your every mistake.

Lose your keys
Forget the kettle on
Misspell a word
Copy and paste wrong (yeah, it could happen!)

Identify a reason for the mistake to happen and write down the steps you followed in order to identify where the mistake occurred and how you could avoid them:

Where you in a rush?
Where you in a rush because you procrastinated?
Where you stressed about something else?

This way, you will understand the reasons why your mistakes keep happening and where the pattern is, if there is one.

STEP 3: Talk about it!

This is something you can’t be ashamed of, I know it’s hard but you have to face it and own up to it.

If these mistakes keep happening at work, then seek the advice of someone who has more experience than you and talk to that person about it. You are going to realize that mistakes are common, you are only human but there is an urgent need to suppress them.

STEP 4: Organization is the key!

Use checklists and to do’s.
Prioritize.
Simplify your schedule. Fewer tasks mean the work would be easier and better.
Ask for help. If your eyes can't identify the mistakes maybe having someone else revising your work should be the way.

Above all, stay strong and don’t bring yourself down. However, take every mistake you make seriously, especially if it’s in the workplace. Face them, breathe and deal with the consequences. Whatever they might be.