Self-Development plan for every designer

Indrive is evolving and growing so fast,involving business growth, team size, evolving process, etc. It is significant for everyone to grow along with the company to match the market and company demands, and what's even better is to reach a new level in their professions.

Context

To help designers be more skilful professionals than they were yesterday
Actually, a lot of my management activities aimed at that goal, for example, workshops sessions, design critiques sessions and so on, but every professional needs a more personal approach.

Goal

The way to manage designers' professional growth

Management tool

Idea

So I was defined to create a self-development plan for every designer, so that it may help them to meet their needs and our company's demands.

Creating a unified checklist for all designers may not be the best approach since their levels, teams and services they work on differ. Moreover, in my opinion, a designer good at research, but intermediate in UI skills could be considered senior just as a designer who is highly creative in visual design, but lacks research skils.

Step 1— skill map

To define each position level, I used the current version of the skill map, which assigns an average point value for each skill set. For example,senior poistions may require a skill set with an average of 2.3 in analytical skills. A designer with a team leader's help may choose what skills are better to boost to reach senior level. I involved managers (design director, developers and product leads) in discussion to take their demands into account.

As a result, we decided that we cannot promote designers based only on the sum of their grades but also need to evaluate their impact on the product as co-owners. That's why we identified several critical demands in skills for each level, such as Proactivity for seniors, and additional combinations of skills that may vary depending on the person.

Step 2 — define level

In terms of evaluation process, Designer set themselves grades for each skill, where 1 means “I know what this skill about", and 4 is the biggest grade means I 'm a leader of that expertise in company and I can be mentor for others. When designer finishes, I review result and we discuss if needed.

I asked designers to reflect on which skills they wanted to improve. After assessing their responses, I negotiated with them if necessary. However, it's most important for us to ensure that each designer is improving and growing, rather than aligning every designer with one another.

So we already had a table, which designer filled, with a variety of hard and soft skills, and the designer and I discussed which ones to include in the shortlist. Usually I take into account designers' preferences and add necessary or important skills for their team into the shortlist. This step resulted in the first version of the self-development plan, which includes a list of skills and an approximate deadline. The list of skills usually involves hard and soft skills with a list of actions to help practice or educational activities that may help with skill-building. It is important to be clear in outlining how we estimate mastering skills, and it is much better to set check-points that are related to current work tasks

Step 3 — create a plan

Further evolving

The workplace environment is dynamic and the situation can change sometimes. For example, we regularly conduct performance reviews, where peers provide feedback for each other. As a manager, I create reports for designers, and if we see some growth zone, we can add additional points to their self-development plan. Moreover, the product team's plan may be changed or supplemented. For instance, the team started working on a gamification model, and designers need to learn animation skills that were not previously required. We typically add such points into the self-development plan.

I usually review progress and the self-development plan during one-on-one meetings with each designers on a regular basis.

It is very important to be very clear in points how we esteem mastering skills, and it is much better to set check-points that related to current work task

.

The self-development plan is not fixed, we can evolve it, if situation has changed

Professional development has become more transparent. For example, we can manage it and overcast the future skillset of our team in one year. This really helps with planning. For instance, if we know about upcoming rebranding or the implementation of accessibility tools, we can be prepared for them. Another important point is that designers now have transparent tools for managing their career path.

Result

Personal outcomes
Working on that tool, I understand that strategic vision is a really necessary skill for a team leader, because acquiring a skill is a long process and it is much better if you understand what you recommend and why, e.g. the demanded skill set should be aligned to company and team demands. In addition to it, I can highlight the importance of communication at all stages, because every self-dev plan is a team work and the designer's opinion is just as important as the manager's one.