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👉 Goal: Improve efficiency & collaboration in the design team, and between the design team and other people from the company.
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Centralized design team = Agency model
Pros:
- feedback
- consistency
- broader view
- design culture
Cons:
- non-designers are left out
- designers are disconnected from technical requirements
- designers must work harder to bring people into their process
Embedded design team - cross-functional teams with engineers and product managers working on a specific product or feature → Agile process
At Airbnb, each EPD function “is involved and aligned from a product’s inception to its launch.” At least one member from each of the 3 teams is involved with working groups for new features, or in product marketing, or user feedback sessions.
→ Never leave a designer solo on a cross-functional team
→ Organize cross-functional team around: Platform, Feature, Customer experience
Pros:
- easier to scale
- better cross-team understanding (tech, business etc)
- empathy and respect that make collaboration easier
- communication is much faster
- diverse perspectives
- shared ownership
Cons:
- designers can feel isolated and find that their growth has stagnated
- maintaining a consistent user experience across multiple products and platforms becomes difficult
- more iterative work, less innovation
- teams that work on only one aspect of a product start to lose sight of the overarching customer experience
Hybrid - temporary cross-functional team to work on a focused project with a clear deadline + when they’re done, they return to the centralized design team.
→ Distribute the design team, but pull them back together for for design reviews, stand-ups, and fireside chats
Inside The Organic UX Design Process At Slack