Team growth and development

Role: Senior Product Design Manager, MessageGears

Timeline: January 2022 - Present

Focus areas: Team OKRs, individual goal setting, career development plans

Overview

As Senior Product Design Manager at MessageGears, I’ve prioritized fostering growth within my team—both personally and professionally. Starting with two product designers and a content designer, my team expanded following Swrve’s acquisition, adding another product designer. Over the past two years, I’ve implemented initiatives to align team objectives, track individual progress, and provide clear pathways for career development. These efforts have led to tangible results, including the implementation of a scalable design system and improvements in UX maturity.

Team OKRs: Setting a foundation for success

Upon joining MessageGears post-acquisition, I noticed the absence of department-level OKRs. To provide structure and focus, I organized a team workshop in early 2023 where the team worked together to define annual objectives. Using a MIRO template, we collaborated on areas for growth, defined key goals, and developed measurable outcomes.

Key OKRs Established:

Build a scalable design system foundation
- Create a reusable and scalable template for components that includes all variants, usage examples, and content guidelines. It was important we have a scalable system that would help us keep up with design requirements for the larger product management and engineering groups. For more information on this project, see Design Systems.
Increase UX maturity in research practices
- Integrate UX research into at least three roadmap projects, including the navigation redesign project. At the time MessageGears' user research practice was practically non-existent. For more details on how we implemented this OKR, see UX Research.

Outcome:

By the end of 2023, we achieved both goals. These efforts contributed directly to the implementation of the new design system as part of the MessageGears React platform conversion and improved research insights across projects.

Identifying risks and unknown factors that might have an impact on reaching our team goals

Example of how we came up with an OKR for building out our new design system

Individual goal setting: Encouraging personal development

One of my first priorities as a manager was to implement a system for individual goal setting. Using the HR performance management tool, I set monthly goals with each team member during our 1:1s, aligning personal development areas with upcoming deliverables.

Impact:

Monthly goals provided focus and measurable progress.
Team feedback indicated greater clarity and skill growth.
Goals aligned with team OKRs, contributing to broader success.

These monthly goals also formed the foundation for quarterly and annual performance reviews, offering quantifiable data to support promotions and development discussions.

Career development plans: Structured growth for the team

To further support my team, I introduced career development plans tailored to both product and content designers. This process included:

Role documentation: Defined role levels and responsibilities.
Career templates: Adapted a template to track goals, milestones, and deliverables over time.
SWOT Analysis: Helped team members identify growth areas and align goals to career paths.

Example successes:

Team members developed their mentorship skills, resulting in broader knowledge sharing across the team.
The team increased their expertise in UX research and content design.
Senior staff grew their leadership skills, setting them up for future career progression.

Reflections

My approach to team growth is rooted in collaboration, clarity, and actionable planning. Through team OKRs, individual goal setting, and personalized career development, I’ve been able to guide my team toward meaningful achievements while building a strong foundation for future success.