Mentoring the Design Team to Grow

Constructing the Company’s Standard Operational of Design (SOD)

I joined Flolab Studio, a studio agency that focuses on UX & UI design, in 2017. Back then, we didn’t have any designing guidelines to follow, which made our workflow ineffective and different for each employee.Therefore, after a long journey in this studio, I initiated creating the standard of how Flolab’s workflow should be. I call it Flolab Standard of Design (SOD).

Inside of SOD

The SOD is a document that writes a set of guidelines explaining:

• The step-by-step procedure to work on UX & UI projects with clients,

• The do’s and don’ts during the working process,

• The tools used for every stage of the project,

• Past design works as examples or references for the next projects.

Types of SOD

Currently, there are three categories of SOD, which are:

• SOD of Research Workflow

• SOD of UX & UI Design Workflow

• SOD of Culture and Soft skills

The Benefits of SOD

This standardized workflow and expectations have given significant benefits for the company as:

• It serves as a good direction for anyone in company to do the work more effectively and efficiently.

• It sets the parameter of the quality of the work results.

• It helps the team’s new members to learn and adapt to our company’s culture more quickly and easily.

Even though the SOD has successfully guided and set the standard of the work, I always encourage my team to stay open-minded and keep improving. The SOD can be a great help for the designers in their initial works. However, it should not blind them to trying new methods, trends, tools, and technology, nor limit them to expand their creativity.

Don’t be a too text-book person. Stay open and creative because there is always room to improve and grow.‍— Rizqi Hanafi

Training & Sharing Session

Training through Workshop

My company’s training sessions are organized by the design lead which mainly focus on improving the designers’ technical skills. For example, to improve our designers’ skills on using one advanced technique in Figma for auto layouts, we have a 30–60 minute workshop with around three designers. After mastering the technique, these designers are asked to disseminate the skills they have learnt to their juniors or coworkers. Through this method, designers are able to learn about new, important skills and transfer them to each other.

Training through Work Evaluation

After finishing a certain task, there is a feedback-gathering session where the design lead gives his/her opinion about the designer’s work. Whenever giving feedback, we make sure that it is not only a revision request but also something they can learn. We always put the “why” factor behind our feedback to make them aware of the reasons behind it so they won’t make a similar mistake again in the future.

Sharing Session

One of the interesting cultures in our workplace is that we have a sharing session once a week. In this session, everyone in the team can share about anything, whether it is related to design, trends, hobbies, or even family activities. In this moment, the design lead would usually share something that can be useful for the team’s growth. Here is an example of one the topics that I shared, which is about leadership:

Personalized Mentoring and Evaluation

One on One

Yearly Evaluation

Every year, the leaders collaborate to create an official report that describes each team member’s evaluation of performance and feedback. This report contains each of the team member’s work parameters, scores, as well as detailed explanations, which is then given to them individually. With this, the members are able to review their performance and find the area for their improvements and personal growth.

Don’t be afraid to make any mistakes. Because of mistakes, we can learn and become better person.— Rizqi Hanafi

Interested in partnering with me? Reach out at mrizqihanafi@gmail.com