Life as a design manager.

A number of years ago I took that initial step from my career as an individual contributor designer into a design manager role and by step, I should say it felt more like a giant leap into the unknown filled with that wonderful mix of excitement and waves of imposter syndrome.

Sound familiar?

We get into design because we fall in love with what is possible within the world of design. With a decade of honing my craft as a designer, I wondered if my skills would be transferable when I step into management. It’s the hard truth that any designer shifting to a manager position will move away from their craft of the usual design activities into areas of strategy, business goals, working with new stakeholders, and focusing on team growth or skills development.

You suddenly find yourself with a broader view of the business you work within, but less control of the details.

While that will iniality feel uncomfortable, it will become more natural as you navigate through the changes thrown at you and if your experience is similar to mine — you end up loving what you do just as much as the craft of design.

When I was working as a designer, I saw my focus around these 3 themes:

• Details — What we focus on implementing to make a difference for a user in a product or experience. These are elements that provide clarity for a user to complete a task, by removing existing barriers or complexities.
• Outputs — What you create within a workshop, visual design within Figma (or something else), prototypes or research discussions with end-users. These outputs are the assets that take an idea to discovery, to design to delivery and allow others to understand the product vision.
• You — The growth of your skills, use of your tools of choice and knowledge of your craft. Every good designer should focus a portion of their time to grow, learn and get uncomfortable with new tools or ways of working.

When you shift into a design manager position, these themes of focus will change but there are common threads that connect these themes together.

What I found through reading, and speaking with other design leaders is common themes should be your focus too. What is commonly discussed are the following:

• Purpose — Your team needs direction on what it is they need to be doing, and what they should not be doing. Defining a purpose for your team us just like working through the ‘Details’ for your user. You are providing clarity for your team members to remain focused. Whether that be working on co-creating strategies, establishing your design principles or sharing the team’s story — these are the details you as a leader must focus on to help establish the purpose with your team's support.
• Process — Define clearly how your team will operate together, but also how they will work with the wider business too. This can often be referred to as a ‘value stream’, and it is all of the steps to take something from ‘start to finish’. Similar to ‘Outputs’ from above as an individual contributor, but now your focus is on the frameworks within such things as DesignOps. All this is to help understand how your team is working, building the standard design methodologies and governance processes. Basically, everything to help produce and share the outputs your team members create.
• People — Like above where your focus is ‘You’, this is obviously where it evolves into something bigger and your focus now becomes more about your team members. The core concept stays the same but it is supporting your team, working on inter-team relationships, establishing a growth mindset, fostering a safe collaborative environment and recruiting the skills/people you need.

As you can see, I found that the themes you focus on within design as an individual contributor are transferable for when you shift into design management. It was when I understood this moment I felt more comfortable stepping into design leadership — sure they change slightly, they become more zoomed out but the foundations and core principles stay the same.

Sure there will still be a lot of areas you’ll need to grow and learn within, but the core foundations will be there for you to start building from.

To wrap it up — the purpose of an individual contributor designer and a design manager is surprisingly similar — a design manager designs the team, while the designers design the products.

I hope for you that the initial giant leap might now feel like a comfortable long stride into a successful career direction as a design manager.