{"id":5156,"date":"2017-01-16T15:12:42","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T15:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvel7077.wpengine.com\/?p=5156"},"modified":"2024-01-10T22:12:34","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T22:12:34","slug":"framework-building-design-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shopjessicabuckley.com\/blog\/framework-building-design-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"A Framework for Building a Design Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the better part of the last 5 years, I\u2019ve spent my time leading and building design teams (with Jet Cooper<\/a> for the first 4.5 years, and more recently with Shopify<\/a>). However, it wasn\u2019t until the shift from co-founder to director of design (a role that enabled me to focus and double down on my craft), that I was really able to articulate what it truly meant to build a design practice. As such, this article represents the set of ideas, thoughts, and opinions that have accumulated through my experience of building effective, healthy, and happy design teams. I hope you find it helpful.<\/p>\n

But First, a Quick Story<\/h2>\n

In early 2009, Satish<\/a> and I set off to start Jet Cooper. For the first 4 months there were just two of us (Satish brought in all the work, I did all the design and development). From there, we grew steadily from two to four to eight to ten over the next year or two. It was a glorious time: we came in every day and for the most part, huddled together and figured out what we had to do that day. It was a perfect reflection of raw creative chaos and the luxury you had as a small and nimble team.<\/p>\n

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\"Beyond a certain threshold, you need to start modelling things to sustain your success.\"<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

Before we knew it though, we grew larger and things started to break. Our daily team regroups were becoming overwhelming, team members started becoming more isolated in their projects, consistency in work quality was harder to sustain, and it was simply harder to keep everyone on the same page.<\/p>\n

Looking back, there was an important lesson here:<\/strong> when you\u2019re small enough as a team, you can show up every day and just wing it. But beyond a certain threshold, you need to start modelling things to sustain your success. Our magic number was 10, but this can vary between teams.<\/p>\n

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\"Without a practice, you\u2019re just doing design\u200a\u2014\u200aa short-term activity.\"<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

This is fundamentally why it\u2019s important to build a practice. Without a practice, you\u2019re just doing<\/em> design\u200a\u2014\u200aa short-term activity. But when you practice<\/em> design, you\u2019re focusing on long-term sustainable success.<\/p>\n

A strong design practice should therefore be:<\/p>\n