Shaping UX team culture and growth
Over the course of six years, I had the privilege of building a UX design team from the ground up. Starting as a solo designer, I grew the team to nine UX designers distributed across four continents. This journey allowed me not only to shape the strategic design direction of our product but also to foster a strong, positive team culture and create an inspiring work environment.
Establishing team values
To build a high-performing, cohesive team in a remote environment, I focused on establishing core values that guided our collaboration and culture. These values were critical in fostering trust, open communication, and encouraging a supportive environment where every team member could thrive.
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Maintaining open, transparent communication helped align our remote team, keeping everyone informed and minimizing misunderstandings. This was essential to building trust and cohesion, especially in a distributed environment.
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I worked to ensure all voices were heard, creating an equal playing field where each team member's strengths were recognized and valued.
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Regardless of title, every team member was encouraged to share their perspectives and insights. Respect for diverse viewpoints was a cornerstone of our collaborative culture.
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I aimed to empower each designer to make critical decisions and voice their opinions, even if it meant challenging my direction or that of other stakeholders. Our culture encouraged “strong opinions, loosely held”—fostering both confidence and adaptability.
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Cultivating genuine connections with team members was a priority. I made an effort to understand their interests and motivations, as these relationships formed the trust necessary for effective collaboration.
Defining team rituals
I developed our team’s design process and rituals to ensure productivity without burdening the team with excessive meetings. My focus was on streamlining our processes to let designers concentrate on delivering high-quality work.
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Brief updates provided a quick way for designers to share progress and ask for assistance if blocked.
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Using Jira Kanban boards, we tracked current tasks and managed our backlog in a streamlined, transparent way.
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These sessions allowed designers to share ongoing work, gather feedback, and present completed projects for overall transparency.
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Understanding the importance of connection, we held a dedicated video call each Friday, allowing everyone to decompress and strengthen our team bonds before the weekend.
Celebrating milestones 🎉
Work anniversaries
Personalized celebrations marked each designer’s work anniversary, often with handmade cards or virtual backgrounds during our daily stand-ups.
End-of-year party
An annual virtual event brought the team together
for fun and reflection, building camaraderie and celebrating the year’s achievements.
Supporting career growth
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Skills matrix
Initially, I created a skills matrix to help each designer evaluate their competencies and identify areas for growth. This tool facilitated targeted skill development but was later refined to support broader organizational growth.
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Career ladder
Collaborating with our VP of Design, I defined a career ladder focused on core hard and soft skills for each level. This framework provided designers with a clear roadmap for advancement, which was eventually adopted across each additional design discipline: User Research, UX Producers, Content Writers, Design Technologists.
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Promotion plans
For designers ready for career progression, we co-created promotion plans, outlining key development areas with actionable tasks. These plans documented growth and provided clear evidence of achievements, which helped build a case for their promotion.
This journey of building and leading a high-performing design team taught me the value of intentional culture-building, process design, and structured career development. I am proud of the team’s achievements and excited about the future opportunities for growth and innovation.
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