03Craft
Leading a design team for the first time
I moved from a designer who ships screens to someone responsible for screens others design. These are the three hardest lessons.
Preview: the essays here are placeholders until the real ones are published.
The hardest part of a first lead role is that the skill that got you there is exactly what you have to stop using every day.
01Don't fix the design yourself
When you see a weak screen, the fastest move is to open the file and fix it. But that teaches the team to wait for you. The slower, right move is to ask the questions you would have asked yourself.
A lead's job is to help the team see what they see, not to draw in their place.
02Written standards save meetings
Every debate that came up twice deserved to become a written rule in the design system. A few months later, half the debates were settled with a link.1