Figma versioning (change log)
In a large-scale project involving many designers, stakeholders and various development workflows, we often encountered issues such as untracked changes, difficulties in viewing the entire flow (before & after), and confusion over which version to use for different JIRA tickets.
To address these challenges, we needed a solution to enhance efficiency and productivity for everyone involved. I had the opportunity to refine and propose a workflow based on the initial suggestion from the department head.
We’ve been using this workflow for a year now, and I’ve received positive feedback along the way from both internal and external teams. Questions related to versioning and changes have significantly decreased. With such positive impact, we are now starting to introduce this approach to all other squads.
UI/UX documentation
Due to the lack of a standardized UI/UX documentation, designers had been independently creating and documenting flows and deliverables in their own ways. Unfortunately, the documentations was often not thorough enough. As a result, development didn’t always align with the intended design, leading to frequent back-and-forths with developers, many CRs, and in some cases, negatively impacting our customer experience.
To break this cycle, I assessed the current approaches and implemented a comprehensive documentation solution for the team. I created guides, provided examples for each step, and created reusable components for easy copy-pasting in Figma.
I applied this documentation to one of the larger projects as a pilot and received positive feedback from stakeholders. Most importantly, developers find it easier to work with, as documentation is more complete, including a comprehensive documentation of component and flow behaviours.
Growth plan tracker
Setting goals is an essential process at the start of the year for the growth of every team member. Along with the other team leads, we typically assessed each designer's skill set, calibrating our evaluations against a defined skill set guide. Once aligned, I discussed the outcomes with each designer in my team to agree on final plans for the year.
To make monitoring easier, I translated the final plans into a simple tracker. This tracker not only helps me track their progress but also helps the designers easily spot the areas where they are falling behind and need to catch up.
Alignment & delivery process
Hired as a team lead, one of my initial tasks was to propose a process flow to improve collaboration with our stakeholders and vendors, as the existing process was quite a mess and unstructured.
In this high-level process, I focused on improving team alignment to avoid unnecessary changes and frequent redundant work for the designers, as well as creating a more structured flow in getting sign-off and handing off the final UI/UX. Although the proposal has not yet been fully implemented due to a major company-wide process revamp, it was well received during initial discussions with my manager.
A fun approach for goal-setting
In my first year as a newcomer to leadership, I was still learning and exploring what worked and what didn’t. One of the initiatives I introduced to my team was this goal-setting exercise. I came across this idea from a blog and thought it would be a fun way to foster team growth (team of young designers). Each team member wrote down their goals like a story, and we revisited them six months later.
The results were surprising. I found that their daily actions - whether they realize it or not - are closely aligned with the goals they had written. While I missed capturing their reaction when they opened the letter, many were pleasantly surprised to find that they had actually achieved some of their targets.
This exercise helped them see the tangible impact of their consistent effort and reflect on areas where they could continue to grow.