For the past three years, I’ve had the privilege of leading most of our design team (product and visual) at Ladder as a senior product design manager. At Ladder, my two main priorities are building a great team and fostering a customer-centric mindset. I’d like to share some of the ways I’ve worked toward achieving these goals.
Team growth is crucial because it drives higher-caliber work and greater business impact. A continually growing team develops a diverse skill set, resulting in better-quality outputs. It promotes more informed decision-making, ensuring we solve real problems. And it nurtures strategic thinking, enabling work with greater impact.
As a manager, I actively assess the strengths and growth areas of our team members. This helps me pair designers with complementary skill sets on the same project, creating opportunities for mutual growth. For example, someone skilled in systematic thinking can learn from working alongside someone strong in visual and interaction design.
Each team member has a personalized career document outlining their aspirations, current status, potential paths forward, and concrete next steps. This ensures clarity and alignment in their professional development.
Designers are constantly learning through hands-on project work and collaboration. However, in our fast-paced environment, reflection often takes a backseat. To address this, I organize monthly learning sessions where each team member shares insights from their recent experiences. This practice not only solidifies their own learnings but also exposes the rest of the team to diverse problem spaces and approaches.
In 2024, I collaborated with our product and visual design teams to define our team values—core beliefs and principles that guide our activities. This effort stemmed from the need to answer two key questions: What does it mean to be a product or visual designer at Ladder? and What truly matters to us, and where do we want to excel?
Establishing team values helps my team understand who they are and provides a shared framework to guide their work in meaningful ways. It’s a foundation for creating impactful designs that align with their identity and aspirations.