Why I created a learning community at ClearScore
TL;DR
I created a community of learning within the design team, where every week junior designers would get together and learn something new about working in an agile product organisation.
Identifying the opportunity
From 2021 to 2022 I worked as a Senior Product Designer at ClearScore, a credit score and marketplace app based in the UK. I led a small design team including a junior product designer and a content designer within the marketplace squad.
While working on the product, I noticed there were gaps in the team's knowledge about the entire product development process. This made me reflect on my own experience of learning about product design, where the focus was mainly on UX and UI craft skills. There was less emphasis on the skills and understanding required to collaborate effectively with other teams involved in building the software. This led me to hypothesise that other designers may be facing similar challenges, being placed in engineering teams without a full understanding of the overall working environment.
Goal
I set myself the personal objective of:
How might I create a culture of learning within the design team?
To begin with, I wanted to understand if other designers from different squads were interested. I contacted the wider community of junior designers (a total of 7), initially through an anonymous survey and later through a collaborative workshop. Not only did I find that they were eager to learn more about product development, but I also discovered that they needed a forum to discuss problems within their teams and the design process as a whole. This presented an opportunity not only to establish a community for sharing knowledge but also to create a safe space where the group could gather and have open conversations.
Curating learning content
Once I understood the preferred learning style and schedule of the team, I chose to organise a series of weekly sessions for the learning group. Each session was carefully designed to concentrate on a specific aspect of working as a designer in an agile organisation.
To curate these sessions, I reached out to my contacts throughout the company, and thankfully, they were willing to contribute. Subsequently, I developed a program where each week a different representative would present. This included engineers, product managers, agile delivery managers and product marketers.
Outcome
Before I left ClearScore the learning group took part in 10 sessions in total covering such topics as:
What is the ClearScore product development cycle?
How do I work with a product manager?
What is agile?
How do I work with an engineer?
What is our go to market strategy?
What are our design principles?
What is service design?
How do I craft a case study?
My key takeaways for future teams I work on:
Identify knowledge gaps
It is important to audit and understand the team’s knowledge gaps before diving into the product development process. Understand which areas the team wants to learn more about and where they have the most confidence.
Leverage network connections
Curating the learning sessions would not have been possible with input from my colleagues who could bring their expertise. As a result of fostering a diverse network from around the business I was able to draw on these connections to build out a robust learning program.
Ensure there is a safe space for discussion
This exercise also unearthed the need for a forum in which designers felt that they could raise concerns and questions without fear of judgement. This is important not just for the design process but also the wellness of the team.
Illustration source: popsy.co