B9. Facilitating the Design Process

Design process provides a structured way of performing specific tasks.
Design manager plays important role in making sure information flows to the design team.
Other Design managers role - translating business terms to designers, explaining design terms to clients.

Design Reviews
evaluates the project against the criteria in the brief and the agreed key stages.

Design circles

• small groups of people from throughout the organisation put together to review design
• could be: one person for each part of the design is a member of the design circle (senior dev, senior artworker, senior designer, design manager etc. They all have people working on the project under them, they lead.
• or could be: different departments involved in the project have their small teams circles selected which control the process and each of this groups/circles have one manager (leader) who speaks in the main circle

Stimulating working environments
Important to shield the design team from the unproductive comments of others.
Designers go through periods of divergent (debate and dialogue) and convergent (processing ideas on ones own) thinking.
This requires different environmental conditions:

• open-plan and lively spaces for stimulation
• quiet areas for concentrated thinking

Smart objectives
Design managers are

• making multiple choices and decisions
• accommodating the varying demands of others

It's important to plan and prioritise workloads over the short and the long term.

Setting objectives that are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed) can:

• guide the decisions made by design managers
• help team members be more effective

It is powerful way to motivate teams to achieve outstanding results.

Smart objectives:
Goals > Priorities

• Specific: Have the expected outcomes been made clear? > Clarify what needs done and when
• Specific: Is the information necessary to complete the task available? > Establish the priority of the task in relation to other tasks. Not knowing what the expected outcome should be leads to poor time management - the team will not be sure of where to focus their skills
• Measurable: How does the task support the organisational goals, and is this measurable? > Clarify the outcomes in quantifiable and qualifiable terms (if possible)
• Measurable: How does the task help customers, or reduce expenses? > Be able to demontrate the relationship between the completed task and the success of the business
• Achievable: Is the task achievable within the time and cost allocated? > Communicate throughout the process. Get support if extra resources are needed to complete the task. If necessary, say no to taking on the task if the resources are not available to succeed.
• Realistic: Are the objectives realistic? > Take into account public and employee holidays. Ensure the team are able to proceed as quickly as it is scheduled.
• Timed: Is there a clearly prioritised and defined schedule for the project? > Ensure a realistic timetable and deadline for the task is agreed with the client.
  

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For Major Project

Design reviews
are made regularly to make sure the aims and objectives are still clear and the team is not moving away from them.

SMART objectives
Specific:

• roles, responsibilities, tasks and timetable specified
• priorities are specified generaly in the timetable, each week the next steps for each member and priorities of those tasks are stated more precisely

Measurable:

• the outcomes are stated abstractly in fishbone and why, where, when... and regularly checked that we are keeping with them
• the fysical outcomes are specified: working prototype of the digital wall; in terms of technology used for prototype for degree show they are projectors, sensors etc. and proposal for the future technology use they are flexible screen, sensors etc.
• we are making sure via usability testing and user-centered design (demontrable) that the product helps customers/users
• if there will be spare time we will provide rough finance calculations of the production expenses of the product

Achievable:

• the scale of the project is large/small enough to use the time alocated for the major project is well used and everything is completed in time and in the quality required
• through a discussions we are making sure that we are not extending the project too much that it would andanger the finishing the project in time

Realistic:

• there are no public or other holidays.
  

Timed:

• there is agreement with tutor and regular tutorials to make sure that the project is running smoothly and that tutor is satisfied