Creating an open, supportive environment
I think it's important to dedicate time to opening up about who you are and how you work best. The two exercises below are examples of tools I’ve used to help build the level of openness and trust that I think is essential for doing good collaborative (and creative) work.
Exercise 1: Team 'baseball cards'
We each created a 'baseball card' for ourselves to talk about our high level strengths and weaknesses.
Exercise 2: Designer 'User Guide'
As a follow up, we went deeper into topics like communication styles, feedback preferences and quirks.
Design Systems
Enough has been written on the topic of design systems that I doubt I need to persuade you of their value. So instead, let me just say that I have hands-on experience creating, documenting and applying them. Heck, I even build them outside of work 🤷♂️
Two libraries I made/use for my own personal projects:
