How to Manage a Design Team

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You have got the most creative team in your company congratulations. Thus it is the most interesting job, but it can be tricky for you!

This article will present essential strategies and techniques to manage your design team effectively. As managing a web design agency myself for a decade I understand managing a design team effectively is crucial for achieving remarkable results in any creative project. As a design team leader, you are responsible for ensuring smooth coordination; you should create a positive and safe environment for everyone.

Let’s discuss the importance of effective communication, setting clear goals, providing feedback, and promoting team collaboration. If you have comments from your own experience, feel free to share them with us; we are ready to hear from you!

Table of Contents

Effective communication is the key to success

We all know that communication is an essential factor for success, but at the same time, we might skip the basics of effective communication.

Clear and open communication is the foundation of any successful design team. Regularly engaging with team members fosters trust, ensures everyone is on the same page, and facilitates a collaborative work environment. If your team members know that there is a healthy communication culture in the team, they will be more than ready to discuss all their concerns and help you manage the team effectively.

Communication should be top-down and bottom-up, allowing ideas, concerns, and feedback to appear naturally. You should be open for your team members to talk about everything. Even be ready to hear from them about personal issues. As soon as it affects their mood, then you should listen to them and help.

Create various communication channels, such as team meetings, email, and instant messaging platforms, to ensure efficient and timely information exchange. Always ask them which platform is good for them to discuss issues that are not related to work.

Whatsapp and Telegram can be the best for this. You can create a telegram channel and share about the important events they can take part in or suggest group activities for your team members and other teams of the company.

Setting clear goals and expectations

Clearly defined goals and expectations are essential for a design team to stay focused and aligned.

Here is the most essential method that you need to know, and it is called the SMART method:

Specific: Be specific with your goals and expectations, which means you need to have a number in your head or something specific when you start a new project. You cannot assume that 100% of your team members will be productive every day—this is where you need to work and have specific goals.

Measurable: Your goals and expectations need to be measurable so you can count the numbers. Image if you set unclear goals of boosting posters for social media. Your team members might create 10 creative posters. but there is nothing to measure as you did not set a clear goal in the very beginning.

Relevant: Remember that you are working with your design team, and your goals need to be relevant. You can ask them to manage tasks that are not relevant. Or measure some activities which are not relevant to your work.

Time-bound means being aware of the timing and not overestimating the taste: Let’s say you ask your team to create 100 create posters for the end of the month. Is this even time-bound? Of course not, as they will not manage it, and in the end, you cannot measure the success and the achievements of the goals you have set.

Reviewing regularly and updating goals based on project requirements and feedback from team members is essential. You are a team leader and need to keep up the team’s drive. It is about setting goals and managing the team to meet deadlines.

Award Your Design Team In a Smart Way

Recognizing and rewarding the achievements of a design team has importance. Awards not only celebrate individual team members’ hard work and talent but also foster a culture of excellence within the design team. Your team members should feel trust and emotions in the workplace. If they dedicate their time, do their best, and do not feel appreciated, then you might lose them.

Custom awards make them feel more appreciated and part of the family. They feel like the main actors of the company. Custom awards by FineAwards can enhance the team’s reputation as they demonstrate their commitment to delivering exceptional design work to clients and stakeholders. Image a team without accomplishment. Would you trust them? Maybe you will, but usually, big companies pay huge attention to the team’s performance. They want to work with teams that are ready to appreciate the hard work and have audience-driven results.

Understanding the reasons why employees forget to manage all tasks

We have covered enough about managing your design team where there is no serious issue. But what if your tasks are forgotten? Imagine you give important tasks to your team members, and they forget about them. You remind them about the deadlines and feel they did not even remember them.

This is where you realize that managing a design team involves overseeing creative projects and ensuring efficient time management and accurate tracking of work hours. However, it is not uncommon for employees to occasionally forget to fill in their timesheets. Understanding the reasons behind this action can help design team managers address the issue effectively and understand why employees forget to fill in their timesheets.

The first reason might be that you did not explain to them the importance of timesheets. Or You have explained to them, but they did not understand the importance. Do not worry if this is the case, as you can invite them for a meeting and go step by step about why they should fill in their timesheets.

The second reason might be not having clear deadlines. Forget the phrase “at the end of the month.” You need to give them an exact date with the timing. It will make them feel more responsible for that and by that time it will become part of their routine.

Another reason employees may forget to fill in their timesheets is a lack of accountability. They may prioritize their creative work over administrative tasks if they do not understand the purpose and impact of accurate time tracking. In this case, again, you need to raise awareness about the significance of timesheets and how they contribute to project management.

The overall success of the design team can help employees recognize their importance and make filling them a priority. They will learn that it is part of their job, and maybe it is boring; tell them it might not be as interesting as your creative job, but our company still needs it for accountability.

Providing constructive feedback

Feedback is crucial for the growth and improvement of individual team members as well as the overall team performance. However, constructive feedback is the most important. You should always start your feedback with kind words and encourage your team. However, if you feel something is missing or there are details that could be better, you need to communicate.

But how can you provide constructive feedback?

Here is how to provide constructive feedback:

Regular feedback sessions: Providing feedback should be part of the culture, and your employees should not feel uncomfortable with it.

The cherry on top: When you give your constructive feedback, always remember to say the best things in the beginning, so the atmosphere will be positive and your employees will feel better when they follow your feedback.

Do not Personalize: This is the most important step while giving constructive feedback. You should never say you are not attentive or you are not creative. You can say I appreciate your hard work, but what you have done is not creative enough for this project. At this level, your employees will trust you and understand your constructive feedback.

Overcoming challenges in team management

It is challenging to manage a team, whether it is a design team or another one. You need to be creative to manage your company’s most creative team. Therefore you should celebrate all the holidays in a creative way.

For Christmas, you can think about making personalized Christmas cards. This tradition allows you to showcase your company’s unique style and send heartfelt messages during the holiday season. You can find the most favorite fonts for your design team and use them for their personalized Christmas cards. Also, you can write some funny things or inside jokes. The most important thing is to feel free and present creativity.

For their Birthdays you can make some crafts and give them to them. Whether it’s a handcrafted DIY card or utilizing online platforms that offer customizable templates, the most important thing is your dedication to creating something valuable for your team. They will appreciate and feel your efforts; afterward, you will have a strong and trustworthy relationship with them.

You should promote collaboration and creativity

Encourage open collaboration and idea-sharing and create a healthy environment. Establish platforms for brainstorming sessions and knowledge sharing. Encourage team members to seek inspiration from various sources and attend design conferences; you should buy tickets for them to attend this kind of conference. And organize workshops for them about new topics that might be important for designers. If you cannot handle it alone, you should ask other team members for help.

You should give your design team new opportunities to shine and do their best. They are designers, they are creative people, and they should have new prospects and opportunities. You cannot keep the bird in a cage, and for a designer, a company without new opportunities and creativity is a cage. They do not feel like the main actors and might quit one day, making you upset as manager.

How can VOCSO help here?

VOCSO is a custom web and mobile application development company offering custom CMS development, custom website design and development, custom web application development, and custom mobile app design and development services in and out of India.

We also provide dedicated resources for hire:

Final Words

Successfully managing a design team requires a combination of effective communication, feedback mechanisms, and a collaborative, trustworthy work environment.

If you follow our suggestions, then you are all set! You can manage your team in the most efficient way. You will be friendly but at the same time reflect work ethics and company values.

Remember to adapt your management style to your company’s culture. You can create a high-performing design team that consistently exceeds expectations with the right approach.

Deepak Chauhan About Deepak Chauhan Hi, I am Deepak Chauhan, a Digital Marketing Strategist. I'm the CEO & Co-Founder of VOCSO Digital Agency, a creative web design, development, and marketing agency based in India & USA.