You'll learn: - How to lead design teams through periods of rapid growth - How to change design processes, build design culture, and scale teams over time - How to engage engineering and product teams to create a customer-focused organization

1. ALASTAIR SIMPSON I @ALANSTAIRS
From 6 to 126 in four years
The story behind Atlassian design

2. Consultants are a
service to a Client
Consultant

3. CLIENT & CONSULTANT RELATIONSHIP
Client Consultant

4. Design is a service to
product teams

5. DESIGN AS A SERVICE
Product
Management
Engineering Design

6. INTEGRATED DESIGN
Product
Management
Engineering
Design

7. EXPERIENCE LED
Product
Management
Engineering
Design

8. “I don’t give a %&%$. If the
experience is not right, you
should stop the release.
JURGEN SPANGL

9. Seat at the table?

10. CHANGING COMPANY CULTURE

11. 5 hard lessons

12. You can have the best design team
in the world, but if your
organisation doesn’t truly value
design, it doesn’t matter.
LESSON 1
Alastair Simpson

14. Source (Atlassian)
“Why is the button over
there?”
Founder review

16. “If you don’t like what is being
said, then change the
conversation.
DON DRAPER, MAD MEN

21. “Great work on the ADG, and the
improvements I’ve been seeing in
the last few updates of JIRA is
awesome.
ROBERT VINING, CUSTOMER

22. Faster process

23. Existing patterns

24. Existing patterns…in code

25. Source (Atlassian)
“How do we scale design
faster?”
Founder review

26. VALUE OF DESIGN
Product
Design
Engineering
CEO

27. VALUE OF DESIGN
ProductDesign Engineering
CEO

28. “If you don't want design to be treated
as a service, you need to have an
opinion about what problems are
worth solving and why.
JULIE ZHUO, FACEBOOK

29. TAKEAWAY 1
Design is not a magical switch
that gets turned on inside a
company. Its a conscious effort
on behalf of the CEO and the
executive team (YOU) to make
design matter.

30. Pain is temporary. Suck is forever.
LESSON 2
Jason Deamer, Pixar

32. Design sparring

33. Design led
Structured
Inclusive
Regular

34. Codify design

35. ENVISION MAKE IMPROVE

36. ENVISION

38. TAKEAWAY 2
Codify design
across your
organisation.

39. I have several times made a poor
choice by avoiding a necessary
confrontation.
LESSON 3
John Cleese

40. Radical candor

41. RADICAL CANDOR
Radical
candor
Care
personally
Challenge
directly

42. SKILLS MATRIX
CRAFT DRIVING FOR OUTCOME LEADERSHIP
Interaction and UI Design
Ability to compose interface
elements with structure, flow,
and patterns for users to
achieve tasks across a variety
of devices.
Process
Ability to use user-centered design
techniques within agile teams to
deliver both tactically and
strategically. Able to
choose the right plays from the
Playbook, at the right time.
Facilitation and collaboration
Ability to take a diverse set
of people and facilitate them
towards shared understanding
of problems, experiences, and
solutions.
RATE 1 - 5

43. TAKEAWAY 3
Show your team you
care, practice radical
candor.

44. Rituals are important. Nowadays
it is hip not to be married. I’m not
interested in being hip.
LESSON 4
John Lennon

45. Sh
u
hari

46. Shu
:
ha:
ri:
to learn
to practise
to master

48. 90 DAY PLAN
30, 60, 90 day
check-in
Company &
Team history
Who to meet & greet
Useful links
Clear deliverables

49. Design detention

50. Design Week

51. 2014

52. 2015

53. 2016

54. 2017

55. TAKEAWAY 4
Whatever they are, put
rituals in place to foster
a culture of trust, and a
sense of TEAM.

56. UXers: Your problem is not solved
just because you arrived at a
conceptual diagram. You might have
to ask an interface designer for help.
LESSON 5
Matthias Schreck

57. Value the design craft

60. Value the management craft

62. TAKEAWAY 5
Really value the craft of
design and
management by
defining clear career
paths.

63. Back to the
start…

64. DESIGN AS A SERVICE
Product
Management
Engineering Design

65. INTEGRATED DESIGN
Product
Management
Engineering
Design

66. Responsibility and
Accountability

67. Be careful what you wish
for

68. “At some point your boss will ask you
what design is accountable for, and
you need to have a better answer
than the user experience.
ALASTAIR SIMPSON

69. “If designers shield themselves in the
cloak of “creatives” as a way not to
engage with the business, they will lose
impact and credibility. Designers need to
understand how their work contributes to
business success.
PETER MERHOLZ & KRISTEN SKINNER

70. NPS
DESIGN ACCOUNTABILITY
Reliability
Usability
Functionalit
y
+ MAU

71. NPS TEAM
Engineering
Design
Product
Management
Reliability
Usability
Functionalit
y

72. NPS TEAM
Engineering
Design
Product
Management
Reliability
Usability
Functionalit
y
LEADING METRICS

73. LEADING METRICS = UX SCORECARD
EXISTING DESIGN PROPOSED DESIGN COMPETITOR
Time to task
Conversion
Preference
Visual complexity
Plus more

74. TRIAD ACCOUNTABILITY
MAU
+
NPS
NPS TEAM
LEADING
METRICS

75. Are you ready?

76. ALASTAIR SIMPSON I @ALANSTAIRS
Thanks

77. References
Radical candour: http://firstround.com/review/radical-candor-the-surprising-secret-to-being-a-good-boss/
ADG: www.design.atlassian.com
Atlassian design: www.medium.com/designing-atlassian
Julie Zhuo: https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/8-unintuitive-lessons-on-being-a-designer-
ca7e97a572ee#.wva6ywm2z
Design sparring: https://medium.com/designing-atlassian/the-art-of-sparring-ce4f379f156c#.jb6rf0c1m
Shuhari: https://medium.com/designing-atlassian/shuhari-design-mastery-378e78e7d062#.288lc8gvb
Images
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www.pexels.com/
www.deathtothestockphoto.com/
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