Voyager Design War Room Recap6.22 - 7.15. 2015

By Joann Wu & Corine Yang

PROBLEMS & CHALLENGES- 7 teams, 9 tracks had been designing in parallel- UI looked similar but not as a family, nor ONE APP- We had been meeting weekly but tight alignment was not

happening fast enough

Move Fast. Fail Fast. Act Fast.

STORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMINGFORMING RECOGNIZING

Bringing the teams together and have them work on a single goal.

What we did• Design Managers set up the war

room goals and objectives• We plan ahead, in detail, on

timelines, priorities, deliverables and responsibilities

• Provide direction on how to approach it (eg. Started with IOS - Android - Mobile Web)

• Establish roles (eg. Landing page team - sub-page team)

• Take risks, Iterate fast and make rapid decisions

Establish process and structure on how to accomplish that goal

FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMINGSTORMING RECOGNIZING

What we did• Include all ideas and opinions (start

with group discussions)• Identify stakeholders and

determine their interests and needs (eg. Art Deco team was embedded in the process)

• Define operational agreements (eg. Assigned POC for each task & pattern)

• Raise difficult issues and coach team through struggles (eg. Parking lot, follow up)

FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMINGNORMING RECOGNIZING

Solidify ideas, resolve differences and leverage each other’s strengths to execute towards the common goal.

What we did• Establish daily routines and

milestones • Hold open forums on tasks and

relationships• Build appropriate feedback

loops with external relationships (eg. Engg, Art Deco)

• Work toward consensus on overarching issues

• Negotiate and navigate where appropriate

FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMINGPERFORMING RECOGNIZING

Culmination of all the previous stages. Team Members coming together, executing towards the goal.

What we did• Continuously seek to improve

tasks and relationships• Assess and evaluate results

against team purpose and external needs

• Celebrate success - reward and recognize both team and individual wins

• Continuously test for better methods and approaches

FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMING RECOGNIZING

Take the time to recognize the heroic effort put in by the team and celebrate.

What we did• Celebrate small wins, every

step of the way (weekly)• Team building event at the

end to celebrate our accomplishments.

#warroom #awesome

ACHIEVEMENTS- 17 business days, 20 designers

- Designed and aligned +350 screens

- Established Art Deco component library: can be leveraged

not only by designers, but also by Eng, Devs

- Created 3 inVision prototypes: IOS, Android, Mobile Web

- Proposed solution for Phone landscape and Tablet.

TAKEAWAYS for improvement- Setting up design principles to guide design decisions

- Using the right set of tools to bring team efficiency

- Leveraging war room’s physical space better to mark down all

decisions made through the whole progress.

- “Parking lot” was useful, but should resolve “Left overs” as soon

as possible