Category: Work

One of the challenges of being in the design world is that its limitless. You can always be tweaking and refining. And often it’s a matter of taste.

So how do we square this with the Peter Drucker adage “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”? I’m really not sure, but I suspect that is a key to success in this industry.

“How do you measure good design?”

I’ll bet that trying to answer the question is the first step, at least it’s a more concrete question than the generic “what is good design”.

Yesterday, I was reminded again of the importance of the project post mortem. The alliteration is a little deceptive, since I prefer to do these post mortems after every issuance.

The basic questions are very simple and direct:

• Was the objective clear?
• What went wrong, how can we fix this?
• What went well, how can we improve?
• What opportunities did we miss or overlook?

Sometimes it is formal, sometimes it’s informal, but the most important thing is to do it. In this case, I had coffee with my architect after a 50% CD submittal and I received some feedback that I immediately implemented on my other projects.

I originally heard about the idea from a web designer, and then tried it out with my draftsmen at my previous office every time we pushed out a major issuance (milestones, check sets, presentations).  Having done it for about a year now, I’m frankly shocked this is not standard operating procedure in the industry.  It’s that valuable for the practice.

Postscript

As the leader of the post mortem, if you want real feedback, you gotta own it. Own the mistakes and share the glory. If someone did well, compliment them. If a mistake happened, it happened on your watch. Eat dirt and discuss how we’ll try to avoid it in the next round.

It doesn’t sound fun to practice public self criticism, but is a small price for the awesome feeling of watching the group work brainstorm solutions to chronic problems.

I have been lucky to work with companies that haven’t worked me too hard.

Then again, I’ve always been pretty decided about not working too much, and I had learned the art of notifying management when I was getting overwhelmed.

But I wonder, is this work-life thing a question of balance or boundaries? 

Balance is an amorphous term.  But boundaries, such not checking email at home or sticking to 40 hours a week, are tangible goals that can be protected.

My friend once dropped the line “you get paid for 40 hours, and you pay yourself after.”

It’s a great line, especially for salary workers.  We owe our employers our due effort when we’re on the clock, but we need to draw the line and prepare for the future beyond that.

Sometimes it’s working on your own side projects, learning new stuff, or picking up new credentials. And sometimes it will be gaining experience on the job, working for free.

Unless you’re happy with where you’re at (and sometimes it’s ok to coast) you’ll have to work more than 40 hours.

But after that 40, make sure you’re setting the agenda.  Don’t let someone else determine that agenda according to their whims, you need to figure that out yourself.

It has been an odd experience as I rack up experience in the profession to suddenly realize I’m no longer a young guy but part of the good ole boys.

It just happened.  By showing up every day, and treating my coworkers, clients, and consultants well.

Nothing heroic, just being considerate and honest in every interaction, each moment.

I was running behind schedule to go to a meeting.  On the way there, I saw a local ramen place on the right side of the road so I pulled over and walked in.

I asked the hostess if they could get me out in 25 minutes.

She paused, looked at the packed place, and apologized. Even though there was a seat at the bar, she didn’t think she could squeeze me in.

Perfect.  She gave me exactly what I needed to know.  I thanked her profusely, hit the road, grabbed some fast food, and made it to the meeting just barely on time.

I wasn’t going to be a good customer that day, and she did the right thing.

The perennial challenge in this profession is figuring out how to take time out to think and innovate.

One of my previous companies was openly obsessed about billable percentage in the monthly staff meetings.  And then they wondered why the CAD standards were messed up, housekeeping on the server was messy, and people were burning out.

Taking time to innovate means trading good certainties for an uncertain chance at a great innovation in the office.

That’s a difficult trade to make, especially for the guys who have to make payroll every couple weeks.  But if the management won’t prime the pump with a little sacrifice, it’s difficult for the staff to volunteer to take the risk.

I have enjoyed being client side project manager. I suspect it is because a major part of my job of it is reviewing projects against our own standard documents.

As someone who has read game rules for pleasure over the years, such a task is  well trod territory in my synapses. Furthermore this practice has helped me quickly recognize potential grey areas in my documents, as well as play out viable interpretations.

In all, it has been surprisingly fun so far.  But much credit must also go to my bosses who have made the commitment to follow the standards consistently, and also avoided overloading me with too much work, doing this type of work takes a particular type clear headedness to do well.

In trying to plan out my schedule, the one thing I need to keep in mind is that its never just the task.  There is the preparation before and the cleanup after that sucks up time.

The most glaring example is a meeting.  It’s a set amount of time, but there is the lead up to it, preparation and a commute, and then return to the office and often a few things to do items that were not previously anticipated at the start of the day.

So how do I account for this fuzzy time?  In private practice, it was relatively easy – I was always tight on time, so there wasn’t much I could do about it.  But now as a client, I’m often processing items which take just a short amount of time before the ball is passed off to the next party.  So sometimes a task that seems daunting, resolves itself (at least my portion of the responsibility) much quicker than I would have expected.

I guess it’s just a matter of practice and experience.  But I wonder how to speed up the learning curve.  Maybe it’s time to pull out the Pomodoro Technique again.

When I think about innovation in the office, one of my touchstones has been shortening the feedback loop during a project.

At my previous job, I borrowed and instituted the idea of post mortems after every major project issuance to discuss what went well, what went wrong, what did we miss, and how do we improve.

With this current gig, there are three potential avenues of increasing feedback between me and my consultants.

1. Initiate a practice of such post mortems for each project after each issuance.
2. Develop a submittal review form, a checklist to judge the quality of the issuance that was provided.
3. Create a weekly project update form for the design team PMs.

All these ideas are still preliminary – just as I am to my current position. The most important thing is to develop trust with my teams so that such conversations are actually useful, but beyond that baseline, the next step may indeed be to tighten up the feedback loops.