Because leaders need to succeed, now more than ever — When budgets are tight, teams are shrinking, and headcount is limited, why should coaching be at the top of your list of expenditures? The short answer: Because you can’t afford to go without it. This economic downturn is taking a heavy toll on leaders. They are stressed out by instability…

7 things you need for new product development — Early in her career, Mia Blume was an innovation consultant at IDEO, helping big companies figure out how to create new products and services in the market — often quite successfully. But where the efforts of external consulting agencies end is often where failure begins. “Even when we set up…

Results from Design Dept.’s recent community survey — If you’ve been wondering whether you’re the only one juggling flaming torches or scaling a particularly brutal mountain or thinking that Rip Van Winkle 20-year nap sounds pretty good right about now, we’re here to tell you that you are not alone. And we’ve got the data to prove it. …

The Audrey Liu & Mike Davidson edition — We have regular conversations with design leaders to discuss the realities, challenges, and triumphs of their work. Recently we spoke with Audrey Liu, Executive VP of Design at Lyft, and Mike Davidson, Corporate VP of Design and Research at Microsoft. …

Design Leadership Instructor & Executive Coach — We are honored to welcome Roberta Dombrowski to the Design Dept. instructor and coaching team. Roberta brings deep experience in education, research, and design to her role as a Design Instructor and Coach. We’ve enjoyed getting to know her perspective, and think you will too. How has your background in workplace education shaped your design path? My path has definitely been…

A conversation about priorities — From time to time the Design Dept. team gets together to discuss topics we’ve been thinking about or struggling with. Often these are issues that have come up in our own lives that we’re also hearing others bring up in workshops or coaching sessions. Recently, we’ve been pondering the idea…

A perspective from Ibrahim Hasan, UX Content Designer — Chances are you’ve already read some of Ibrahim’s writing for Design Dept. in articles like No, you should not be your team’s shit umbrella and Performance conversations don’t have to be so miserable. …

Our top picks for design leaders — Learning and development are the bread and butter of what we do at Design Dept. We are, after all, on a mission to become better leaders, designers, and humans. So in the spirit of new beginnings (hello, 2023!) and leveling up, our staff members are sharing their most transformative reading…

People management is not the only way — In under a year, Jon Rundle had gone from being the second design hire on his team to officially managing it. Things were on an upward trajectory. The team was in hyper growth mode, enjoying extra headcount approvals and internal excitement around the work they were shipping. …