Working with a new team can take time to adjust to different working styles and preferences. Most job titles are not all-encompassing of roles and duties and can sometimes be misleading.
Two people with the job title of UX designer may have the same title but they perform different tasks in their daily work. One may focus on usability testing and interaction design while another may specialize in visual design and workshop facilitation.
Because of this, it’s better to have different kickoff meetings to get everyone on the same page. Whenever a new team starts a project or a new person joins the existing team, these are the triggers that we should schedule a kickoff meeting. The newer the team, the more emphasis you should place on alignment.
And this meeting isn’t just for Uxers. Everyone on the team can enjoy knowing more about how their team members work.
As part of this meeting, each person will talk about the following items:
First, how their role will impact the team? What skills and expertise are they adding to the team? What is their preferred communication style? Are they paying attention to their chat program, is email the best way, or do they want you to come by their desk in person?
Second, What non-role-specific tasks can they help out with? These can associate with other roles on the team like front-end development or writing user stories. It’s nice for the team to understand what else they can come to you for beyond your role-based tasks.
And then finally, what tasks do they prefer to avoid if possible?
For example, letting people know that you’re great at creating wireframes and how fidelity prototypes, but visual design is not your strong suit.
This meeting helps drop confusion among roles on a team especially when there are so many definitions of what makes up a UX designer vs a product owner vs a developer. We throw around words like full-stack vs front-end vs back-end, but what do those mean when it comes down to the day-to-day tasks? And each person’s definition of what those words mean can vary.
Take the time to better understand your team and its capabilities, which will in turn help you all communicate in more efficient ways.
