Enhancing design company’s project collaboration for better employee and customer experience

The challenge

The key to any project’s success is a good start that sets a solid foundation. While working at the design company Idean we identified that in traditional project setup, the essential information was not always distributed most efficiently among team members which sometimes resulted in a poor understanding of scope, low commitment, and quality issues.

The solution

By creating an internal, shared planning process, we fostered a culture where every team member gained profound insights into our customer problem and the context of the project. Instead of the project lead or manager doing the planning, all the team members were invited to actively contribute to shared planning, and time was allocated to this effort. People were encouraged to ask unasked questions to minimise assumptions. We defined the relevant deliverables and created a realistic timeline, including checkpoints, reviews, and iteration. Together we formed a shared understanding of the project scope and budget and clearly defined the roles and responsibilities within the project team and with the client. We also set the objectives for desired quality from different perspectives. As a result, there was a united team, equipped with an unwavering understanding of our shared plan, the ability to forecast better, make more conscious decisions, spot and address changes to the project scope, comprehend their impact, and communicate these insights to both our fellow team members and our customers. 

My role

I led the co-creation of a practice of discovering the power of true collaboration and shared ownership within our design organisation.