Creating new services and products is more complex than ever & designers are faced with this challenge on a regular basis. Designers face this challenge on a daily basis, for Kajsa it is a context that excites her and where she thrives the most. Kajsa has realised that her design skills were not enough to have impact in the organisations and deliver holistic solutions that generate business value. Today, thanks to her experience, design skills and the growth support she has had, she can transform organisations. Follow Kajsa’s journey to learn how to shape such environments for designers to become more successful and have more impact within your organisation.
A growth practice
Kajsa is a designer and partner at Topp. She started her professional journey in the restaurant business and then studied to become a UX designer. After graduating, she joined a UX consultancy but spent most of her time as an in-house consultant at Sony. During that phase she matured in her UX designer role by working with UI design, wire-framing and other things related to design production.
Many designers follows a similar journey where they start somewhere and after some years they are ready to move to something else. After some years working at a product company, Kajsa wanted more variations in clients and projects and in 2016 she joined Topp, as a UX designer.
She intentionally captured these experiences as learning and growth goals by applying Topp’s individual growth practice. Establishing an integrated daily practice around this meant she quickly grew as a professional and a designer.
Through established *design & team processes and practices, Kajsa and her colleagues learned how to make products successful, team performance and design transformation. She intentionally captured these experiences as learning and growth goals by applying Topp’s individual growth practice. Establishing an integrated daily practice around this meant she quickly grew as a professional and a designer.
“Topp’s process for development, both as an individual and as a designer helped me tremendously to grow, and I wish more designers had that support throughout their carrier.”
In conversations with our clients and design managers, they express a struggle to find experienced designers with a broad perspective and leadership, Kajsa says. The result is that many designers who’s passion are in product strategy, team performance, design maturity, business design and more, end up getting stuck working with features, detailed interaction and craft. However, we have seen is that when organisations are serious about establishing growth practice and support designers with their growth paths, they also get more diverse and mature teams.
To consider: How do you work with growth paths for your design team?
Leaders enable growth
After a couple of years at Topp, Kajsa’s role evolved from a UX designer to a team lead. This meant shaping the design and team processes and practices that supported and helped individuals and teams to grow. As a design leader, it was Kajsa’s responsibility to design an environment where designers could perform at their best as a team. This environment should ensure excellent quality in creative work while still nourishing constructive discussions, individual growth and learning.
After working with and seeing teams together she found that the teams that delivered great quality had some common traits. The key was diversity, alignment and good collaboration around a shared mission which lead to a high level of trust in the capabilities of each other. In this environment there was room for growth for individuals and the work the teams did was of high quality.
“It’s not about thinking alike or having the same skills. It’s about bringing multiple perspectives together and aligning them to create an even better and more holistic solution. Good products are often the result of a diverse team and a good team performance.”
Before Kajsa became a leader, she had cared about her own growth. With becoming a leader her perspective shifted to care about that the team evolved in different directions and that they had the support and the practice in the organisation to enable this. Today Kajsa believes that teams succeed when people with different perspectives and skills get a platform and processes to collaborate. A space where it’s not about who pops the best idea, but where it’s about succeeding together.
To consider: How do you ensure diverse teams?
More perspectives, better business
Kajsa’s next big professional change came when she became a partner at Topp in 2020. Her own and others expectations of her changed drastically, leading to an even broader perspective. As a partner at Topp, she now had to care about managing projects, clients, finance, operations and culture, all at the same time. Kajsa means that this was her catalyst to think more holistically around clients and their organisations.
Becoming a leader made her better at shaping the right environments for teamwork that delivers great products and services. Becoming a partner enabled her to make it possible to work on an organisational level with a holistic perspective. With this diversity of experiences, she can now apply the full breadth of skills which ends up being a great mix of craft and leadership, hands-on and strategy. No matter if the work is about transforming an organisation towards customer-centricity or shaping a product.
“When design can be balanced with an understanding of the business and the organisation, it generates good business and good customer experience simultaneously.”
Kajsa says that just in the same way as diverse teams create holistic solutions, diverse perspectives creates better business. Now she’s driven by creating good conditions for design to ensure the organisation get the most value possible out of the investment.
“When I started my design journey I didn’t understand the business and always prioritised the craft. Now, I believe that just in the same way as a real high performing team is a mix of characteristics, good services and products, are a mix of perspectives”
To consider: How are your designers exposed to new perspectives?
*Individual growth processes — At Topp we have been working with individual growth for many years. Reach out if you want to discuss this further and get tips & tricks on how you can make your design team grow.
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About Kajsa
Where does she live?: Höllviken, the very south of Sweden surrounded by long white beaches.
What does she like to do on “non working” time? Hangs out with her family and friends. Dances jazz & works out outdoors at a bootcamp. Explores restaurants, good food and wine.
What is she passionate about?
Continuous self-development. Travelling. Fashion.
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Curious?
Interested in understanding how to enable growth of your team?
Or how to evolve design leaders? And how to operate for this to happen?
Reach out and we’ll help you to figure out your next step
anna@topp.se & kajsa.egly@topp.se
