Amplify Education - Team Building
Amplify Education, formerly known as Wireless Generation, provided me with a formative opportunity to build and lead a team.
In the nine years I was there, we grew from about 200 employees to 1200, and our UX efforts grew at a rapid rate in large part as a result of our success working with New York City on it’s student data project - ARIS.
In order to keep pace with the rapid expansion, I built and managed a UX team of about 30 designers, researchers and front-end developers. The practices I used then - transparency, fun, weekly individual meetings - remain a core part of my management techniques.
One technique that I developed at Amplify and have continued to use in other design/research management roles is to be explicit about expectations for team members. Laying out a “Job Chart” that made expectations clear on areas such as key responsibilities, accountability and technical skill for each job level is helpful.
Impact
Being methodical in referring back to a team member’s performance during check-ins and actively referencing the job chart together works well. It tends to reduce the amount of surprises that occur during more formal evaluation rituals, and also helps focus on skills and responsibilities on ongoing projects in a purposeful, continuous way.