I did for around 6 months, then leaped back again.

I always held a relatively weird design position here; being one of the original designers pre-acquisition it meant I was seemingly the natural one to step up to a management position when the team grew to around 10 designers; I naturally assumed some kind of leadership position simply because I was the one that had been there the longest.

When the idea was presented to be an actual manager, I was relatively accepting of this at first; in a previously very flat organisation suddenly a ladder was placed in-front of me that I could climb. I thought about how I could amplify my own design strengths through this design team. It’s basically multiplying my own skills, right? I could channel good design into every decision we make.

Well, it turned out to be a lot more difficult. I attended courses around management, HR, assessments, coaching conversations, compensation. It became increasingly clear to me that being a manager was not the same as being a leader; all of this stuff was deadly important, but it was stuff I neither had the talent for or real desire to learn. It was dealing with people. Just because I can throw together a good design, present it well, execute it well and provide good feedback to others does not mean I’ll make a good manager. It’s an entirely different skill set (one that I have a massive amount of respect for).

During my time as a manager, I never truly felt I was doing a bad job, but I certainly didn’t feel like I was doing a good job. There were just so many parts of it that would take me years to learn; managing people is an incredibly nuanced skill, one that does require almost all of your time if you're taking it seriously. Not that the team was hard to manage, quite the contrary, it was just the vast amount of my brain power it absorbed.

Ultimately I was designing less and less.

I took a weekend away with my girlfriend and she forced me into thinking what I really wanted; what makes me happy.

“I just want to design.”

I wanted to lead by example; I wanted to create great solutions myself and alongside the design team. I wanted to create great design strategies, gather a team and execute them. I didn’t want to plan the Q4 resource allocation budget.

So that was it. It may not be the smartest or most future proof plan, but the fact is that where I am right now creating stuff is the most important to me.

I needed to find a clear definition of management and leadership. At first they presented themselves as the same thing, it was only over these 6 months I found they were very different. And only one of them can make me happy right now.

I went from being a sole designer/developer at one company to managing a team of four.

The biggest piece of advice I would give to anyone in this situation would be to trust your team.

I found it daunting at first to delegate work to others with my mind always saying "how can someone else do this in exactly the way I need it" But nine times out of ten my team would always come back and either meet or exceed my expectations.

Taking a step back from the day to day work can give you time to focus on the bigger strategy and planning picture.

One thing I'd always suggest is to try and still find time to do some 'real' work - being the boss gives you the opportunity to pick a nice project to work on yourself to keep your hand in - you are a designer after all so don't give up your passion completely.

Learn to be clear or learn to let go.

I'm a total control freak and still struggle to put down the. Wacom pen when my design team are struggling to crack something.

What Im trying to do is be super clear. Almost as if I'm briefing a child (sounds condescending i know). And I'm realising that, although i may of not done something a particular way, it doesn't mean it's wrong.

A couple of scattered thoughts, with a head cold:

The team itself is a design challenge. At the core are people, just like any other design challenge. You can actually get a similar kind of satisfaction working on the design of the humans (the relationships, process, or just helping with their work) as you can from a design artifact, it just takes place over a longer time scale — so you have to be patient. You sometimes get to see your small wins six months later.

At some scale, the day-to-day becomes very different. The more humans there are, the less focus-mode you get by default. One of the most important things you can do is set up and drive the story arc that you want to create. Team goals, team events, people and subgroups you want to help grow, future managers, recruiting, all of that. You have to be building/designing the team, while you're reacting to stuff, so that you're not only reacting to stuff. If you find yourself only reacting to stuff, stop, reset your calendar, and refocus some of your time. Check in on the story arc, and make sure its tracking. What are the themes you want to see happen? Better critique? More focus? More diversity or consistency or communication?

You can pick off small design projects if you are careful and time them well. I look for tiny projects that are interesting but scoped smaller than a full day or two of work, so I know I can commit to designing it and actually deliver. If you need to feel like your tools are sharp and you want to get into the details this is a decent way to do it.

If you have to have a hard conversation with someone, you can practice it first, like you would with a design pitch or presentation. Prep is good.

Stay humble! You're in service to others, now doubly so, as a designer and as a steward of the team. Help out, take care of people, make them stronger and better and you will feel successful.

(Obligatory qualifying footnote: grew design at Palantir from 2-30ish people in the last 3 years. Still feel like I've barely scratched the surface).

I am monitoring this thread, please continue

I made the jump over a year ago and I decided to write up everything I learned here:

You Can't Fix the UX Without Fixing Everything

In Jan 2014 I made the transition from being a senior designer to a partner at two man design & dev studio. In reality the only people I have to manage (aside from myself and clients) are freelancers.

My biggest gripe with moving away from being (just) a designer is the lack of time I get to focus on the thing I love most — design.

Design used to be around 95% of what I did, and it now accounts for little more than half of that. My advice would be, if you think you can find happiness doing various day to day things besides design, then go for it.

I thought I could find happiness in new challenges and experiences, the reality is, the jump made me realise how much I truly love(d) design.

Hi Guillermo,

the biggest shift is in that being a manager is completely different role! With my previous employer I got the opportunity to lead a small team of 5 designers. Although my title was Sr. UI designer, I felt more like manager - it was more about dealing with people, consulting and less about actual designing. It is something a lot of people don't notice when they apply for a leading / managing role.

So here are my 2 cents: Always have the right expectations and know what you want to do in your life.

Good set of comments. The advice that has rung true with me is letting go and trusting your peers. Having been micromanaged on everything that I do to the point of being a photoshop (sketch/illustrator, name your poison) conduit I would say trust is the biggest thing. If work fits the brief, forget how it's done and don't let personal opinion get in the way. You are there to make sure things are done on time and within budget, if you start having exaggerated creative input then it's a slippery slope of alienation and resentment within your team

Want to trade spots?

I'm a project manager that is trying to move back into design.

Relevant: https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/owning-it-c1036506ccc9

The biggest difference is to think execution over details. Quality should never lack, but your focus should be on the quantity and making ideas go quickly to execution - and let the designers think about the small details from the given design guides of course. Depending on the company.. if you have unlimited resources like Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. things might look different :)