Design Process & Management Style
40+
Completed Projects
5m+
Customers Served
£100m+
Total Raised Across Portfolio
I’m an experienced fintech product design leader with a proven track record of growing startups from inception to scale and exit. I’ve built and led design teams from 0 to 1 across banks, payment products, and crypto exchanges, mentoring individuals from junior to senior levels. I remain a hands-on contributor, leading by example, advocating for data-driven decisions, and collaborating with business leaders and customers to solve real pain points. My approach focuses on creating scalable, profitable products that align user needs with business objectives.
Double Diamond Design Process
I follow the Double Diamond design process to ensure a structured and iterative approach to solving user and business problems. It progresses through Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver, encouraging divergent thinking to generate ideas and convergent thinking to refine and execute the best solutions. This approach ensures alignment with agile workflows and prevents the common mistake of solving the wrong problem by neglecting the Discover and Define phases.
Data-Driven, Customer-First Approach
Data drives my design philosophy. By leveraging user insights and analytics, we:
Identify pain points and opportunities.
Test assumptions systematically.
Ensure our designs align with both user needs and business objectives.
Research shows companies excelling in data-driven decision-making are 5% more productive and 6% more profitable, emphasising the value of this approach in reducing costly missteps and delivering meaningful user experiences.
Design Principles
Strong design principles guide our work to ensure consistency, alignment, and focus. These principles help:
Maintain a user-first mindset.
Balance usability, aesthetics, and functionality.
Encourage a culture of experimentation, testing, and iteration.
Every design decision ties back to these principles, ensuring alignment with the broader product vision.
T-Shaped Designer Preference
In most cases, I prioritise hiring generalists over specialists. Generalists are versatile, capable of managing the full product lifecycle from UX to developer handoff. While specialists excel in niche areas like animation, they are best added strategically when the need arises.
Generalists:
Pros: Broad skillset, ideal for initiating projects independently.
Cons: May lack depth in specific areas, slower on specialised tasks.
Specialists:
Pros: High-quality output in their area of expertise.
Cons: Less adaptable, often reliant on complementary roles.
This approach ensures a well-rounded team that balances efficiency, adaptability, and scalability.
Team Structure and Planning
I plan design team budgets biannually and annually to align hiring with project and business needs. This approach enables me to:
Identify gaps in expertise and workload distribution.
Prioritise generalists for versatility while allocating for specialists as needed.
Support team growth with training aligned to both current and future requirements.
By combining a preference for T-shaped designers with strategic hiring and resource planning, I build teams that are flexible, collaborative, and capable of delivering high-quality results.
Career Development Plan
The design industry has evolved significantly, with new disciplines such as augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and voice-driven interfaces redefining the designer's role. To help designers grow, I developed a career development process:
Strengths Assessment: Identifies a designer’s core skills and areas for improvement.
Tailored Growth Plans: Align with individual goals and industry trends.
Emerging Skills: Focus on new technologies and interdisciplinary skills to future-proof careers.
This framework empowers designers to navigate their career paths confidently and adapt to industry shifts.
Single Source of Truth (SSOT)
To enhance cross-functional collaboration, I created a Single Source of Truth (SSOT):
A live, comprehensive app map includes every flow, edge case, and bad journey, ensuring all stakeholders work from the same reference.
This SSOT is invaluable for data analysis, drop-off mapping, and identifying user pain points.
OKRs and Design Metrics
I implement Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to align design efforts with business and user goals. These OKRs:
Tie directly to measurable design impact metrics, such as improved task success rates, reduced drop-offs, and increased user satisfaction.
Guide the team’s focus on delivering meaningful outcomes, not just outputs.
Design metrics provide actionable insights into the effectiveness of our solutions, ensuring we continuously refine and enhance our impact.
Round Table Reviews
Weekly design critiques promote collaboration and constructive feedback:
Designers present in-progress work to seek direction rather than validation.
Sessions foster team-wide learning and shared problem-solving.
Avoiding Silos
To prevent isolation within cross-functional teams:
Transparency: Regular updates on projects ensure alignment.
Workload Balancing: Redistributing tasks prevents overloading individuals.
Team Feedback: Encouraging peer reviews enhances collaboration and reduces reliance on external feedback.
Collaboration Focus
By challenging assumptions and testing systematically, we ensure our solutions are both innovative and validated. Collaboration strengthens the design team and lays the foundation for scalability.
SCRUM Workflow and Project Setup
Our SCRUM methodology ensures a seamless design-to-development handoff:
Sprint Planning: Aligns on clear, actionable goals.
Scrum Boards: Visualise progress and foster accountability.
Daily Stand-Ups: Promote agility and real-time adjustments.
This workflow fosters iterative development and continuous improvement, central to creating user-centred solutions.
Hiring Approach
Hiring designers involves evaluating both technical skills and problem-solving abilities:
Virtual Whiteboarding Exercises: Candidates work through high-level design problems to demonstrate their design thinking.
Design Thinking Evaluation: Assesses creativity, collaboration, and user-centred problem-solving.
Team Fit: Prioritises culture alignment and a collaborative mindset.
This rigorous process ensures we hire adaptable, resourceful, and user-focused designers.
Design File QA
Design quality is maintained through rigorous Design QA:
Cross-checking visual designs, micro-interactions, and copywriting against design specifications.
Ensuring consistency and quality before deployment.
This ensures that the delivered product aligns with the original design intent.
Scaling and Future-Proofing the Design Team
As teams grow, I implement scalable processes to maintain efficiency and consistency:
Pattern Libraries: Ensure design consistency across products.
Shared File Management: Centralises assets for accessibility.
Sprint Retrospectives: Encourage continuous process refinement.
By planning for scale, the team can seamlessly expand while maintaining high standards.
Summary
As a design leader, I focus on fostering a collaborative, data-driven culture underpinned by structured processes like the Double Diamond and SCRUM. I prioritise career development, measurable impact through OKRs, and scalable team practices to ensure that our designs meet user needs, business goals, and industry trends. This holistic approach ensures both individual and organisational success.