How can designers quickly become competent in new jobs? Read this personal experience summary!

For most designers and design teams, they will encounter endless drawings and constant requests every day. It is inevitable that omissions will occur and they will have to rush to rework or make up for it. So how to avoid this situation and how to deal with emergencies in the design? Next, I will share with you my working methods and solution strategies from the two aspects of task management and project management through some of my own design management experience.

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Task Management

Good task management can let you know how many bricks you need to move every day and every week. Among these bricks, which are the highest priority gold bricks, which are the higher priority silver bricks, and which are ordinary bricks? There may be temporary additions while you are moving, so good task management can make you more at ease, and I believe that developing a good habit of self-management will be of great benefit to all aspects of your future.

Here are two ways I use tools to manage tasks:

• Manage tasks on a daily basis on a monthly or daily basis, using note-taking software such as Evernote.
• Take temporary, long-term, or long-term tasks as the dimension to remind you of tasks in a timely manner. The main tool used is to-do list software, such as "TickTick"

Method 1: Evernote

We can create two documents in Evernote, one for this week's to-do list and one for each day's to-do list (it is recommended to use Evernote's Super Notes to create them, the new editor is very easy to use)

Here are the things to do this week:

• List the things that need to be dealt with this week and arrange the approximate rhythm according to the priority and delivery time nodes
• You can record the things that need to be dealt with every week and some additional non-urgent events (the content here can also be replaced by a to-do list)
• Existing plans or complex events with many tasks can also be listed.

Here are the daily tasks

After creating a weekly to-do, I will create a daily to-do document to further refine what I have done every day and the degree of completion of the tasks, so I will record them in the form of a table. The table header can be classified according to your preferences (here I take the table created according to my own habits as an example, which is divided into "todolist, time, progress, notes". I use todolist and time to roughly allocate time to arrange the work rhythm of the day, and use progress to track the completion status every day. I usually use notes as a to-do list to record relevant details)

Method 2: TickTick

To-do event software helps you remember some periodic and temporary events (it can also set reminders, repeated reminders, and continuous reminders... until you do the reminder, which can effectively prevent you from forgetting some things because there are too many things to do)

• Periodic events: daily ordering, daily review, weekly summary…
• Things that happened a long time ago: project acceptance, job review, shopping plans...
• Temporary new event: product requirements have changed...

project management

The general design process is as follows:

• Demand positioning - product PRD document - PRD synchronization for everyone - interaction design - interaction review - visual design - visual review - development - testing - Beta version - official launch

However, a real project may encounter various problems during its execution. Maybe you are still a newcomer and don't understand the company's business and design specifications. There may also be temporary changes in requirements, development resources may be tight and a downgrade plan may be required, design time may be compressed and need to be output in batches, etc. The following will explain each problem one by one according to different situations.

1. Reasonable allocation of time and workload

When you get a requirement, no matter it is a small iteration or a product from 0 to 1, there will be a lot of things you need to deal with. But if you want to do a little bit of everything and can’t finish anything or the work you do is not satisfactory, then in the end you will be very stressed as you watch the delivery date getting closer and closer but there is no progress on the deliverables.

In the early stage, you should communicate with the product to clarify the scope of this demand? Secondly, understand the time plan of the entire project?

• Posture A – Ample time and moderate tasks: Evaluate the parts that need to be executed → Confirm the priority → Complete output delivery development → Acceptance and launch;
• Posture B – Tight time and heavy tasks: Evaluate the parts that need to be executed → Preliminary confirmation of priorities → Agree with product development to output in batches → Output the rest while development is in progress → Acceptance and launch;
• Posture C – Ample time and high task uncertainty: Evaluate the parts that need to be executed → Output the framework structure to the developer first → Continue to optimize the visual part and deliver it later → Accept and launch;

2. Find the answer by yourself

When you encounter something you don't understand, try to solve it yourself first. Don't try to solve it yourself if you can't solve it. Don't try to solve it yourself if you can't solve it.

Find the answer from the data: If the company has a component library and design guidelines, there are a lot of standard documents and instructions.

Seek help from people around you: When you first come to the company, you are definitely not as familiar with the company, business, and projects as others. If you don’t understand something, ask. After a while, you will find the answer and become familiar with others.

3. Communicate promptly and seek help

When you encounter a situation that you cannot handle in a short period of time

Anticipate risks: On the one hand, you need to identify your mentor’s risk points in advance to see if you can make some resource adjustments to ensure the project continues.

Coordination and communication: On the other hand, if it does affect the progress, inform the partners in advance and the adjusted time plan;

4. Risk management reporting

There are indeed many difficulties and obstacles when encountering major projects, which need to be reported to the higher authorities in a timely manner and communicated with the MGR:

• Project importance
• Project Difficulties
• Current progress

5. Adjust yourself and accept opinions

Whether you are a newcomer or a veteran, you may encounter difficulties and obstacles in the project, which may make you feel frustrated.

Don't be discouraged, allow yourself to make mistakes: as long as the mistake does not cause huge losses, it is acceptable. Adjust your mindset, learn from the mistakes, and you will be able to solve them easily when you encounter them again;

Accept opinions: Don’t be resistant to the other person’s opinions. They are also describing their opinions from the perspective of helping you solve your current difficulties. Accept them with an open mind.

6. Program Management

Especially when it comes to major style upgrades or visual definitions, you need to try multiple solutions. It is best if the differences between the solutions are larger. You can output 2-3 solutions, and analyze the corresponding advantages and disadvantages of each solution. After you have a solution that you are more satisfied with, you will be more inclined to communicate with others and it will be easier to get the other party's approval.

7. Large-scale product projects/product iterations

After the product proposes product planning and product requirements, the design side also needs to make corresponding design plans, specific feasible content and corresponding time nodes, and implement the design in stages.

During the process, the business side may not be very clear about your output rhythm, so you need to communicate the design plans and solutions with multiple parties (product, mentor, MGR...) in a timely manner. After multiple parties reach a consensus, the proposal will not be easily rejected when it is finally reported to the decision maker. Even if it is dissed, there will be support from multiple parties.

Risk point: The final decision maker should be identified in the early stage of the project. The partners may have different hierarchical relationships, so when reviewing the plan, key roles should be called together to avoid the final plan being rejected because the reporting object is not the decision maker!

In conclusion, developing good habits is of great help in task management. Clarifying the project content, time rhythm, and risk points can help to better control the project.