Over the years I've had the opportunity to work at multiple start ups. While at some of them I was multi hatting between design and other functions. At FairMoney I got the chance to build a team from scratch as the design leader.
This also meant that I was in a role that's famously known as the Player/Coach model.
With this model its fairly easy to lose sight of what your trying to achieve and drift towards either an individual contributor or a management role. However, I want to share some hacks that I felt worked for me at FairMoney and helped us grow.
Brain storm and co-design together
A big challenge while taking this role on is leading with example. The role itself is somewhere in the middle and its easy for insecurities to creep in under the disguise of competition.
Don't let it!
A weekly co-design session in my opinion has helped the team bond better. Understand that while you have experience, you're not supposed to be the strongest designer in the team. Different designers have different strengths, use this session to focus on that and appreciate the efforts being put in.
One designer could be better at visuals while the other has a stronger sense of user flows and personas. Help the team understand this and encourage collaboration.
Build together, manage together and track together
As managers, you are expected to manage the team's time and your organizations targets. Organizing a session around management and tracking is a healthy way of reminding the team of where they are headed. While this is probably done on a regular basis in larger orgs, in smaller ones its supposed to be more than just tracking.
Take this team to teach your team the caveats of management. How to track OKRs? Why were certain decisions made? Where do we stand with profitability? What does the team hiring plan look like? How are oyu thinking about growing the team?
While it sounds simple I know so many managers who miss out on this communication. It help establish trust and at the same time teaches your ICs about what comes next.
Block time for IC and management work
Yes, you've read this everywhere but take it a step further. Block your calendars for your focus time otherwise you will end up not finishing your IC work. You can also block an entire day in the week for focus time.
You can also do the opposite - blocking an entire day to just focus on team management. This is the one that I follow. Its interesting to see how your brain works when you give yourself a break from IC work to only focus on management tasks.
Never miss a one on one
Taking the time out for one to one conversations is even more important in this model. You playing a dual role will make sure that you have limited time and its easy to drift to the IC side at the expense of a one to one with a team member - NEVER DO THAT!
Remember if you don't have the time for a one to one - delegate the work to a team member. Not having this time is a clear indication that you're hitting a peak within this model. This would be the time to delegate more work and manage more, consider maybe hiring more people.
Invent guidelines for decision making
Being short on time you should come up with a guideline for how to make quick decisions. You cannot be the blocker for small calls that need to be taken in day to day work. Let your designers know that, as long as there is a guide on how to do these things they should be able to take the small calls easily and save your time.
Avoid taking mission critical projects alone - unless there's no other way
Your most important projects should be taken by a member in your team. If you feel the team is not strong enough yet, you should do these projects in collaboration. Big and important projects go on for months you cannot wait to hire some one later only to do a knowledge transfer that requires a lot of context. Instead take on the task with another designer form the team and slowly groom them into taking over the project completely.
Never be the strongest IC in your team
This is hard to do. If you are in a player/coach model that pretty much means you are a good enough designer. Aim to hire ICs better than you. The only way to make that happen is to manage expectation clearly.