MANAGEMENT TRACK

From makers to managers

Our management curriculum has helped designers across the industry sharpen business acumen, increase influence, and hone team practices.

DESIGNING BUSINESSES

As creatives, we believe in the value of design. But to amplify its visibility and impact, we need to integrate our creative practices with the objectives of the business.

This design leadership training helps creatives at all levels develop basic business acumen and perspectives that apply directly to their day-to-day responsibilities. It’s an extremely accessible workshop that helps participants understand common business terms and acronyms and make the connection between business and design.

4 four-hour sessions

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DESIGN LEADERSHIP FUNDAMENTALS I

Our most popular workshop helps new managers leverage their design skills for leadership success, while providing insight into management fundamentals. You will identify your leadership profile, learn how to deliver effective feedback to foster team performance, explore how to structure your team, and much more.

3 five-hour sessions

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DESIGN LEADERSHIP FUNDAMENTALS II

Building on the basics in Design Leadership Fundamentals I, this workshop will expand your leadership awareness and provide new approaches to scale your impact and influence. We’ll explore important modes and mindsets for dynamic leadership, learn to lead through others, and master the art of delegation.

4 four-hour sessions

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“Like good UI, [Design Leadership Fundamentals I] was what I needed, exactly when I needed it.

Wonderfully structured, terrific, relevant topics, valuable group participation, and two down-to-earth presenters who really know their onions. I felt I was in good hands the entire time.”

— Louise Mintun, Content Design Group Manager at Intuit

WE CREATED PROGRAMS FOR DESIGN MANAGERS AT

SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Expand your skills

Dig deeper into the four core areas of responsibility in creative leadership—Self, Vision, Team, and Delivery—to bring more intentionality to your leadership or management practice.

Vision

Visionary leaders imagine big possibilities—for teams, brands, and products—then rally others around those bright futures through influence and change management.

Series — Designing Businesses

A workshop that helps designers understand business basics for maximum impact.

Series — Leading Change

This workshop series explores change management through the lenses of neuroscience and design.

Demystifying Vision

This workshop helps people in all disciplines learn to set and communicate a vision.

Leading by Influence

This workshop explores methodologies for wielding influence, not power.

Team

Effective people managers lead through their team. They establish trust, craft the organization with intention, and they play a key role in developing a healthy culture.

Series — Coaching Creatives

Learn a new mode of leadership that helps you unlock your team’s potential.

Series — Designing Teams

This workshop helps leaders structure a successful design team with intention.

Catalyzing Performance

Accelerate your team’s growth through connection, real-time feedback, and coaching.

Cultivating Culture

Focus on the parts of culture that you can design, to create the opportunity for a good culture to emerge.

Delivery

Delivery is about helping the team do great work. You navigate the complexities of teams and organizational initiatives with decisiveness and flexibility.

Ensuring Design Excellence

This workshop helps you scale “good” craft decisions across your organization.

Communication By Design

This workshop provides the tools you need for improving delivery of feedback and critique.

Designing Partnerships

Learn to collaboratively build effective alliances up, down, and across your organization.

Designing Your Time

This workshop helps you better value, prioritize, and protect your time.

Facilitating Decisions

This leadership workshop helps you design and hold the container for healthy collaboration, debate, and decision-making.

Self

The core of the wheel represents your responsibilities to yourself. If you want to lead authentically and courageously, it’s critical to begin here: within you.

Design Leadership Skill Wheel

Evaluate your performance in the four primary areas of responsibility in creative leadership.

Leadership as a Creative Practice

The five mindset shifts you need to transition from individual contributor to manager.

Resilient Leadership

Learn to build more personal and team resilience practices.

Leading Authentically

Tune into your values, assess your behaviors, and design how you can live your values more fully.

Hello Inner Critic

Learn to engage with your inner critic so you can take more courageous creative leaps.

“[Over two days] we covered topics that are not only relevant to all leadership roles but for design leadership specifically. That was the true value of the workshop—to be able to learn more about management and leadership methodologies that are design-focused.

It allowed our entire team to engage more deeply with one another and to identify specific practices to bring into our day-to-day roles and interactions. I would highly recommend that any design team looking to gain the knowledge that will make you a successful collaborator and leader to take a class with Design Dept.”

— Audrey Liu, VP of Design at Lyft