Design perspective: How to balance time tight and do not do

I do not know if there is a friend who is engaged in the design manager encountered the following situations:

XX Manager: "This thing, xx you follow?" What's the 3-day time? ”
XX Designer: "Ah ~ ~ ~ I am too busy now, a week."
A week later ~ ~ ~ ~
XX Manager: "XX, is that thing finished?" ”
XX Designer: Ah ~ ~ Too busy, has not yet begun! I'll start tomorrow.

This is a common phenomenon in the design project cooperation, it is possible that the designer is really busy, there may be a design task is not sorted, resulting in reduced design efficiency, can not highlight the most urgent needs. Today, a friend asked how to do this situation, first of all, the premise of the problem is that the designer's subjective attitude is good, that he is a positive, have a certain ability, do not procrastinate people, too much of the task consumed is the overall project time, rather than simple design quality. So how does the problem of "time tight" and "do not do" balance? There are at least the following points to refer to:

1. Adjust the target time

If there is no specific designer involved at the start of the project, then for the design part of the time will generally be mercilessly squeezed, most product managers (especially without any technical background) for the design, development and other aspects of the specific work time is a smear, so it is easy to assume that "two hours enough?" "This should be quick!" said the man. "Is it going to take so long to copy?" "No, it's just a different color!" "And so on rhetoric-as if to tell the designer" Lao Tze also understand the subtext. " In fact, the evaluation of design time is always a problem.

The basic idea of solving the problem is that the purpose of the project must first be determined, on the basis of the design quality as the benchmark, or the time progress as the benchmark-if the quality as the benchmark, then in an acceptable time, should unconditionally complete the design of the product quality requirements; If the project time is the benchmark, Then you can prioritize the most urgent issues in your product, and then continue to refine the design in the next upgrade. In a project, the milestone management of design delivery is very important, it can reasonably control the design phase of the working hours, avoid too many project crashes, and leave the time for the designer to think.

If the project is not so urgent, I suggest that you can give the designer a little more time, and plan the content of the review meeting and deliverables, the target time should be a specific cycle (such as a week) to check the coordinates of the feedback, rather than the entire design phase after the end of the start looking for the designer It is more reasonable for the designer to propose a reasonable time for the design manager to help coordinate the resources (the design manager himself should be aware of the industry standard time required for the specific design content).

2. Team pressure decomposition

A flow-type cooperative design team, the most prone to the situation is that some people are very busy, some people are idle, and constantly alternating, this is because of the "Nonse Dorau" of the idea of existence, but also include team personnel structure and level is too single, lack of collaboration basis. When faced with a designer's workload too saturated, other members of the team should play the role of the fire brigade, according to the needs of the project workload adjustment, this is a good performance of the team atmosphere-although in the more normal process of this situation is very small, but it is not not to appear.

In addition to the design team internal processing, such as products, procurement, development and other coordination departments, but also need to establish the responsibility of joint decompression, in the development of an additional special effects components, may be able to save the designer 3-4 hours of production process, which is called the team's overall decompression, as a coordination between departments The key point is enough agility and the spirit of mutual aid, and the most important day-to-day work of product managers is to help build this spirit.

In addition to the current popular cross-sectoral group approach, the most efficient approach is that each department of different people should sit together, rather than all the documents and communication are dependent on mail, and sometimes too much attention to it tools is the source of time pressure.

3. Avoid dilution of work value

You may not have thought that the product manager's work on "very urgent" perhaps there is no value at all, designers in the project will always be the most urgent, the most important part of the innate sensitivity, they can always tell which work has been done will be modified, which design submitted will certainly be called back, Which managers do not work according to their personal preferences. Because it's so easy to give orders as a leader, sometimes you don't even have to write your emails----------------------------------------high level The more easily issued commands, the more likely to create obstacles, because before the issue of demand leaders often lack of thinking and judgment, do not do the filtering of fuzzy information-lead to some boring things are repeatedly loaded into the project process, such as: Some review of the full signature of the document, as a more urgent project, This part of the signature should be controlled within 2-3 people, and the remaining unimportant decision-makers need to be cut off at this stage.

No hard work content, is the most likely to cause the designer rebound things, any one change will more or less lead to the designer work before dilution, because the design time spent, but did not get approval. If your needs are always in an uncertain state, then the mental model that the designer builds up is: "Anyway, the next time, the need for no spectrum, temporarily do not do"-you will hear "now too busy" and so on, the subtext of too busy is "there is more than your needs more important things," Your needs are not so important. " Why doesn't it matter? The one who puts forward the demand should ask first.

4. Assessment and improvement of working capacity

Well, the following to say the designer's own problems, some designers are indeed inefficient, there is no time to manage themselves. When it is not clear which is more important, the designer should find the product manager or the project manager to have a priority list of the project, corresponding to the data to arrange their own work. The role of the design manager is to evaluate the design ability of the designer, and to conduct design training, guidance, supervision and organizational review. Therefore, the design manager should also be involved in the project to a large extent, follow the current design and development progress, understand the latest technical means, industry information, competitors.

For the design team, in addition to the training of team cohesion, at the technical level, on how to design a more quality work is not the first place, a team's ability to work is most important embodied in the overall effectiveness of the process optimization, the rapid response to flexible requirements, as well as the ability to communicate across departments. Many designers in order to avoid communication with other "strong" departments, usually adopt a negative attitude, one is not silent, the other is non-violent non-cooperation-anyway you are anxious, you have to listen to me. In this psychological game, it will nonphysical wear the quality of time and design, and finally the situation of the designer's loafing.

The general system of designers are passive to improve the specimen, no leadership requirements and manager guidance, do not want to actively improve, how much work to take how much money, become an unconscious state. Perhaps this is not just a design department problem, but also a wide range of other departments, so we will see Buck, Zhangbao events occur repeatedly, the so-called departmental meetings have been spent time in the wrangling.

5. Motivate and improve work attitude

If unfortunately, the team really has a lack of motivation of the designer exists, then the problem is shifted to how to improve the attitude of work, is certainly a bad way to resign, as a designer who do not want to do a good job? Set up some incentive measures, in different workloads to give different rewards, yes, design works can not simply take piecework, but in the quality of the premise of OK, piecework is not a shameful way.

Do 8 hours to produce a work, and do 8 hours to produce three works, if wages are the same, it is easy to appear pot plot, there is no difference between the works, there will be no difference in the treatment of the work, time has become decorated here-not effectively improve the quality of the design, this is fundamentally still the design of the designers will issue. If the simple "time is urgent" can be reversed in various ways, change, coordination, and even compromise, and if there is "just do not" situation, then there are some of the work attitude does not care about the part. Unfortunately, it is often difficult for our human resources departments to take this into account and they have never cared about the difference between designers and senior designers.

Finally, busy or not busy need to be based on the situation, results are the proof of all, in the project milestone will always leave a pen, and do or not do, need to be based on people, you need not be I can give, I give is not necessarily what you want, then there is the need to do?