Learning and development process for Design Agencies: growing craft and tool skills between projects
A studio's quality comes from what its people can do. Between projects there is time to learn, if someone plans it and records what each person has gained.
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Share your requirementsWhy learning and development process matters in design agencies
Learning in a design agency tends to be accidental. A designer sees a talk, watches a video late at night, or picks up motion work because a project needed it. The studio gains, but nobody records it, so the next project is staffed by guesswork and the same two people always get the interesting work.
A light plan helps. Pick the skills the studio will need over the next year, such as a new interface method, research practice or motion, and set aside time between projects for people to learn them. Record what each person has learnt and use it in staffing and reviews. Learning then becomes a reason to stay.
How to set it up
1. Choose the skills the studio will need
Look at the pipeline and the enquiries you are losing. Pick three skills for the year, for example prototyping, accessibility in interfaces or motion.
2. Give each designer a learning goal
One goal per person, agreed in the review, with the type of work that will let them practise it.
3. Protect time between projects
A short block, say half a day each fortnight, kept for learning or an internal project. Plan it in the schedule as client work.
4. Share what was learnt
A thirty minute session on the last Friday of each month where one person shows what they learnt and where it fits client work.
5. Record and use it
Update the skills grid after each goal and use it in staffing, with the competency and talent management approach.
Check these first
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These take an afternoon and use your own records.
- Ask each designer what they learnt this quarter and from where.
- List the skills clients ask about that you cannot yet offer.
- Count the hours between projects that went unplanned last quarter.
- Check whether the same two people always get new kinds of work.
GullyHR can do this with you. Read how we approach learning and development process in general, or share your requirements and we will tell you where to start.
Questions owners ask
Yes, at least in part. If it is only in free time, those with fewer obligations learn and others fall behind. Plan some time within the week and agree what is expected.
Practice on a real or internal project teaches faster for most design skills. Courses suit new tools or a method with a clear structure. Mix both and ask the learner to share what they gain.
Some will, and they take the skills. Offer a path where the new skills lead to better work and pay, and record project knowledge so the studio keeps what it learnt.