Techniques
Design Dojo
Creating space to learn and grow in your design team
As Lead, Staff, or Principal designers, part of our role is to raise the level of craft, quality, and execution across teams. Carving out a weekly, fortnightly, or quarterly space to level up is critical, and The Design Dojo is a fantastic approach I was introduced to at Pivotal Labs, where we had just that. Sessions can range from how-to demos, to in-depth case studies, to more casual “fireside” chats about the industry or how the team executes design. The format we ran most often was the group critique.
Read below about how to set up an ongoing Design Dojo in your org, or skip directly to the Figma templates: The Design Dojo and The Group Critique.
The Dojo
What is this?
A standing session where the team teaches itself. Each time, someone brings one thing: a demo of a tool or technique, a case study of recent work, or a topic for a fireside chat.
Why use this?
It spreads craft across the whole team instead of keeping it with a few senior designers, and it gives everyone practice presenting their thinking.
When should this be used?
Once a month, for an hour.
Required materials:
The Design Dojo Figma template and one volunteer per session.
What is the end result?
Designers who step up to lead sessions themselves.
One format: the group critique
What is this?
This is a simple critique format that foregoes lengthy presentations and jumps right into getting feedback on any problem or scenario you are working on.
Why use this?
Leverage the collective knowledge of your design team to improve design quality, hammer out details and edge cases, align your work to the design system, and build your team’s awareness of other projects that are in flight.
When should this be used?
I recommend once a week on Thursday mornings. You’ll have the week to work, then a check-in on Thursday before making updates on Friday.
Required materials:
Any concepts or flows and the Group Critique Figma file. How many concepts and flows is up to the designer, but it’s wise to keep this manageable if you have several presenters.
What is the end result?
Lots of sticky notes for updates, and hopefully a better design as a result of the critique.