How do you mentor and coach product designers?

Since 2019, I founded a design community, Desc, and successfully trained about 50 designers across Nigeria. I have been organizing structured design programs, live sessions, and diverse mediums to foster growth and creativity. Through Dsgnntalk, a recently launched platform, I offer resources for skill development and career guidance while promoting inclusivity and diversity. At Dsgnntalk, we explore design beyond tech, learning from non-tech industries to offer better creative solutions. I measure impact by collecting feedback & testimonials, tracking mentee achievements, and assessing community engagement to gauge the effectiveness of my community & platform. I look forward to impacting lots more people.

Well I introduce technology. A right technology will foster design process . Design department is engine of any organisation. Listen to them. They are smart people.

I have been mentoring startups and entrepreneurs for last 7 years. I derived my mentoring skills from my earlier interaction experiences with students, researchers, scientists and other professionals. I rely more upon auditing their stated objectives, current processes, the technology involved, definitions of their problems at hand and uniqueness in their ideas. Not being a finance expert, I avoid advising them on finance part. While auditing, I am able to encourage them to identify the gaps in respective domains and find solutions, too. I believe, mentoring is all about generating a desire among the mentees to look within. If a mentor is able to do that, half of the job is done. Rest is identifying milestones and review processes.

One of the mistakes I made earlier but immediately I started defining my role, it has helped me stay on track and ultimately achieve the primary goal.

90% of being a successful coach is to have the ability to instill the belief that from hard work successful results will follow……

Provide Guidance, Not Solutions; Encourage senior product designers to solve problems independently by providing guidance rather than offering solutions outright. Help them develop critical thinking skills and problem-solving techniques that they can apply to various design challenges.

No doubt that a mentor is there to teach, and gently guide, but I've always believed there there is a 100 right solutions in design and mine is just one of them, so I have never told a mentee that they are wrong. If we want the industry to grow and evolve, we need to allow for other perspectives (young blood if you will) to try their way, and that comes with autonomy - Just like I ask for it, after 16 years in the field when I want my team to think outside of the box and try to challenge the norm.

Yes. I take interest in the matter/issues of the startups. Sometimes, the issues are not related to their enterprise, but they find comfort in discussing their issues ( even personal) . I believe that this is an ideal relation between a mentor and a mentee. The trust develops as the mentor is able to inspire the mentee to independently look at the issues, while the mentoring observing the happenings from a distance. I am reminded of a comment by a mentee, who mentioned that I, as a mentor, am a ship and have put the mentee in a boat in a stormy ocean with a loose long rope tied to the boat.

Often times I find trust and rapport to be a rose-smelling bouquet of possibilities but the real cultivation comes in the dirt! The conflict, the struggle, and the appropriate balance of trust and rapport based on the outcomes of those successful outcomes. No conflict is too small or big to learn from and there’s never a shortage of opportunities to participate in respectful conflict. Varying perspectives, professional experiences, and success stories mean that everyone brings something unique to the table. Put an idea on the table and smash or tumble it with intentional (and respectful!) friction until you have nothing, or the best version of the idea. My two cents!

I have come across startups, who have been excellent technologists, but have not been able to market their product. After sustained interactions, we both appreciated that as technologist, the startup, should focus on the core competency and let a market expert do the talking for launching the products. However, the startup was short of funds also, then we narrowed down to the work of networking with technology companies only, for customised products and not for products in open competitive market. The startup, should not necessarily, think of working on defined methods. They have to find solutions based upon their own strengths.

I do not set goals for the startups. Rather I help them set their goals. There is a difference between the above two approaches. The mentor has to let the mentee feel that mentee is the master of his enterprise. The mentor is for showing the direction. SMART goals as per current resources and realistic objectives will follow .

yes, I do. I give the feedback, only when asked for. Normally, I wait for the calls from startups. And the reason for this is to provide them opportunity to make their own self sustainable teams for support and feedback.

"Appreciate in public and feedback in private" is a mantra I follow with designers. We had a graphic designer who was transitioning into a product designer. She knew how to design, but it lacked product sense. A feedback that helped her get better was to recreate the UI of popular products like Spotify or Netflix (pick a product based on your industry)

A mentor is not a manager, or a leader - they might often be the same, but not the same. If I've learned one thing it is that constant sessions (meetings) to review a person, will very quickly have the very opposite effect that you wish for. Very few creative thinkers thrive by being kept an eye on - and that is exactly what a reoccurring review will very quickly feel like. I have tried it the bad way for many years. So personally now I avoid it at all cost, I much more believe in natural conversation while not being afraid to bring up sore subjects or challenges related to the current topic. Honesty comes best in a natural form.

Once upon a time, I was a mentor of a product designer intern in the last summer. When asked to assess the contribution and results of the designer, we complete a checklist with many parts, including personal, designing, and social abilities, among others. I believe one of the most influential factor that affect the mentor most is that how the mentee process the knowledge taken from the mentor and apply it to solve the real world problems

Start with the end user, expectations, interactions, user interface ( UI )...I have been part of the process with physical products and software products and the UI for both.. through unboxing a physical product, look, feel, performance all count. Software, from installation to ease of use and support. I have found if the focus is on your customer, decisions based on delighting them then other things can/will be forgiven. Disappointment out of the box or through installation, first launch is a much harder hurdle to overcome.

Personally, I've witnessed that when designers are in an environment where they feel creatively fulfilled, have their voices heard and are enabled to grow both professionally and personally, they thrive and produce world-class work. As a leader, that means making an intentional investment of time and energy to help your designers develop both professionally AND personally. Professionally - focuses on their extrinsic motivation, professional ambitions and progress in relation to role/status, helping them grow professionally within their organisation. Personally - focuses on their intrinsic motivation, personal ambitions and growth, irrespective of the company, helping them grow personally as a human being. Everyone needs both.

The Product Designer is the representative of the users. That means taking the fight with the head dev, the CPO or even the CEO if you need to. It also means staying in constant touch with the users to get their perspective, so you are armed with information. But most of all it means asking "why". Being a creative thinker should be nurtured, not managed or reviewed, rather guide and share past experiences, and then challenge through argumentation and prior knowledge you might have, they don't, to make sure they learn how to approach Product Design the right way, and not just "this looks good."