Transforming a fintech company's product and design team to improve performance
thoughtbot consultants embedded in a banking client’s junior product team to provide coaching and mentoring along with technical expertise.
The challenge
How to mentor team members while driving design and product management progress
The Chief Technology Officer within an enterprise-level bank came to thoughtbot seeking help, knowing our reputation for high-quality product design and management and our deep experience with Rails.
What we did
Driving momentum for sustainable improvement
Design sprint coaching
The thoughtbot team is adept at learning new industries quickly. Because we ramped up on the client’s highly specialized niche space in the finance industry, we were able to mentor and coach individual contributors while supporting product strategy.
thoughtbot coached the client through a design sprint for developing a product in a new market. Gathering leadership, stakeholders, and the product team, we identified a core problem statement, led their creation of a compelling vision of the solution, scoped it down into a MVP, and ultimately created an actionable plan for how to get there - all within a few days.
Team mentorship
Embedding ourselves within the design and product management teams, we established expected skill levels for each role, then coached and mentored individuals weekly to address gaps in their knowledge. We worked alongside these teams to set an example and served in an interim design team lead capacity.
Our training and coaching deliverables
Weekly 1:1 coaching
Personal coaching to address specific challenges and foster professional growth.
Learning paths and skill frameworks
Track team member progress and career development with a path towards promotion.
Product team training
Weekly sessions on core design skills for product managers, understanding and selling design systems, and cross-functional collaboration.
Design and Lean Decision-Journey Sprint facilitation
Templates to streamline Design Sprints and Lightning Design Jam (LDJ) workshops to enable informed, user-centered decision-making.
Mentorship for sprint facilitation
Coaching on sprint leadership.
Revamped hiring process
A multi-step hiring process that includes detailed exercises for evaluating candidates.
Design system process alignment
Cross-functional coordination for expanding the design system, tailor-made for this organization.
The results
Stronger teams, better products, faster processes
Beyond design team mentorship, we were also able to deliver on multiple workstreams and product roadmaps. Our designers embedded into their product pods to understand the needs and produce exceptional solutions through high fidelity prototypes and iterations on their design system.
The product managers told us their biggest pain point was how long it took to gather product ideas and requirements. Thanks to our engagement, that timeline shrank dramatically from an average of three months to one week. The bank’s leadership has adopted the design sprint practice, making it standard practice across all product teams.
The impact of our changes went beyond skill development and streamlined workflow.
Team members say thoughtbot’s coaching created a mindset shift that includes greater confidence that accompanies their increased skills, more productive teamwork, and accelerated problem-solving.
The newly empowered designers and product managers are able to launch and lead projects with all-new insights and efficiencies, building a stronger foundation of trust with leadership while creating higher quality products.
