EXPERIENCE AND LEARNINGS WORKING IN A TEAM AT CO.LAB

As a group, their most significant learning at Co.lab was the importance of building lean. At any given moment, the team was thinking of how to make the product lean. Given that the program was 8 weeks long, they had to learn to prioritize an MVP. They had an assortment of ideas but when they put into perspective how much time they had to achieve these, they did what needed to be done. What needed to be done was the card deck and then subsequently they have iterated on the product to have more interaction and include features that they felt improved the app. Co.Lab taught them that the first iteration is lean. 

Individually, they had unique experiences and takeaways.

For Dominic, coming to Co.Lab was amongst other things, an opportunity to find out if Product Management was really for her. What she learned was “this is new but you can do it”. The program allowed her to stop second-guessing and doubting herself and to acknowledge that she had come a long way from her days working in customer care.

Before Co.Lab, Adedimola  had not worked as part of a team outside of work. It was different because at Co.Lab, he had to learn to code someone else’s designs while consulting with another developer. He also suggested that team meetings and working hours be fixed using the time zone that was most convenient for most members of the team. This meant that the meetings and calls sometimes took place at late hours for him but he adapted in a couple of weeks. Jerrie was dealing with her own learning curves. Many aspects of Co.Lab were a first for her. It was her first time working with another developer, first time working in a cross-functional team that was not for a class project, and her first time building this sort of product.

Working in a team as a designer was also a new learning experience for Alaina. She had only recently left her job at the art gallery and here she was building an MVP with a team. She had to work closely with each member of the team on different aspects of the design. She and the Product Manager Dominic worked closely on gearing the visuals design towards the incentives of the product and the environment they wanted to create which was both calm and revitalizing and so they worked on things like the mood board and color scheme. 

Then with the Developers Jerrie and Dimola, she had to present designs and allow them to decide whether the designs were feasible at every step. Alaina was in uncharted waters with UI/UX design because a lot of her previous design work represented her art background whereas this was just different. Oftentimes in a tech space, you’re working on an already existing product where you don’t have complete say over the UI as you would if you were working alone from start to finish. She had to learn how to keep her designs authentic while taking in lots of team opinions but she considered this practice for when she would need to consider stakeholder opinions.

Alaina appreciated the opportunity to learn at Co.Lab because she was able to design something that she was proud of and she learned new things about herself in the process. She learned that she is able to take feedback in good faith and that she enjoys the process of speaking to users and catering the designs to user needs as well as team desires.

‍IN THE REAL WORLD

What kind of lessons did the DeepDiive team pick up at Co.Lab that currently serves them in their current careers? Alaina learnt “not to attach emotion to my designs so that my ego isn’t bruised if things are not implemented the way I assumed.” She learnt how to hand things off to developers and came to learn that a design is not always going to be executed the exact way it looked on the Figma file and that’s okay. “As long as the end product is a version that is most useful to the consumers then it’s alright.” This is a lesson that has proven to be extremely useful to her as she now works with more and more developers. 

Currently, she works as a freelancer and the fact that she is able to take meeting strategies and use skills she picked up from the Product Manager at Co.Lab to interact with managers has been really helpful, especially as someone who didn’t have traditional management in her career.

Dominic learnt that working with a designer was no longer optional for her. Before Co.Lab, she didn’t work closely with a Product Designer. Her team at work would do what they had to do and then borrow a Product Designer from another team if they really needed one. Working with Alaina made her sensitized toward the design process. “I learnt to ask the designer what ways they’d prefer to receive design feedback whether through Figma comments or any other tool they might use.”

She has more respect, awareness and familiarity with the design process even without having a close Designer-Product Manager relationship at work and she has seen the improvements that having a designer brings to the quality of her work. Now, she looks forward to working with more designers borrowing from some of the skills she learned working with Alaina. 

Dimola learnt to give and take feedback which was not how he previously operated. Pre-Co.lab, he was not one to say whether or not things were wrong or to offer his opinions on things. However, he realized that it was important to members of the team for him to give and take feedback and so he has learned to do so. Jerrie on the other hand learned to communicate. She did not previously appreciate the importance of constant communication as this was her first experience working with a team so she had to learn to communicate her ideas, to keep everyone updated on her activities and to participate in team sessions.

‍“Gratifying and insightful”, “challenging and rewarding”, “eye-opening”, “exciting” are some of the words the members of the DeepDiive team used to describe their learning experience. Each person left Co.Lab with exactly what they came for and then some. Those who wanted something to speak on during job interviews found that, those who wanted to be better primed for current and future roles gained it, those who wished to work in teams did so. 

They each left the program confident to call themselves Product Managers and Designers and Developers and they learned to work alongside others while being accommodating and supportive. They found friendship in their teammates and have all continued to work together on DeepDiive, constantly making iterations to make it an even better product.

‍Work in a cross-functional team as a Product Manager, Designer or Developer. For more information, visit our website and keep up with us on LinkedIn.

‍