My next day starts on the previous night!

A To-do list is always an awesome weapon!

Before going to bed, I always plan for my next day and a good day to come ahead which I will be thankful for! It gives 20% clarity on work, how to manage the meetings, what things to take up on priority? Whom to connect to? Do brainstorming etc.

The best medium I like to write down is pen and paper till date. It is a joyful moment when you list down a long to-do list and then start cancelling each and every task one by one during the day. This also builds up the confidence of taking more responsibilities and speeding up some of the tasks.

After being promoted to Principal Product Designer, I got an opportunity to lead B2B domain consists of approximately 8+ products and drive it with the design team. On the other hand, gaining more business knowledge and leading one of the B2C sides of products which has immense stakeholders contribution in decision making.

Manage Projects and Manage Teams

You might be thinking about how I am able to manage so many projects in a day. I was also thinking the same sometimes back. But when a situation comes in front of you, one finds its own way to tackle it.

• Not all projects every day.
• Decide your priority for the day which will impact the organisation.
• Think which time of quarter is going ON.
• Have a quick discussion with your teammates.
• What’s they would like to do?
• When your team is happy in accomplishing some tasks, you yourself become happy as you are also reaching your targets slowly and steadily!
  

Project Update frequency

After thinking deep into the project/features etc. from your end.

• Gather your team.
• Ask if there are any blockers.
• Visit few updates offline before meeting the team. It will help you to prepare your mind in giving further direction to the team.
• You can ask some questions from the team like whether they want to do quick brainstorming on any of the features etc. If you drive and motivate the team, the team itself get so much energy.

The right time to support team at micro-level if required

• Follow up with various PMs.
• Getting yourself aligned with various departments.
• Deep dive into their strategy.
• Protect your team if you feel a pattern of pressure from various departments.
• Make them learn to say no to some facts where your team can itself take a decision.
  

Setting up the process and making smart decisions across various verticals as a team is scaling

• Confluence is one of the tools which helps in making our life easier. Our documentation starts there and ends there. Anyone in the team can easily refer back.
• Gathering ideas from the team. Independently, ask them to share their learnings and start documenting.
• Decide upon the various UX frameworks, which helps in spending time on thinking more for the feature but will take less time in execution. In return, it will also cost less time for the development team to build those features as frameworks are ready for it.

Lot to share as we are learning each and every day with the challenges we face in life :)