A strange thing happens when you step up the design career ladder: you stop doing hands-on work.
When you’re new to this, you might struggle to adjust to the new reality and feel stressed (been there, done that).
And now, as a design manager, you’ll notice something else. The skills that made you a good designer don’t necessarily make you a good manager.
The key is to understand that, from now on, as a design manager, you’ll be designing your team - not the product.
The rewards for your efforts will lie somewhere else but can be just as satisfying.
The difficult transition
Good designers have a never-ending willingness to untangle visual chaos. They are meticulous in their craft, seeking to control every detail and striving to see tangible outcomes of their work.
When transitioning to a design manager, you are no longer responsible for overseeing micro-level details. Instead, your role shifts to addressing the invisible problems and frictions.
Your job is to empower and inspire your team, not to micromanage design.
This detachment from design work can be challenging.
I know it was a huge problem for many design leaders, and it was a problem for me in my first manager job.
Feed your craving for design
What you can do, and what works for me, is to keep my designing hunger satisfied with side projects.
It can be something completely yours outside of work, or a small project for your team - as long as you can design and enjoy it yourself, it’s ok.
Being a design practitioner will serve an additional purpose.
In the world where product design evolves so quickly it will help you stay in touch with emerging patterns, interaction models, and tools.
Some say that as long as your knowledge of design fundamentals is solid, you’ll be fine.
It’s generally true, but it makes your work harder if as a manager you have a smaller, flat structured team.
How can you teach and provide meaningful feedback when you’ve lost touch with design trends and new practices?
How do you improve processes if you don’t understand the possibilities that new design tools enable?
Embrace the challange
When you step up to a design manager role, you lose a sense of direct control over designs, but you gain leverage to achieve more with the team you’ll shape.
Your focus shifts to people, processes, storytelling, and instilling a sense of purpose. You learn a ton of new things and open a new chapter in your career.
And be not afraid - once a designer, always a designer.