Flag

We stand with Ukraine and our team members from Ukraine. Here are ways you can help

Home ›› Business Value and ROI ›› 6 Key Questions to Guide International UX Research ›› How Do We Design for Better Team Experiences?

How Do We Design for Better Team Experiences?

by Paul Brooks
4 min read
Share this post on
Tweet
Share
Post
Share
Email
Print

Save

Ideas to help you design better team experiences with B2B software inspired by The One Minute Manager series.

It took me just over an hour to first read The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard. I woke up at 6am and raced through every page, completely glued to the story. Despite its readability, the book has received its fair share of criticism—most notably the argument that it portrays an overly simplistic view of how people actually work.

The One Minute Manager offers straightforward techniques to effectively manage individual staff members, but speaks nothing of teams, departments, or collaboration, which are crucial elements of modern businesses. The sequel, The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams mentions the criticism levied against the first book and focuses on the importance of teamwork.

The majority of UX techniques rightly focus on the individual user, though, like The One Minute Manager, this represents a narrow approach. Working in a business-to-business environment, it’s important to not lose sight of the bigger picture of the team as a whole. Clients buy software and web applications to promote a change in behavior and those business objectives usually involve people changing together as a team. Maria Sanchez, a fictional character from the aforementioned sequel who coordinates a customer service program, sums it up as follows, “In today’s world, group productivity is more important than individual task accomplishment.”

To a similar point, Jason Fried of Basecamp once tweeted: “So many sales tools seem to be about your boss tracking your performance. Few seem optimized for actually helping you sell.” This is typical of software that aims to provide an excellent user experience for the user but neglects designing for the team experience.

When designing software for businesses, you need to think about the team as another user

When designing software for businesses, you almost always need to think about the team as another user, arguably the most important user of all. Like an individual, a team has expectations, habits, and goals that may not be uncovered when only analyzing the different users independently. A team can even have emotions and an experience—the team experience being a sum of all its parts.

What Do We Know About Teams?

Here are some things we know about teams:

  • Teams can be as small as two people and as large as you can imagine
  • Teams share common goals and often aggressive targets
  • Teams work in cycles or periods (such as monthly or quarterly)
  • Teams are usually reliant on all members to be truly successful
  • Teams have members who do not always work well together and conflicts can arise
  • Teams are made up of people trying to succeed in their current roles (remember the Peter Principle!)

Users as a Team

Users as a Team

What Techniques and Tools Can We Use When Designing for Teams?

Once we have accepted that the team can be treated as a crucial additional user, we can start to build it out as such, where applicable, using the techniques we are already familiar with.

Personas

The One Minute Manager describes teams as “dynamic, complex, ever-changing, living systems that—just like individuals—have behavior patterns and lives of their own.” This may seem odd at first, but the team is a living entity and can take the majority of the form of a tradition persona. Personas provide a voice for users and a team is no exception. Adapting from Jeff Gothelf’s approach to creating personas in in his book Lean UX, we can answer the following questions:

  • Name: What is the name and location of the team?
  • Demographic: What are the team’s goals? Who does the team report to?
  • Pain Points: What is the team struggling with?
  • Potential Solutions: What might help the team in their situation?
  • To Do List: What are the team’s priorities?

Team Persona

Team Persona

Experience Maps

Experience maps show the goals, interaction points, and the associated emotions throughout an activity or process. Mapping out the experience of the team as an individual is a great way to see the situation at a high level. One of the main characteristics of effective teams mentioned in the sequel is “active participation by everyone,” so consider gathering the whole team together at this stage of the design. Using this information, you can create the individual users’ experience maps separately in finer detail.

Experience Map

Experience Map

Job Stories

Job stories (created by Alan Klement) are a slightly different take on the traditional user story and, in most cases, a much more effective way to communicate. Job stories introduce an element of time and the factors that trigger the user’s need. Team stories should be treated as epics and the sub stories are those of the individual users. This will ensure that the team’s objectives are directly linked to the tasks of the individual users and the following counsel from Maria Sanchez can be adhered to: “Systems that can pit team player against team player must be changed so that the priority of each team member becomes the accomplishment of the team’s mission.”

Job Story

Job Story

Try it Yourself

So next time you’re building experiences for businesses, keep in mind that the user experience is only one part of the overall team experience. Give your client confidence that you understand the bigger picture and create a vision together for the product’s success. By treating the team as an additional individual user, you can start to take your designs to the next level and like The One Minute Manager, move onto building high performing teams!

 

Image of rugby scrum courtesy of Shutterstock Paolo Bona and Shutterstock.

post authorPaul Brooks

Paul Brooks

Paul Brooks (@okpaul) is the Global UX Design Authority for PRGX Inc. Paul previously worked at a digital marketing agency and as a freelance designer for PR agencies. He studied in London, France, and the US before moving into product management and user experience. He has three young children with his wife, Sarah, and lives in Essex, England.

Tweet
Share
Post
Share
Email
Print

Related Articles

AI is transforming financial inclusion for rural entrepreneurs by analyzing alternative data and automating community lending. Learn how these advancements open new doors for the unbanked and empower local businesses.

Article by Thasya Ingriany
AI for the Unbanked: How Technology Can Empower Rural Entrepreneurs
  • The article explores how AI can enhance financial systems for the unbanked by using alternative data to create accessible, user-friendly credit profiles for rural entrepreneurs.
  • It analyzes how AI can automate group lending practices, improve financial inclusion, and support rural entrepreneurs by strengthening community-driven financial networks like “gotong royong”.
Share:AI for the Unbanked: How Technology Can Empower Rural Entrepreneurs
5 min read

Discover the hidden costs of AI-driven connectivity, from environmental impacts to privacy risks. Explore how our increasing reliance on AI is reshaping personal relationships and raising ethical challenges in the digital age.

Article by Louis Byrd
The Hidden Cost of Being Connected in the Age of AI
  • The article discusses the hidden costs of AI-driven connectivity, focusing on its environmental and energy demands.
  • It examines how increased connectivity exposes users to privacy risks and weakens personal relationships.
  • The article also highlights the need for ethical considerations to ensure responsible AI development and usage.
Share:The Hidden Cost of Being Connected in the Age of AI
9 min read

The role of the Head of Design is transforming. Dive into how modern design leaders amplify impact, foster innovation, and shape strategic culture, redefining what it means to lead design today.

Article by Darren Smith
Head of Design is Dead, Long Live the Head of Design!
  • The article examines the evolving role of the Head of Design, highlighting shifts in expectations, responsibilities, and leadership impact within design teams.
  • It discusses how design leaders amplify team performance, foster innovation, and align design initiatives with broader business goals, especially under changing demands in leadership roles.
  • The piece emphasizes the critical value of design leadership as a multiplier for organizational success, offering insights into the unique contributions that design leaders bring to strategy, culture, and team cohesion.
Share:Head of Design is Dead, Long Live the Head of Design!
9 min read

Join the UX Magazine community!

Stay informed with exclusive content on the intersection of UX, AI agents, and agentic automation—essential reading for future-focused professionals.

Hello!

You're officially a member of the UX Magazine Community.
We're excited to have you with us!

Got it!

Thank you!

To begin viewing member content, please verify your email.

Tell us about you. Enroll in the course.

    This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Check our privacy policy and