Why designers should be embedded into product teams and what that even means
Operating “like an internal agency” is rarely the ideal.
Consider these two schools of thought for how a product company might structure its teams:
#1 — Project Teams
In a project organization, individuals from different departments are assigned temporarily to projects (shocker!). Project members contribute temporarily until the project is completed, usually at a pre-determined deadline. Individuals may work on multiple projects at a time and may rely on others in their department to produce their share of the work.
#2 — Product Teams
In a product-based organization, designers are distributed into product teams. These teams — sometimes “pods”, “squads” or “scrum teams” — support a particular product or product area indefinitely. They exist independently of organizational silos and have minimal dependencies on others from outside of the team. Product teams tend to be more conceptually aligned with agile practices.
Reality doesn’t always break down cleanly into one of these two categories, but it’s still a useful dichotomy to consider.
