Lucia Bustamante, Design Manager

Client: Large Title Insurance Company (Real Estate)

Product: digital ecosystem to manage and close commercial property deals.

Mission: Make the deal process for commercial property transactions, efficient, transparent, and secure.

Role: Product Designer, Design Manager

Date: 2020 – Current

Direct reports: 5 Product Designers

Squads: 6

Leading and scaling teams with a drive to deliver digital transformation results

Responsible for leading and scaling a team of product designers to define game-changer digital experiences. I also support agile product discovery and product definition, collaborating closely across design, product, and engineering teams.

Mentoring designers so that they are able to decide through critical thinking and design rationale, so as not to act only reactively, having the power to decide "what to do next".

Supporting the team to deliver powerful features for complex transactions

Provided support to cross-functional design teams to create standard and cohesive design interfaces, serving employees and customers to easily manage complex transactions in the real estate industry. I enable conversation spaces for designers to develop their potential.

Cross functional teams. 6 squads, 5 designers.

Empowering designers to lead the conversation

Advisor for designers, mentoring in communication skills, helping them to minimize the impostor syndrome, and encouraging participation in internal and client-facing events, such as design critiques, workshops, and design reviews.

Aligning the team with the expectations of the program, and encourage early involvement of product designers in the discovery process, educating product managers and tech teams on the scope of product design practice.

Improvement of processes and artifacts

I have improved the onboarding materials for new joiners, keeping the information concise and progressive to integrate new members into the program, smoothly. I help educate new product managers about design practice in the program.

I have created a deck of design standards for current and new members of the program, establishing design standards such as Figma folder formats and production file structure.

I have started a product multi-track collaboration diagram for team members to identify milestones during the product lifecycle.

I have created design QA guidelines for the team to unify design testing criteria.

I have Improved performance review templates, to focus on career milestones and short- and mid-term goals.

Product multi-track collaboration diagram

Design standards deck

Design standards deck

Design QA checklist

Embracing change with opportunity

Having regular, candid, and honest conversations with team members to support and build trust to unlock their progress and growth.

I enable project rotations as a healthy strategy to keep designers motivated and happy, providing the opportunity to take on fresh challenges.

Assigning designers to new projects according to what they enjoy doing, and in the areas they want to develop.

I Provide bonuses for outstanding performance.

Cultivating knowledge about AI in the team. Crafting AI-Centered product design process

The main goal of this initiative was to create a shared understanding of the new AI mindset that designers must adopt going forward.

How can designers be educated in AI without feeling lost?

How will designers partner with other roles in AI?

How is AI involved in the end-to-end product design process?

Collaborative Figjam in which the team investigates and makes their contributions, in an exercise that helps us understand our role in the era of Artificial Intelligence.