Joining an Established Agency to Build Workflow & Culture, with Nick Spriggs

Nick Spriggs (@ncsfoo) is a partner at Vector Media Group in New York City. Though he wasn’t one of the original founders, Nick’s role at Vector has been to grow the design and branding offerings to complement the development and marketing capabilities previously in place.

In this conversation, we discuss cultural differences among designers and developers, office rituals used at Vector, how to keep your remote colleagues in the daily mix, and best practices to keep an entire team communicating clearly and working productively.

Catch up with Nick on the website for Vector Media Group.

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Show Notes & Links

Nick & Prescott are co-hosts of The New York City Podcast Meetup

Past guest Vijay Mathews is a mutual friend

Nick is a native of Australia, came to the US for University in 1999

Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design

"Somehow a year in New York turned into 14."

—Nick Spriggs

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Prescott ran afoul of the Visa situation when he graduated from a UK university

E-3 Visa for Australians, TN NAFTA for Canadians, et al.

Christina Canters, a past guest on The Busy Creator

The Museum of Mathematics

Vector’s output is mainly websites & apps

Their studio is rooted in branding, typography, traditional graphic design

Nick likes the term “Product Designer” in the rare cases when it actually applies (thought beyond the page or the pixel, to the inter-connected parts and a bit of the “how”)

"Clients sometimes don't understand what the term 'Design' means."

—Nick Spriggs

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The “explosion of explanation” can be exciting for a client

Designers are trained to observe, critique, discuss our work; clients, not so much

Vector was created around 2008 by Matt Weinberg & Lee Goldberg

Vector is staffed with “Creative Developers”, not just code monkeys

Nick was invited to join as a partner after working together as a collaborator previously

Vector [still] takes on pure development projects, as well as a few pure design projects. Most stuff is collaborative, though.

"You really have to be on your game when explaining something (to remote teammates.)"

—Nick Spriggs

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Reddit, and the “well, actually” culture

Vector has started creating a Darts-scoring app as a side project

They also created a “Project Hub” for client milestones & assets. (Click to enlarge)
 

Client dashboard (as static HTML)

Basecamp

“Clock Discipline”, the habit of tracking your activity hour-by-hour

Ken Carbone on fixed-costs project fees

Matt Inglot of Tilted Pixel

Consigliere

Vector provides staff with laptops, allowing transportability and work-from-home

Google Hangouts on Air will become YouTube Live

You can now do VOIP calls in Slack

GoToMeeting

Zoom

UberConference (and their hold music)

9 Habits of Highly Creative People

Adam Harrison Levy uses wood-stacking as creative distraction

Formula 1 Racing

"A big part of building the business is just time management."

—Nick Spriggs

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Todd Henry books “office hours”, a time where your team can access you

“Distractioneering”, when social media companies distract you on purpose

 Nick Spriggs on Twitter

 Nick Spriggs on Facebook

 Nick Spriggs on Instagram

 Nick Spriggs on LinkedIn

Tools

Google Hangouts

Burn down reports

Stack Overflow

Slack

UsabilityHub

Usability.gov

Techniques

Keep clients excited & enthusiastic beyond the project itself (if they can’t stay energised, it’s hard for you).

Bring clients “in” to the process (wireframes, sketches, etc.)

Have clients describe “found objects” in early phases; let the client use their own language so we can use it later

Allow designers & developers to cross-involve each other

Learn to hold quick, informal meetings internally

Involve developers into design-led processes; they too can participate

Formalise kick-off meetings to involve the whole team, when possible

Use retainers with clients; set aside blocks of hours ahead of time to ease minds and control workflows

Schedule “reverse meetings”, time where you’re actually at your desk working and no one can distract you

Take a screenshot at a random time during the day; see what everyone in the shop is working on

Habits

Use collaboration to inspire ourselves

Observe the politics of your client’s company

Bring your remote employees to headquarters for occasional workshops/retreats

Explain with clarity when sharing with clients or remote colleagues

Hold daily Standups, even with remote staff (via video call)

Celebrate the project conclusion (close-out, hand-off, etc.); create office rituals around milestones along the way

Track your time internally — as individuals and as teams — for your own learnings, regardless of how you bill the client

Visit the quirky coffee shops in your neighbourhood

Take the time to walk home (even if it’s 1 hour or more)

Take a 10-15 minute walk when you feel “stuck” or distracted

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