Creating space for authentic connection within your UX team
By: Reena Merchant
Tags: Connection, Team Building, Team Collaboration, Remote Working, Leadership

Nothing has brought us closer as humans, not even the many in-person team building activities we’ve done in the past. Intentionally designing space to connect authentically has helped us get through this year while growing closer as a team. And we have been surprised at how doing this virtually, though challenging at first, has ultimately created an even stronger bond between us.

Building and Learning Together

Another technique that we have found very helpful, is actively learning and co-creating things together. There is a certain bonding and collective gratification that comes from solving something as a team, or gaining a new skillset together. And there is fun, laughter, and joy that comes from stumbling through the learning process jointly. Building something together also results in a final product or artifact that serves as a memoir for times to come.

This beautiful drawing is credited to our amazing team member Aaron 😍

After gathering input from the team, we were able to narrow down to a few topics that folks were especially interested in learning together. We recently conducted a virtual drawing class in which the facilitator shared his favorite portrait techniques with us as we drew alongside on a video call. We shared our drawings with each other along the way and drew inspiration from each other’s techniques. We’ve collected photographs of all our drawings so we can look back and smile in the future.

There are many other things that teams can learn together. A few other things we have tried this year include learning how to knit chunky blankets, and also strengthening our Figma skills together as a team. Finding areas which the team is interesting in exploring and conducting externally or self facilitated training sessions can provide valuable team growth and a sense of collective accomplishment.

Bridging the Offline Void

In addition to creating online moments and activities for connection, we also recognized that being fully remote means there is a lot of void in between those rich online moments. There are large chasms of offline dead space where it is difficult to maintain the thread of connection and bonding. And so another technique that we have found helpful is filling that space with meaningful offline connection.

Earlier this year, we created a “get to know the team” survey. It contained 12 questions of fun loving goodness, and covered everything from swag sizes, to favorite movies & music, to detailed descriptions of favorite food. These are details that we seldom tell each other in conversation, but are mostly observed in person. Whether a team member likes chocolate syrup and sprinkles on their morning latte is rarely something they will mention, but many times something we notice about them in person. We not only had a lot of fun sharing these delightful details with each other via the survey, but it was incredible reading about others later. It also gave us ideas on how we could surprise team members with special deliveries on birthdays.

Part of a “get to know the team” survey we all filled out earlier this year

Over the months we’ve also experimented with offline team co-creation including multiple team music playlists. Gathering our music has been a great way to share our favorites with others, and watch a beautiful playlist come together and evolve offline. There has also been something almost magical about listening to others’ favorite music. It has made us feel as if we are immersing ourselves in our team mates’ worlds, and has reinforced that we are really in this together.

Yes, we call ourselves Team Snuggie, and this is our collaborative playlist 😎

Finally, we’ve also created several slide decks for offline fun. Recently for the holidays, we created a team Santa list where we filled in fun requests offline. We also used Figma to co-create a team holiday card for each other titled “Goodbye 2020, a Team Snuggie holiday”. 🎄

Our team Santa list, here is a template that you can use with your team

Co-creating together offline has helped us bridge the gap between the online bonding moments and has maintained our thread of connection across distance. It’s also given rise to magical team artifacts that keep growing and evolving and further add to our expanding repository of team memoirs.

These are just a few tools and techniques that have helped us navigate this year. Not only by helping us stay productive, but most importantly by helping us stay healthy, whole, and united. We’ve tried so many things — some have worked, while others haven’t really clicked. But what’s key is that we’ve tried and iterated together as a team. And in this way we have been able to not only maintain our connection through adversity and across geographical distance, but also spark new magical connections.

“There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.” Diana Coretes

I don’t think any of us have fully processed what’s happened this year. This is likely because we’re still experiencing it and haven’t yet come out the other side. But as I reflect on this past year and the things that have brought us closer, I wonder… maybe it’s the fact the we’re going through something this tragic as a global community, maybe it’s because we put more thought and intentional design into connection, or maybe it’s because distance really makes the heart grow fonder. Whatever it is, we’ve connected in ways that we never had before, and we likely never would have had the universe not pushed us out of our comfort zone. And for that I will always be grateful.