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The Question is a collaborative learning podcast about Design Systems. Smart people like you sign up, answer a few niche questions about design systems for each episode, and then we all get together to unpack the data we've gathered. Each week, I'll invite a new co-host to help facilitate the conversation. After the deep dive, the co-host and I record a recap of what we learned. That means, for each episode, you can listen to the recap and the full deep dive!
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Ben Callahan (00:04)
Hello, system thinkers. Welcome to The Question, a collaborative learning show intended to broaden your perspective on design systems. I'm your host, Ben Callahan, founder of Sparkbox and Redwood's Design System Community. I wanna welcome you to the deep dive for episode 072, where my co-host, Doug Niner and I facilitate a conversation on the topic of extreme design system support. If you have a moment.
Please get subscribed to the show at bencallahan.com/thequestion Let's get into it.
ep072 faces raw (00:37)
Doug, give us just a little bit of your background. What has gotten you into design systems specifically? Yeah, kind of happened just through ⁓ our company about three and a half years ago. It had started even before then. It's elsewhere in the company, ⁓ Nova, our design system lead, going, we need a design system as a company. Planeview has grown through acquisitions, so they had purchased a lot of products, and none of them looked like the other ones. ⁓ And ⁓ so he had kind of
ep072 screen raw (00:37)
Doug, give us just a little bit of your background. What has gotten you into design systems specifically? Yeah, kind of happened just through our company about three and a half years ago. It had started even before then. It's elsewhere in the company, ⁓ Nova, our design system lead, going, we need a design system as a company. Planeview has grown through acquisitions, so they had purchased a lot of products, and none of them looked like the other ones. ⁓ And ⁓ so he had kind of
Ben Callahan (00:37)
Doug, give us just a little bit of your background. What has gotten you into design systems specifically? Yeah, kind of happened just through our company about three and a half years ago. It had started even before then. It's elsewhere in the company, ⁓ Nova, our design system lead, going, we need a design system as a company. Planeview has grown through acquisitions, so they had purchased a lot of products, and none of them looked like the other ones. ⁓ And ⁓ so he had kind of
ep072 faces raw (01:05)
And then when they actually got going, I had been at the company eight years or so by that point. ⁓ And so I was loaned out to the newly formed design system team. And I got to do a bunch of stuff. I didn't tell my boss. like, I can't go back. I can't go back to normal product development. This is amazing. This is so much fun. And I already enjoyed visiting with the other teams and getting to know them. And so design system put me in a perfect spot to be able to do that. So yeah, that's it.
ep072 screen raw (01:05)
And then when they actually got going, I had been at the company eight years or so by that point. ⁓ And ⁓ so I was loaned out to the newly formed design system team. And I got to do a bunch of stuff. I told my boss, I like, I can't go back. I can't go back to normal product development. This is amazing. This is so much fun. And I already enjoyed visiting with the other teams and getting to know them. And so design system put me in a perfect spot to be able to do that. So yeah, that's it.
Ben Callahan (01:05)
And then when they actually got going, I had been at the company eight years or so by that point. ⁓ And ⁓ so I was loaned out to the newly formed design system team. And I got to do a bunch of stuff. I told my boss, I like, I can't go back. I can't go back to normal product development. This is amazing. This is so much fun. And I already enjoyed visiting with the other teams and getting to know them. And so design system put me in a perfect spot to be able to do that. So yeah, that's it.
ep072 faces raw (01:34)
kind of was kind of just what we needed at the time. And yeah, really fun.
ep072 screen raw (01:34)
kind of was kind of just what we needed at the time. And yeah, it's really fun.
Ben Callahan (01:34)
kind of was kind of just what we needed at the time. And yeah, it's really fun.
ep072 screen raw (01:38)
Thanks for being here, Doug. I appreciate it. So we were chatting prior to the session and just talking about, and we had a lot of ideas, actually. We probably got three or four other sessions we could have done with the ideas that we had, but we decided to focus on this idea of extreme design system support. Doug, you co-hosted with us about a year ago, I would say, maybe longer. ⁓ And we talked about ⁓ demo applications, like design system teams having a full-on demo application that they own and maintain.
ep072 faces raw (01:38)
Thanks for being here, Doug. I appreciate it. So we were chatting prior to the session and just talking about, and we had a lot of ideas actually, we probably got three or four other sessions we could have done with the ideas that we had, but we decided to focus on this idea of extreme design system support. Doug, you co-hosted with us about a year ago, I would say, maybe longer. ⁓ And we talked about ⁓ demo applications, like design system teams having a full-on demo application that they own and maintain.
Ben Callahan (01:38)
Thanks for being here, Doug. I appreciate it. So we were chatting prior to the session and just talking about, and we had a lot of ideas actually, we probably got three or four other sessions we could have done with the ideas that we had, but we decided to focus on this idea of extreme design system support. Doug, you co-hosted with us about a year ago, I would say, maybe longer. ⁓ And we talked about ⁓ demo applications, like design system teams having a full-on demo application that they own and maintain.
ep072 screen raw (02:07)
as a space to sort of recreate bugs or just basically kind of like test their own work, you know, in a more production like way, which I thought was brilliant. And so many ⁓ organizations are starting to do that. And this is in some sense that that is an extreme version of support, right? And so this is kind of like maybe diving even deeper into that concept. We asked four questions of you all this week. The first one was how would you describe the support
ep072 faces raw (02:07)
as a space to sort of recreate bugs or just basically kind of like test their own work, you know, in a more production like way, which I thought was brilliant. And so many ⁓ organizations are starting to do that. And this is in some sense that that is an extreme version of support, right? And so this is kind of like maybe diving even deeper into ⁓ that concept. We asked four questions of you all this week. The first one was how would you describe the support
Ben Callahan (02:07)
as a space to sort of recreate bugs or just basically kind of like test their own work, you know, in a more production like way, which I thought was brilliant. And so many ⁓ organizations are starting to do that. And this is in some sense that that is an extreme version of support, right? And so this is kind of like maybe diving even deeper into ⁓ that concept. We asked four questions of you all this week. The first one was how would you describe the support
ep072 faces raw (02:37)
that your design system program currently offers to consuming teams. And we gave you the permission to check all that apply with a long list of options and a space for other or NA. Then we asked you as an open text question with no constraints, how would you change your design system support program? And so just sort of like take the chains off, like if you could do anything you wanted, what would you do? And so we got some really fun answers there that we'll take a peek at. The third question.
ep072 screen raw (02:37)
that your design system program currently offers to consuming teams. And we gave you the permission to check all that apply with a long list of options and a space for other or NA. Then we asked you as an open text question with no constraints, how would you change your design system support program? And so just sort of like take the chains off, like if you could do anything you wanted, what would you do? And so we got some really fun answers there that we'll take a peek at. The third question.
Ben Callahan (02:37)
that your design system program currently offers to consuming teams. And we gave you the permission to check all that apply with a long list of options and a space for other or NA. Then we asked you as an open text question with no constraints, how would you change your design system support program? And so just sort of like take the chains off, like if you could do anything you wanted, what would you do? And so we got some really fun answers there that we'll take a peek at. The third question.
ep072 faces raw (03:04)
What are the constraints that keep you from implementing this level of support? So the idea that like, hey, all that stuff with no constraints, what's holding you back? And we gave you a small list of options to choose from. Again, check all that apply, but then also space for you to kind of give your own answers as well. And then we asked a final question, which was a little bit more of like a story. Tell us about a time when going above and beyond in supporting a consuming team had a meaningful impact on adoption, relationships,
ep072 screen raw (03:04)
What are the constraints that keep you from implementing this level of support? So the idea that like, hey, all that stuff with no constraints, what's holding you back? And we gave you a small list of options to choose from. Again, check all that apply, but then also space for you to kind of give your own answers as well. And then we asked a final question, which was a little bit more of like a story. Tell us about a time when going above and beyond in supporting a consuming team had a meaningful impact on adoption, relationships,
Ben Callahan (03:04)
What are the constraints that keep you from implementing this level of support? So the idea that like, hey, all that stuff with no constraints, what's holding you back? And we gave you a small list of options to choose from. Again, check all that apply, but then also space for you to kind of give your own answers as well. And then we asked a final question, which was a little bit more of like a story. Tell us about a time when going above and beyond in supporting a consuming team had a meaningful impact on adoption, relationships,
ep072 faces raw (03:34)
or the system itself. And we got such good answers, y'all. As always, you all provide so many interesting insights. ⁓ We sent this to 1,081 design system practitioners, and we got 49 responses. And as always, you can click this link to see the raw data. And that's anonymized, but you can click and go do your own analysis. If you do, please share back with me what you see in that data.
ep072 screen raw (03:34)
or the system itself. And we got such good answers, y'all. As always, you all provide so many interesting insights. ⁓ We sent this to 1,081 design system practitioners, and we got 49 responses. And as always, you can click this link to see the raw data. And that's anonymized, but you can click and go do your own analysis. If you do, please share back with me what you see in that data.
Ben Callahan (03:34)
or the system itself. And we got such good answers, y'all. As always, you all provide so many interesting insights. ⁓ We sent this to 1,081 design system practitioners, and we got 49 responses. And as always, you can click this link to see the raw data. And that's anonymized, but you can click and go do your own analysis. If you do, please share back with me what you see in that data.
ep072 faces raw (03:59)
Doug, did you have any expectations on this first quantitative question, which was, what support are you currently offering? Yeah, I guess I don't know that I had strong expectations. I found it very interesting. It makes total sense, but how video is so much less than written because videos are harder to maintain, they're harder to keep up to date, they're harder to produce. So that one kind of made sense. ⁓ I was expecting the access dev environment to help debug to be way lower.
ep072 screen raw (03:59)
Doug, did you have any expectations on this first quantitative question, which was, what support are you currently offering? Yeah, I guess I don't know that I had strong expectations. I found it very interesting. It makes total sense, but how video is so much less than written because videos are harder to maintain, they're harder to keep up to date, they're harder to produce. So that one kind of made sense. ⁓ I was expecting the access dev environment to help debug to be way lower.
Ben Callahan (03:59)
Doug, did you have any expectations on this first quantitative question, which was, what support are you currently offering? Yeah, I guess I don't know that I had strong expectations. I found it very interesting. It makes total sense, but how video is so much less than written because videos are harder to maintain, they're harder to keep up to date, they're harder to produce. So that one kind of made sense. ⁓ I was expecting the access dev environment to help debug to be way lower.
ep072 faces raw (04:30)
I didn't expect that to be as high as that was. And embed is probably where I thought it was going to be. yeah. About half of the folks have access to a development environment to help debug. That kind of was not what I was expecting either. I don't hear that often from system teams when I'm talking to them. So I that was cool. I mean, obviously high 90s here for like written docs and async support channels. I mean, I think that's basically become sort of the standard defaults. Like if you're not doing that, what are you doing basically is kind of how it
ep072 screen raw (04:30)
I didn't expect that to be as high as that was. And embed is probably where I thought it was going to be. yeah. About half of the folks have access to a development environment to help debug. That kind of was not what I was expecting either. I don't hear that often from system teams when I'm talking to them. So I that was cool. I mean, obviously high 90s here for like written docs and async support channels. I mean, I think that's basically become sort of the standard defaults. Like if you're not doing that, what are you doing basically is kind of how it
Ben Callahan (04:30)
I didn't expect that to be as high as that was. And embed is probably where I thought it was going to be. yeah. About half of the folks have access to a development environment to help debug. That kind of was not what I was expecting either. I don't hear that often from system teams when I'm talking to them. So I that was cool. I mean, obviously high 90s here for like written docs and async support channels. I mean, I think that's basically become sort of the standard defaults. Like if you're not doing that, what are you doing basically is kind of how it
ep072 faces raw (04:59)
people sort of approach it. Office stores, know, pretty common as well. ⁓ Yeah, the difference, I think when we originally did this, we had these combined written and video. And I just was thinking, let's split those, because I'm guessing not as many folks are doing that. So that was, this is an extreme difference, but that's not exactly what I didn't think would be quite that dramatic. I do think it's, we think of the bar for doing video as very high, but I think it can be quick.
ep072 screen raw (04:59)
people sort of approach it. Office stores, know, pretty common as well. ⁓ Yeah, the difference, I think when we originally did this, we had these combined written and video. And I just was thinking, let's split those, because I'm guessing not as many folks are doing that. So that was, this is an extreme difference, but that's not exactly what I didn't think would be quite that dramatic. I do think it's, we think of the bar for doing video as very high, but I think it can be quick.
Ben Callahan (04:59)
people sort of approach it. Office stores, know, pretty common as well. ⁓ Yeah, the difference, I think when we originally did this, we had these combined written and video. And I just was thinking, let's split those, because I'm guessing not as many folks are doing that. So that was, this is an extreme difference, but that's not exactly what I didn't think would be quite that dramatic. I do think it's, we think of the bar for doing video as very high, but I think it can be quick.
ep072 faces raw (05:27)
And so I wonder if we should think of those as more like seasonal kind of throw away, like, hey, for the next three months, here's a video and then we can replace it with something quickly. ⁓ I'd like to see a Venn diagram of perfectionist and design system practitioners. And I imagine that they overlap. so that's where any of these like, sure, you can record a screen recording and it can still be very valuable. I don't know. I just think everybody has this higher expectation. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah.
ep072 screen raw (05:27)
And so I wonder if we should think of those as more like seasonal kind of throw away, like, hey, for the next three months, here's a video and then we can replace it with something quickly. I'd like to see a Venn diagram of perfectionist and design system practitioners. And I imagine that they overlap. so that's where any of these like, sure, you can record a screen recording and it can still be very valuable. I don't know. I just think everybody has this higher expectation. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah.
Ben Callahan (05:27)
And so I wonder if we should think of those as more like seasonal kind of throw away, like, hey, for the next three months, here's a video and then we can replace it with something quickly. ⁓ I'd like to see a Venn diagram of perfectionist and design system practitioners. And I imagine that they overlap. so that's where any of these like, sure, you can record a screen recording and it can still be very valuable. I don't know. I just think everybody has this higher expectation. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah.
ep072 faces raw (05:55)
Anyway, somebody draw me a Venn diagram right down here and put on one side perfectionist and on one side design system practitioner. And I want people to drop their stamp where they fit because I'm guessing you're right. The let's see. I think that was really all that we saw. Embedding was very rare, as we said, probably the most rare. Only seven of the actually that should be 49. That's a miss. That's a typo. My bad. Only seven of the 49 respondents do embedding, but we're going to see later.
ep072 screen raw (05:55)
Anyway, somebody draw me a Venn diagram right down here and put on one side perfectionist and on one side design system practitioner. And I want people to drop their stamp where they fit because I'm guessing you're right. The let's see. I think that was really all that we saw. Embedding was very rare, as we said, probably the most rare. Only seven of the actually that should be 49. That's a miss. That's a typo. My bad. Only seven of the 49 respondents do embedding, but we're going to see later.
Ben Callahan (05:55)
Anyway, somebody draw me a Venn diagram right down here and put on one side perfectionist and on one side design system practitioner. And I want people to drop their stamp where they fit because I'm guessing you're right. The let's see. I think that was really all that we saw. Embedding was very rare, as we said, probably the most rare. Only seven of the actually that should be 49. That's a miss. That's a typo. My bad. Only seven of the 49 respondents do embedding, but we're going to see later.
ep072 faces raw (06:25)
the impact of embedding, which is actually pretty cool. ⁓ So the other more quantitative question was this one around constraints. What's keeping you from the kind of sort of idyllic level of support that you want? And so here, ⁓ headcount, bandwidth, and competing priorities were like massive wins. Everything else was much, much smaller. ⁓ Is that kind of what you were expecting, or did you have expectations on this one, The competing priorities,
ep072 screen raw (06:25)
the impact of embedding, which is actually pretty cool. ⁓ So the other more quantitative question was this one around constraints. What's keeping you from the kind of sort of idyllic level of support that you want? And so here, ⁓ headcount, bandwidth, and competing priorities were like massive wins. Everything else was much, much smaller. ⁓ Is that kind of what you were expecting, or did you have expectations on this one, The competing priorities,
Ben Callahan (06:25)
the impact of embedding, which is actually pretty cool. ⁓ So the other more quantitative question was this one around constraints. What's keeping you from the kind of sort of idyllic level of support that you want? And so here, ⁓ headcount, bandwidth, and competing priorities were like massive wins. Everything else was much, much smaller. ⁓ Is that kind of what you were expecting, or did you have expectations on this one, The competing priorities,
ep072 faces raw (06:54)
I didn't put a lot of thought into, the headcount and bandwidth made total sense. ⁓ I actually expected unclear ownership to be a little higher than would have expected. Yeah, that being so low to me, actually I made a comment about this because I noticed that too. I just said, I love that it's low because in my mind, what that means is that we're not questioning, gosh, I can't type this week, sorry y'all. ⁓
ep072 screen raw (06:54)
I didn't put a lot of thought into, the headcount and bandwidth made total sense. ⁓ I actually expected unclear ownership to be a little higher than would have expected. Yeah, that being so low to me, actually I made a comment about this because I noticed that too. I just said, I love that it's low because in my mind, what that means is that we're not questioning, gosh, I can't type this week, sorry y'all. ⁓
Ben Callahan (06:54)
I didn't put a lot of thought into, the headcount and bandwidth made total sense. ⁓ I actually expected unclear ownership to be a little higher than would have expected. Yeah, that being so low to me, actually I made a comment about this because I noticed that too. I just said, I love that it's low because in my mind, what that means is that we're not questioning, gosh, I can't type this week, sorry y'all. ⁓
ep072 faces raw (07:17)
We're not questioning whether or not support is our job, but more how do we do it within our constraints, which I actually really think that's cool. For a long time, I don't think system teams thought of that. We didn't think of support as a role that we needed, but it's so critical to the work. So I like that. ⁓ My other takeaway here was we know what good support looks like, but we just don't always have the people or the time to do it.
ep072 screen raw (07:17)
We're not questioning whether or not support is our job, but more how do we do it within our constraints, which I actually really think that's cool. For a long time, I don't think system teams thought of that. We didn't think of support as a role that we needed, but it's so critical to the work. So I like that. ⁓ My other takeaway here was we know what good support looks like, but we just don't always have the people or the time to do it.
Ben Callahan (07:17)
We're not questioning whether or not support is our job, but more how do we do it within our constraints, which I actually really think that's cool. For a long time, I don't think system teams thought of that. We didn't think of support as a role that we needed, but it's so critical to the work. So I like that. ⁓ My other takeaway here was we know what good support looks like, but we just don't always have the people or the time to do it.
ep072 faces raw (07:45)
That's obviously a constraint we're trying to work within. so folks, ⁓ you wouldn't mind, you can press the E key in FigJam and that pulls up your little stamp tool and you can choose your face and drop it wherever you live. I'd love to see, I'm guessing we're gonna have a lot of perfectionists, but it's okay if you're not. Don't be influenced by the other votes. ⁓ When I was looking at the data here, I started to think about
ep072 screen raw (07:45)
That's obviously a constraint we're trying to work within. so folks, ⁓ you wouldn't mind, you can press the E key in FigJam and that pulls up your little stamp tool and you can choose your face and drop it wherever you live. I'd love to see, I'm guessing we're gonna have a lot of perfectionists, but it's okay if you're not. Don't be influenced by the other votes. ⁓ When I was looking at the data here, I started to think about
Ben Callahan (07:45)
That's obviously a constraint we're trying to work within. so folks, ⁓ you wouldn't mind, you can press the E key in FigJam and that pulls up your little stamp tool and you can choose your face and drop it wherever you live. I'd love to see, I'm guessing we're gonna have a lot of perfectionists, but it's okay if you're not. Don't be influenced by the other votes. ⁓ When I was looking at the data here, I started to think about
ep072 faces raw (08:15)
This idea, I think the question around, ⁓ what was it? Let's see. The scale of the organization makes it impractical. I was just like digging in and looking at how the folks who answered with that answer ⁓ thought about questions two and four, which were more open text ⁓ answers. And it started, got me thinking about this, like plotting out the types of support that we do by like, what...
ep072 screen raw (08:15)
This idea, I think the question around, ⁓ what was it? Let's see. The scale of the organization makes it impractical. I was just like digging in and looking at how the folks who answered with that answer ⁓ thought about questions two and four, which were more open text ⁓ answers. And it started, got me thinking about this, like plotting out the types of support that we do by like what
Ben Callahan (08:15)
This idea, I think the question around, ⁓ what was it? Let's see. The scale of the organization makes it impractical. I was just like digging in and looking at how the folks who answered with that answer ⁓ thought about questions two and four, which were more open text ⁓ answers. And it started, got me thinking about this, like plotting out the types of support that we do by like, what...
ep072 screen raw (08:42)
the amount of effort that it requires and then.
ep072 faces raw (08:42)
the amount of effort that it requires and then
Ben Callahan (08:42)
the amount of effort that it requires and then
ep072 faces raw (08:44)
the impact like scale on it in terms of scale. And I suspected that organizations that have a huge scale, like they have to support many, many, many teams, we're gonna lean more towards things that weren't so one-on-one or like embedding would be maybe harder if you're trying to offer equal support. And so it was interesting to see that correlation a little bit. We'll talk about the correlations a little later.
Ben Callahan (08:44)
the impact like scale on it in terms of scale. And I suspected that organizations that have a huge scale, like they have to support many, many, many teams, we're gonna lean more towards things that weren't so one-on-one or like embedding would be maybe harder if you're trying to offer equal support. And so it was interesting to see that correlation a little bit. We'll talk about the correlations a little later.
ep072 screen raw (08:44)
the impact like scale on in terms of scale. And I suspected that organizations that have a huge scale, like they have to support many, many, teams, we're gonna lean more towards things that weren't so one-on-one or like embedding would be maybe harder if you're trying to offer equal support. And so it was interesting to see that correlation a little bit. We'll talk about the correlations a little later.
ep072 faces raw (09:10)
But I tried to map things out from our list. Embedding is probably a lot of effort. That's literally taking somebody away from your team for a long season, putting them somewhere else. The scale is literally one team that you're impacting. So ⁓ on the surface, that seems like it's high effort, low scale. ⁓ But the more we dug into the data, when we look at the stories these folks who actually do the embedding tell.
ep072 screen raw (09:10)
But I tried to map things out from our list. Embedding is probably a lot of effort. That's literally taking somebody away from your team for a long season, putting them somewhere else. The scale is literally one team that you're impacting. So ⁓ on the surface, that seems like it's high effort, low scale. ⁓ But the more we dug into the data, when we look at the stories these folks who actually do the embedding tell.
Ben Callahan (09:10)
But I tried to map things out from our list. Embedding is probably a lot of effort. That's literally taking somebody away from your team for a long season, putting them somewhere else. The scale is literally one team that you're impacting. So ⁓ on the surface, that seems like it's high effort, low scale. ⁓ But the more we dug into the data, when we look at the stories these folks who actually do the embedding tell.
ep072 screen raw (09:39)
The impact there is actually huge and they talk about this idea of not just helping create adoption for a single team, but of turning that single team into advocates for the system. And those folks then help support other teams. And so there's this kind of exponential feeling that's created when, least in the small number of folks that talk about this as part of their experience, it feels like there's a little bit of an exponential win there. ⁓ Taylor, what's up, buddy?
ep072 faces raw (09:39)
The impact there is actually huge and they talk about this idea of not just helping create adoption for a single team, but of turning that single team into advocates for the system. And those folks then help support other teams. And so there's this kind of exponential feeling that's created when, least in the small number of folks that talk about this as part of their experience, it feels like there's a little bit of an exponential win there. ⁓ Taylor, what's up, buddy?
Ben Callahan (09:39)
The impact there is actually huge and they talk about this idea of not just helping create adoption for a single team, but of turning that single team into advocates for the system. And those folks then help support other teams. And so there's this kind of exponential feeling that's created when, least in the small number of folks that talk about this as part of their experience, it feels like there's a little bit of an exponential win there. ⁓ Taylor, what's up, buddy?
ep072 faces raw (10:10)
Was there any correlation or data or whatever that explains necessarily what people meant by embedding? I'm realizing now what we did embedding at Fidelity is very different than we did embedding at Holograph. So I'm just wondering if anything came out from that. When people are saying embedding, do they mean a small point of capacity? Are they going entire scope? What does embedding mean? For a small period of time, is it a year? I guess just that because I wonder if
ep072 screen raw (10:10)
Was there any correlation or data or whatever that explains necessarily what people meant by embedding? I'm realizing now what we did embedding at Fidelity is very different than we did embedding at Holograph. So I'm just wondering ⁓ if anything came out from that. When people are saying embedding, do they mean a small point of capacity? Are they going entire scope? What does embedding mean? For a small period of time, is it a year? I guess just that because I wonder if
Ben Callahan (10:10)
Was there any correlation or data or whatever that explains necessarily what people meant by embedding? I'm realizing now what we did embedding at Fidelity is very different than we did embedding at Holograph. So I'm just wondering ⁓ if anything came out from that. When people are saying embedding, do they mean a small point of capacity? Are they going entire scope? What does embedding mean? For a small period of time, is it a year? I guess just that because I wonder if
ep072 faces raw (10:40)
with all the supporting quotes of some of that comes out, like some of maybe time, maybe it's number of teams you support. Like I wonder if there's a data layer there. That's a really good question. I'll do a quick check on that while we're doing this. I don't recall like if it was, if there was a specific intent there, we didn't define it in the questions, of course, which makes this, you know, close reflection. realized like now like seeing, I didn't even answer it in that way. now I'm curious. Yeah. Sean, what's up?
ep072 screen raw (10:40)
with all the supporting quotes of some of that comes out, like some of maybe time, maybe it's number of teams you support. Like I wonder if there's a data layer there. That's a really good question. I'll do a quick check on that while we're doing this. I don't recall like if it was, if there was a specific intent there, we didn't define it in the questions, of course, which makes this, you know, close reflection. realized like now like seeing, I didn't even answer it in that way. now I'm curious. Yeah. Sean, what's up?
Ben Callahan (10:40)
with all the supporting quotes of some of that comes out, like some of maybe time, maybe it's number of teams you support. Like I wonder if there's a data layer there. That's a really good question. I'll do a quick check on that while we're doing this. I don't recall like if it was, if there was a specific intent there, we didn't define it in the questions, of course, which makes this, you know, close reflection. realized like now like seeing, I didn't even answer it in that way. now I'm curious. Yeah. Sean, what's up?
ep072 faces raw (11:07)
I was one of the people who said yes to embedding. And the kind of embedding approach that we took was a member of the design system team would go and for a agreed upon period of time, be fully embedded in a customer's team. They would go and be a part of their team. We would normally kind of make sure that they're working on something that is specific to the design system. were cases where.
ep072 screen raw (11:07)
I was one of the people who said yes to embedding. And the kind of embedding approach that we took was a member of the design system team would go and for a agreed upon period of time, be fully embedded in a customer's team. They would go and be a part of their team. We would normally kind of make sure that they're working on something that is specific to the design system. were cases where.
Ben Callahan (11:07)
I was one of the people who said yes to embedding. And the kind of embedding approach that we took was a member of the design system team would go and for a agreed upon period of time, be fully embedded in a customer's team. They would go and be a part of their team. We would normally kind of make sure that they're working on something that is specific to the design system. were cases where.
ep072 faces raw (11:34)
They also just generally went to go and understand that customer and just work on their roadmap. But a super, super effective way of learning more about the customer, driving adoption, building relationships with people because you now understand the problem because you went and spent a bunch of time working with them. But it was always a kind of a time boxed thing. It went from a few weeks to I think the longest we did was like six months. Nice.
Ben Callahan (11:34)
They also just generally went to go and understand that customer and just work on their roadmap. But a super, super effective way of learning more about the customer, driving adoption, building relationships with people because you now understand the problem because you went and spent a bunch of time working with them. But it was always a kind of a time boxed thing. It went from a few weeks to I think the longest we did was like six months. Nice.
ep072 screen raw (11:34)
They also just generally went to go and understand that customer and just work on their roadmap. ⁓ But a super, super effective way of learning more about the customer, driving adoption, building relationships with people because you now understand the problem because you went and spent a bunch of time working with them. But it was always a kind of a time boxed thing. It went from a few weeks to I think the longest we did was like six months. Nice.
ep072 faces raw (12:04)
Yeah, Sean, there's a follow up from Taylor. They're asking ⁓ when you say part of their team, do you mean literally delivering product work? Yes. OK. Yeah. So on some occasions we did that. There were times where maybe we were rolling out a new component and it fit well within some product work. So we helped them deliver that product work and integrate the new component at the same time. Learn a bunch of stuff and make changes to the component kind of like right in the moment. Love it. Love it. Guy.
ep072 screen raw (12:04)
Yeah, Sean, there's a follow up from Taylor. They're asking ⁓ when you say part of their team, do you mean literally delivering product work? Yes. OK. Yeah. So on some occasions we did that. There were times where maybe we were rolling out a new component and it fit well within some product work. So we helped them deliver that product work and integrate the new component at the same time. Learn a bunch of stuff and make changes to the component kind of like right in the moment. Love it. Love it. Guy.
Ben Callahan (12:04)
Yeah, Sean, there's a follow up from Taylor. They're asking ⁓ when you say part of their team, do you mean literally delivering product work? Yes. Okay. Yeah. ⁓ So on some occasions we did that. There were times where maybe we were rolling out a new component and it fit well within some product work. So we helped them deliver that product work and integrate the new component at the same time. Learn a bunch of stuff and make changes to the component kind of like right in the moment. Love it. Love it. Guy.
ep072 faces raw (12:35)
Hey, can you hear me? Yes, sound good. Looking at this, I'm wondering how do we sort of overlay a third dimension of impact? Because scale and impact are not the same thing. written docs or videos, the scale is they reach everyone potentially who's using it, but are they moving the needle? Are people reading them? Even people who are watching our videos,
ep072 screen raw (12:35)
Hey, can hear me? Yes, sound good. Looking at this, I'm wondering how do we sort of overlay a third dimension of ⁓ impact? Because scale and impact are not the same thing. written docs or videos, the scale is they reach everyone potentially who's using it, but ⁓ are they moving the needle? Are people reading them? Even people who are watching our videos,
Ben Callahan (12:35)
Hey, can hear me? Yes, sound good. Looking at this, I'm wondering how do we sort of overlay a third dimension of ⁓ impact? Because scale and impact are not the same thing. written docs or videos, the scale is they reach everyone potentially who's using it, but ⁓ are they moving the needle? Are people reading them? Even people who are watching our videos,
ep072 faces raw (13:06)
they don't necessarily retain that thing or maybe they see it at a time where they haven't needed to have that information. Whereas embedding, it is high effort, it is a very low scale, but the impact can be incredible also on others as kind of like a becoming ⁓ ambassadors of your brand, so to speak. And that's when we get to the correlation. There's a strong correlation between some of the success stories and the people that did embedding.
ep072 screen raw (13:06)
they don't necessarily retain that thing or maybe they see it at a time where they haven't needed to have that information. Whereas embedding, it is high effort, it is a very low scale, but the impact can be incredible. Also on others, it's kind of like becoming ⁓ ambassadors of your brand, so to speak. Yeah. And that's when we get to the correlation. There's a strong correlation between some of the success stories and the people that did embedding.
Ben Callahan (13:06)
they don't necessarily retain that thing or maybe they see it at a time where they haven't needed to have that information. Whereas embedding, it is high effort, it is a very low scale, but the impact can be incredible. Also on others, it's kind of like becoming ⁓ ambassadors of your brand, so to speak. Yeah. And that's when we get to the correlation. There's a strong correlation between some of the success stories and the people that did embedding.
ep072 faces raw (13:37)
Yeah.
ep072 screen raw (13:37)
Yeah.
Ben Callahan (13:37)
Yeah.
ep072 faces raw (13:40)
I don't know if we talk about that now, Ben, or not. ahead. Yeah. There was a number of people that want to do embedding, and then the people that are doing embedding were saying it works. So was like teams recognize that this is a valuable thing, and then teams that did it confirm this is a very valuable thing. it's what I've seen. We've not done formal embedding. I kind of am right now on a kind of critical project for the company. But it wasn't from a like, we need someone from the design system here. It was just I ended up being involved. But even just
ep072 screen raw (13:40)
I don't know if we talk about that now, Ben, or not. ahead. Yeah. There was a number of people that want to do embedding, and then the people that are doing embedding were saying it works. So was like teams recognize that this is a valuable thing, and then teams that did it confirm this is a very valuable thing. it's what I've seen. We've not done formal embedding. I kind of am right now on a kind of critical project for the company. But it wasn't from a like, we need someone from the design system here. It was just I ended up being involved. But even just
Ben Callahan (13:40)
I don't know if we talk about that now, Ben, or not. ahead. Yeah. There was a number of people that want to do embedding, and then the people that are doing embedding were saying it works. So was like teams recognize that this is a valuable thing, and then teams that did it confirm this is a very valuable thing. it's what I've seen. We've not done formal embedding. I kind of am right now on a kind of critical project for the company. ⁓ But it wasn't from a like, we need someone from the design system here. was just I ended up being involved. ⁓ But even just
ep072 faces raw (14:11)
when we were heavily pairing. So it was almost embedding with a team on some initiatives, just the successes that we saw both from advocates now for the design system. ⁓ Just yesterday, one of the guys that we invested a ton of time in a couple of years ago is now putting all that knowledge into a new team that's spinning up somewhere else. he's providing, he's doing the bulk of the feedback we as a design system would normally have been providing ⁓ to the point that ⁓ yesterday caught a CSS override, like a deeply nested CSS override to one of our components. He's like,
ep072 screen raw (14:11)
when we were heavily pairing. So it was almost embedding with a team on some initiatives, just the successes that we saw both from advocates now for the design system. ⁓ Just yesterday, one of the guys that we invested a ton of time in a couple of years ago is now putting all that knowledge into a new team that's spinning up somewhere else. he's providing, he's doing the bulk of the feedback we as a design system would normally have been providing ⁓ to the point that ⁓ yesterday caught a CSS override, like a deeply nested CSS override to one of our components. He's like,
Ben Callahan (14:11)
when we were heavily pairing. So it was almost embedding with a team on some initiatives, just the successes that we saw both from advocates now for the design system. ⁓ Just yesterday, one of the guys that we invested a ton of time in a couple of years ago is now putting all that knowledge into a new team that's spinning up somewhere else. he's providing, he's doing the bulk of the feedback we as a design system would normally have been providing ⁓ to the point that ⁓ yesterday caught a CSS override, like a deeply nested CSS override to one of our components. He's like,
ep072 faces raw (14:40)
you almost certainly don't need to do this. Reach out to the team, tell them what you're facing. And it turned out it was a bug, so we fixed the bug. But it was just that type of thing that it pays off. And that's where the scale, Ben and I are talking about, the scale comes into play. Maybe it doesn't scale that you can embed in every team from a headcount perspective, but the impact, what you said, Guy, is huge. And you've now added potentially additional advocates that can answer questions and can help others and can onboard other people. So yeah, it's a different way of scaling, yeah, that's what the results seem to show.
ep072 screen raw (14:40)
you almost certainly don't need to do this. Reach out to the team, tell them what you're facing. And it turned out it was a bug, so we fixed the bug. But it was just that type of thing that it pays off. And that's where the scale, Ben and I are talking about, the scale comes into play. Maybe it doesn't scale that you can embed in every team from a headcount perspective, but the impact, what you said, Guy, is huge. And you've now added potentially additional advocates that can answer questions and can help others and can onboard other people. So yeah, it's a different way of scaling, but yeah, that's what the results seem to show.
Ben Callahan (14:40)
you almost certainly don't need to do this. Reach out to the team, tell them what you're facing. And it turned out it was a bug, so we fixed the bug. But it was just that type of thing that it pays off. And that's where the scale, Ben and I are talking about, the scale comes into play. Maybe it doesn't scale that you can embed in every team from a headcount perspective, but the impact, what you said, Guy, is huge. And you've now added potentially additional advocates that can answer questions and can help others and can onboard other people. So yeah, it's a different way of scaling, yeah, that's what the results seem to show.
ep072 faces raw (15:10)
Yeah, and Taylor, did. have this data, the anonymous version of the data kind of added into a Claude project, which I can kind of query. So I asked it to look at the data answers in two and four, the open text ones, and give us best guess. What did people mean by embedding? And I dropped that text over to the far right in there. So you can take a look. The short version is when people say they embed, they mean a design system team members.
ep072 screen raw (15:10)
Yeah, and Taylor, did, I have this data, the anonymous version of the data kind of added into a Claude project, which I can kind of query. So I asked it to look at the data answers in two and four, the open text ones, and give us best guess, what did people mean by embedding? And I dropped that text over to the far right in there. So you can take a look. The short version is when people say they embed, they mean a design system team members.
Ben Callahan (15:10)
Yeah, and Taylor, did, I have this data, the anonymous version of the data kind of added into a Claude project, which I can kind of query. So I asked it to look at the data answers in two and four, the open text ones, and give us best guess, what did people mean by embedding? And I dropped that text over to the far right in there. So you can take a look. The short version is when people say they embed, they mean a design system team members.
ep072 faces raw (15:36)
member joins a consuming team's workflow for a sustained period working in their processes rather than waiting to be asked. ⁓ There's a lot around this idea of like proximity or like closeness to the consuming teams that's kind of talked about in the answer. So, Alexander, what's up my friend? Good to see you. Yeah. Hi. Hey. Obviously with life and everything, so I haven't been doing a lot. But I this was a really interesting topic because I've tried this. I've seen this in two different companies now.
ep072 screen raw (15:36)
member joins a consuming team's workflow for a sustained period working in their processes rather than waiting to be asked. ⁓ There's a lot around this idea of like proximity or like closeness to the consuming teams that's kind of talked about in the answer. So, Alexander, what's up my friend? Good to see you. Yeah. Hi. Hey. Obviously with life and everything, so I haven't been doing a lot. But I this was a really interesting topic because I've tried this. I've seen this in two different companies now.
Ben Callahan (15:36)
member joins a consuming team's workflow for a sustained period working in their processes rather than waiting to be asked. ⁓ There's a lot around this idea of like proximity or like closeness to the consuming teams that's kind of talked about in the answer. So, Alexander, what's up my friend? Good to see you. Yeah. Hi. Hey. Obviously with life and everything, so I haven't been doing a lot. But I this was a really interesting topic because I've tried this. I've seen this in two different companies now.
ep072 faces raw (16:05)
with mixed results. So I kind of wanted to add some new ones maybe to this. like the first example, which is maybe the bad example is like, we tried to embed our designers. Like when I was leading the team in my previous company, we tried this and it did not work. I like the feedback you like was from each designer in my team was that like the team they were embedded into just treated them as like an extra resource for their team to get more work done. And they just sort of like,
ep072 screen raw (16:05)
with mixed results. So I kind of wanted to add some new ones maybe to this. like the first example, which is maybe the bad example is like, we tried to embed our designers. Like when I was leading the team in my previous company, we tried this and it did not work. I like the feedback you like was from each designer in my team was that like the team they were embedded into just treated them as like an extra resource for their team to get more work done. And they just sort of like,
Ben Callahan (16:05)
with mixed results. So I kind of wanted to add some new ones maybe to this. like the first example, which is maybe the bad example is like, we tried to embed our designers. Like when I was leading the team in my previous company, we tried this and it did not work. I like the feedback you like was from each designer in my team was that like the team they were embedded into just treated them as like an extra resource for their team to get more work done. And they just sort of like,
ep072 faces raw (16:35)
dumped all the design system stuff to that person so that they didn't have to learn or do anything about it. that I thought was very interesting because it's like, maybe it comes back to like, what were the intentions behind this collaboration from the beginning, like from that team? Like I felt like in some cases it was like, it was proposed as a way for them to wrap up to the design system, but really what they were lacking was a head caps, which I know was for a fact.
ep072 screen raw (16:35)
dumped all the design system stuff to that person so that they didn't have to learn or do anything about it. that I thought was very interesting because it's like, maybe it comes back to like, were the intentions behind this collaboration from the beginning, like from that team? Like I felt like in some cases it was like, it was proposed as a way for them to wrap up to the design system, but really what they were lacking was a head caps, which I know was for a fact.
Ben Callahan (16:35)
dumped all the design system stuff to that person so that they didn't have to learn or do anything about it. that I thought was very interesting because it's like, maybe it comes back to like, what were the intentions behind this collaboration from the beginning, like from that team? Like I felt like in some cases it was like, it was proposed as a way for them to wrap up to the design system, but really what they were lacking was a head caps, which I know was for a fact.
ep072 faces raw (17:04)
a problem in those teams, right? So it ended up not giving us anything, but like they got this free head count for like a couple of months. So we stopped that program. Then what we did in that team was we did reverse embedding. So we started to have teams to embed into our team instead, which I felt was way more fair because in the end of the day, as a design systems team, I mean like,
ep072 screen raw (17:04)
a problem in those teams, right? So it ended up not giving us anything, but like they got this free head count for like a couple of months. So we stopped that program. Then what we did in that team was we did reverse embedding. So we started to have teams to embed into our team instead, which I felt was way more fair because in the end of the day, as a design systems team, I mean like,
Ben Callahan (17:04)
a problem in those teams, right? So it ended up not giving us anything, but like they got this free head count for like a couple of months. So we stopped that program. Then what we did in that team was we did reverse embedding. So we started to have teams to embed into our team instead, which I felt was way more fair because in the end of the day, as a design systems team, I mean like,
ep072 faces raw (17:26)
the size of my team now versus my previous company are roughly the same or like 20 people supporting orgs of like lots and lots and lots of more people. It doesn't scale for us to like remove all our people, like moving them into teams. But for like teams who really want to learn about the science systems or ramp up or there's some mutual kind of benefits of having them get to know more about it, it's not the end of the world for them to embed a person or two into our team.
ep072 screen raw (17:26)
the size of my team now versus my previous company are roughly the same or like 20 people supporting orgs of like lots and lots and lots of more people. It doesn't scale for us to like remove all our people, like moving them into teams. But for like teams who really want to learn about the science systems or ramp up or there's some mutual kind of benefits of having them get to know more about it, it's not the end of the world for them to embed a person or two into our team.
Ben Callahan (17:26)
the size of my team now versus my previous company are roughly the same or like 20 people supporting orgs of like lots and lots and lots of more people. It doesn't scale for us to like remove all our people, like moving them into teams. But for like teams who really want to learn about the science systems or ramp up or there's some mutual kind of benefits of having them get to know more about it, it's not the end of the world for them to embed a person or two into our team.
ep072 faces raw (17:53)
like a team of 10 engineers having one of them coming to us, like that kind of worked. And we did that for a while and they got to get, you know, up to speed with everything in our design system. And then eventually they moved back into their team and became the point of contact or anything in that area. In our case, this was like our design system didn't support that area of the company, but now they want to start using it. So that was sort of the, they onboarded it. They sent a guy to us, learned everything about it.
ep072 screen raw (17:53)
like a team of 10 engineers having one of them coming to us, like that kind of worked. And we did that for a while and they got to get, you know, up to speed with everything in our design system. And then eventually they moved back into their team and became the point of contact or anything in that area. In our case, this was like our design system didn't support that area of the company, but now they want to start using it. So that was sort of the, they onboarded it. They sent a guy to us, learned everything about it.
Ben Callahan (17:53)
like a team of 10 engineers having one of them coming to us, like that kind of worked. And we did that for a while and they got to get, you know, up to speed with everything in our design system. And then eventually they moved back into their team and became the point of contact or anything in that area. In our case, this was like our design system didn't support that area of the company, but now they want to start using it. So that was sort of the, they onboarded it. They sent a guy to us, learned everything about it.
ep072 faces raw (18:22)
and then brought back the knowledge to their team. And then finally, like I think like the last one good example is probably myself right now, although it's very early to say, but I am sort of embedded into another team, but not full time. It's kind of like a part-time thing where I'm doing like my design system work, but there's another team who are building out components, but they're more like specific for that niche area. And they're using a lot of the stuff that I'm doing. So there's a mutual benefit for them to like,
ep072 screen raw (18:22)
and then brought back the knowledge to their team. And then finally, I think the last one good example is probably myself right now, although it's very early to say, but I am sort of embedded into another team, but not full time. It's kind of like a part-time thing where I'm doing my design system work, but there's another team who are building out components, but they're more specific for that niche area. And they're using a lot of the stuff that I'm doing. So there's a mutual benefit for them to like,
Ben Callahan (18:22)
and then brought back the knowledge to their team. And then finally, I think the last one good example is probably myself right now, although it's very early to say, but I am sort of embedded into another team, but not full time. It's kind of like a part-time thing where I'm doing my design system work, but there's another team who are building out components, but they're more specific for that niche area. And they're using a lot of the stuff that I'm doing. So there's a mutual benefit for them to like,
ep072 faces raw (18:52)
Like they need to learn more about how to use my design system correctly in their components. And we want adoption and we want their components to use the latest and greatest in our system. So like just the other day, for example, like someone complained about some like the sign details in our components. And it turned out that like, actually if you want to fix this, it requires fixes on my components, but also that team's component library. And if we only, if we do these two things, it will actually fix the problem. And now that we have this sort of embedded collaboration.
ep072 screen raw (18:52)
Like they need to learn more about how to use my design system correctly in their components. And we want that option and we want their components to use the latest and greatest in our system. So like just the other day, for example, like someone complained about some like the sign details in our components. And it turned out that like, actually if you want to fix this, it requires fixes on my components, but also that team's component library. And if we only, if we do these two things, it will actually fix the problem. And now that we have this sort of embedded collaboration.
Ben Callahan (18:52)
Like they need to learn more about how to use my design system correctly in their components. And we want that option and we want their components to use the latest and greatest in our system. So like just the other day, for example, like someone complained about some like the sign details in our components. And it turned out that like, actually if you want to fix this, it requires fixes on my components, but also that team's component library. And if we only, if we do these two things, it will actually fix the problem. And now that we have this sort of embedded collaboration.
ep072 faces raw (19:21)
Like we just fired up a bunch of Slack messages in our channel and I went to fix my stuff, the Dev on that team went to fix that stuff. And then within like the same day we managed to fix the problem. This would have never happened before if we were siloed, like we always usually are. Like, or it would have taken months and frustrations and pointing fingers at each other. So I still think that if the incentives are right, it can be super powerful and great. But you just gotta be a bit cautious with why you're doing this, I think.
ep072 screen raw (19:21)
Like we just fired up a bunch of Slack messages in our channel and I went to fix my stuff, the Dev on that team went to fix that stuff. And then within like the same day we managed to fix the problem. This would have never happened before if we were siloed, like we always usually are. Like, or it would have taken months and frustrations and pointing fingers at each other. So I still think that if the incentives are right, it can be super powerful and great. But you just gotta be a bit cautious with why you're doing this, I think.
Ben Callahan (19:21)
Like we just fired up a bunch of Slack messages in our channel and I went to fix my stuff, the Dev on that team went to fix that stuff. And then within like the same day we managed to fix the problem. This would have never happened before if we were siloed, like we always usually are. Like, or it would have taken months and frustrations and pointing fingers at each other. So I still think that if the incentives are right, it can be super powerful and great. But you just gotta be a bit cautious with why you're doing this, I think.
ep072 faces raw (19:50)
Yeah, Follow up question for you, Alexander on you. you described this scenario where sending design system team members to embed in product teams or consuming teams oftentimes wasn't successful because they just needed more people and you were providing them from a small team that didn't really have people to give, you know, for that reason. But the opposite was good for you, meaning consuming team designer developer comes and embeds on the system team to learn it.
ep072 screen raw (19:50)
Yeah, Follow up question for you, Alexander on you. you described this scenario where sending design system team members to embed in product teams or consuming teams oftentimes wasn't successful because they just needed more people and you were providing them from a small team that didn't really have people to give, you know, for that reason. But the opposite was good for you, meaning consuming team designer developer comes and embeds on the system team to learn it.
Ben Callahan (19:50)
Yeah, Follow up question for you, Alexander on you. you described this scenario where sending design system team members to embed in product teams or consuming teams oftentimes wasn't successful because they just needed more people and you were providing them from a small team that didn't really have people to give, you know, for that reason. But the opposite was good for you, meaning consuming team designer developer comes and embeds on the system team to learn it.
ep072 faces raw (20:17)
Was that disruptive to you? I just think about the idea of having to onboard somebody new all the time, actually to have them be productive. How did you handle that part of it? Yeah, in our case it was developers, I wasn't the first time person to do that. But yes, you're right. That was exactly our drawback to that. You're always having an intern or a new joiner. ⁓
ep072 screen raw (20:17)
Was that disruptive to you? I just think about the idea of having to onboard somebody new all the time, actually to have them be productive. How did you handle that part of it? Yeah, in our case it was developers, I wasn't the first time person to do that. But yes, you're right. That was exactly our drawback to that. You're always having an intern or a new joiner. ⁓
Ben Callahan (20:17)
Was that disruptive to you? I just think about the idea of having to onboard somebody new all the time, actually to have them be productive. How did you handle that part of it? Yeah, in our case it was developers, I wasn't the first time person to do that. But yes, you're right. That was exactly our drawback to that. You're always having an intern or a new joiner. ⁓
ep072 faces raw (20:46)
definitely like slow down a little bit the team. So I think like it was for us, it was important to see like the long-term benefits of this will still be like gaining us. Like if we know that there's a whole new product area that will be adopting our system in the next version of the product. And that's going to be like a multi-year commitment from them. Like for us to spend like that quarter or whatever it was to have that person in our team. It was still like a small price to pay. I would say. Yeah.
ep072 screen raw (20:46)
definitely like slow down a little bit the team. So I think like it was for us, it was important to see like the long-term benefits of this will still be like gaining us. Like if we know that there's a whole new product area that will be adopting our system in the next version of the product. And that's going to be like a multi-year commitment from them. Like for us to spend like that quarter or whatever it was to have that person in our team. It was still like a small price to pay. I would say. Yeah.
Ben Callahan (20:46)
definitely like slow down a little bit the team. So I think like it was for us, it was important to see like the long-term benefits of this will still be like gaining us. Like if we know that there's a whole new product area that will be adopting our system in the next version of the product. And that's going to be like a multi-year commitment from them. Like for us to spend like that quarter or whatever it was to have that person in our team. It was still like a small price to pay. I would say, yeah.
ep072 faces raw (21:16)
Nice. OK, thanks, man. Sean, what's up? I just wanted to jump in on that reverse embedding thing that we did a lot and super, super beneficial for the same reasons that you just said, Alexander, just making advocates for the system. You're bringing somebody in maybe for a few weeks or a few months, getting them to work on the design system, build something in the design system.
ep072 screen raw (21:16)
Nice. OK, thanks, man. Sean, what's up? I just wanted to jump in on that reverse embedding thing that we did a lot and super, super beneficial for the same reasons that you just said, Alexander, just making advocates for the system. You're bringing somebody in maybe for a few weeks or a few months, getting them to work on the design system, build something in the design system.
Ben Callahan (21:16)
Nice. OK, thanks, man. Sean, what's up? I just wanted to jump in on that reverse embedding thing that we did a lot and super, super beneficial for the same reasons that you just said, Alexander, just making advocates for the system. You're bringing somebody in maybe for a few weeks or a few months, getting them to work on the design system, build something in the design system.
ep072 faces raw (21:44)
And then, yeah, you're making an advocate. They then go back to their own team, and they know about the design system. They almost, we saw a few times that those folks became the of like the de facto, like, that's the person who knows about the design system. And they've got the connection with the design system team to kind of reach out for support. You just asked the question, about like, is it disruptive to bring people in? We...
ep072 screen raw (21:44)
And then, yeah, you're making an advocate. They then go back to their home team, and they know about the design system. They almost, we saw a few times that those folks became the of like the de facto, like, that's the person who knows about the design system. And they've got the connection with the design system team to kind of reach out for support. You just asked the question, about like, is it disruptive to bring people in? We...
Ben Callahan (21:44)
And then, yeah, you're making an advocate. They then go back to their own team, and they know about the design system. They almost, we saw a few times that those folks became the of like the de facto, like, that's the person who knows about the design system. And they've got the connection with the design system team to kind of reach out for support. You just asked the question, about like, is it disruptive to bring people in? We...
ep072 faces raw (22:10)
We did it so frequently that we built processes around it. We had like a whole onboarding run book. the embedding person would be assigned a buddy who would be responsible for kind of getting them up to speed really quickly. We got it down to the point where we said probably that two weeks was the minimum just to kind of offset the kind of onboarding and ramping up time. I think the most we ever had was like maybe two people embedding in the team at once, just because again, it can get disruptive if you've got a bunch of people in.
ep072 screen raw (22:10)
We did it so frequently that we built processes around it. We had like a whole onboarding run book. the embedding person would be assigned a buddy who would be responsible for kind of getting them up to speed really quickly. We got it down to the point where we said probably that two weeks was the minimum just to kind of offset the kind of onboarding and ramping up time. I think the most we ever had was like maybe two people embedding in the team at once, just because again, it can get disruptive if you've got a bunch of people in.
Ben Callahan (22:10)
We did it so frequently that we built processes around it. We had like a whole onboarding run book. the embedding person would be assigned a buddy who would be responsible for kind of getting them up to speed really quickly. We got it down to the point where we said probably that two weeks was the minimum just to kind of offset the kind of onboarding and ramping up time. I think the most we ever had was like maybe two people embedding in the team at once, just because again, it can get disruptive if you've got a bunch of people in.
ep072 screen raw (22:39)
There was a whole year though where we had somebody embedding in the team every day for an entire year. Just like from different departments. really, really, yeah, we were really kind of proud of the embed system that we had set up. That's amazing. Sean, I made a sticky for you. Can you drop in, you just listed off a bullet list of like that process, just high level. What all did you include in that process? Yes, I will do that.
Ben Callahan (22:39)
There was a whole year though where we had somebody embedding in the team every day for an entire year. Just like from different departments. really, really, yeah, we were really kind of proud of the embed system that we had set up. That's amazing. Sean, I made a sticky for you. Can you drop in, you just listed off a bullet list of like that process, just high level. What all did you include in that process? Yes, I will do that.
ep072 faces raw (22:39)
There was a whole year though where we had somebody embedding in the team every day for an entire year. Just like from different departments. really, really, yeah, we were really kind of proud of the embed system that we had set up. That's amazing. Sean, I made a sticky for you. Can you drop in, you just listed off a bullet list of like that process, just high level. What all did you include in that process? Yes, I will do that.
One thing, yeah, I was just going to mention what Alexander said about both being embedded, allow them both to fix both sides of their thing. Even without being embedded, establishing early that you respond very quickly to bugs and defects and handle those. I've had a couple light bulb moments where our developers were also like, you mean when our QA team finds an issue, we don't have to fix it, you'll fix it. I'm like, yeah, we will fix it. Tell us as soon as we can, we'll fix it. And then depending on the criticality of the bug.
ep072 screen raw (23:09)
One thing, yeah, I was just going to mention what Alexander said about both being embedded, allow them both to fix both sides of their thing. Even without being embedded, establishing early that you respond very quickly to bugs and defects and handle those. I've had a couple light bulb moments where our developers were also like, you mean when our QA team finds an issue, we don't have to fix it, you'll fix it. I'm like, yeah, we will fix it. Tell us as soon as we can, we'll fix it. And then depending on the criticality of the bug.
Ben Callahan (23:09)
One thing, yeah, I was just going to mention what Alexander said about both being embedded, allow them both to fix both sides of their thing. Even without being embedded, establishing early that you respond very quickly to bugs and defects and handle those. I've had a couple light bulb moments where our developers were also like, you mean when our QA team finds an issue, we don't have to fix it, you'll fix it. I'm like, yeah, we will fix it. Tell us as soon as we can, we'll fix it. And then depending on the criticality of the bug.
ep072 faces raw (23:37)
and the work around everything, all the other stuff you go into. Most of those defects we turn around within a day or two and we have a new release out and they can update. Not everyone, obviously some are significant and take longer to plan, but a lot of the ones that they're running into are things, because it's already vetted considerably. So at that point, we try to turn those things around. We had one show up this morning and we had a release out a couple hours later to address the issue that was found. So I think.
ep072 screen raw (23:37)
and the work around everything, all the other stuff you go into. Most of those defects we turn around within a day or two and we have a new release out and they can update. Not everyone, obviously some are significant and take longer to plan, but a lot of the ones that they're running into are things, because it's already vetted considerably. So at that point, we try to turn those things around. We had one show up this morning and we had a release out a couple hours later to address the issue that was found. So I think.
Ben Callahan (23:37)
and the workaround, everything, all the other stuff you go into. Most of those defects we turn around within a day or two and we have a new release out and they can update. Not everyone, obviously some are significant and take longer to plan, but a lot of the ones that they're running into are things, because it's already vetted considerably. So at that point, we try to turn those things around. We had one show up this morning and we had a release out a couple hours later to address the issue that was found. So I think.
ep072 faces raw (24:02)
That even without embedding, if they can really understand, only have to work on my components. I don't have to fix the design system ones. The sooner I can kick that over to them, the better. I think that's a huge way to build allies as well. yeah. Dude, that's amazing. So you would release sometimes even in the same day if there's a bug log. A lot of times, especially if it was a newly released thing that we just introduced. That's going to be turned around immediately until we can fix it.
ep072 screen raw (24:02)
That even without embedding, if they can really understand, only have to work on my components. I don't have to fix the design system ones. The sooner I can kick that over to them, the better. I think that's a huge way to build allies as well. yeah. Dude, that's amazing. So you would release sometimes even in the same day if there's a bug log. A lot of times, especially if it was a newly released thing that we just introduced. That's going to be turned around immediately until we can fix it.
Ben Callahan (24:02)
That even without embedding, if they can really understand, only have to work on my components. I don't have to fix the design system ones. The sooner I can kick that over to them, the better. I think that's a huge way to build allies as well. yeah. Dude, that's amazing. So you would release sometimes even in the same day if there's a bug log. A lot of times, especially if it was a newly released thing that we just introduced. That's going to be turned around immediately until we can fix it.
ep072 faces raw (24:29)
We do have some backup reviewers. So my team's in Sweden. So if they're offline, I have a few backup reviewers in the States that I can reach out to. is one of them. He's here on the call with us. And then we have another one. So if there's something like that, emergency-wise, we can get an extra review done immediately to get the release out. Yeah, incredible. Can I just bounce a little bit on Sean's? Or maybe Sean was raising his hand again. But I think he forgot to No, I forgot to lower it. Sorry.
ep072 screen raw (24:29)
We do have some backup reviewers. So my team's in Sweden. So if they're offline, I have a few backup reviewers in the States that I can reach out to. is one of them. He's here on the call with us. And then we have another one. So if there's something like that, emergency-wise, we can get an extra review done immediately to get the release out. Yeah, incredible. Can I just bounce a little bit on Sean's? Or maybe Sean was raising his hand again. But I think he forgot to raise No, I forgot to lower it. Sorry.
Ben Callahan (24:29)
We do have some backup reviewers. So my team's in Sweden. So if they're offline, I have a few backup reviewers in the States that I can reach out to. is one of them. He's here on the call with us. And then we have another one. So if there's something like that, emergency-wise, we can get an extra review done immediately to get the release out. Yeah, incredible. Can I just bounce a little bit on Sean's? Or maybe Sean was raising his hand again. But I think he forgot to No, I forgot to lower it. Sorry.
ep072 faces raw (24:57)
It's the bounce off like what you bounced off, what I bounced off. ⁓ I was just thinking like one other benefit of like having like the reverse kind of embed, like you get people who constantly give you feedback from like a fresh eye or critical eye perspective on your design system practice. And that I think is like invaluable information because you can run all the surveys you want and this and that, but like to actually have someone in the team who you can build a report with and talk to and build trust with, give you that real feedback.
ep072 screen raw (24:57)
It's the bounce off like what you bounced off, what I bounced off. ⁓ I was just thinking like one other benefit of like having like the reverse kind of embed, like you get people who constantly give you feedback from like a fresh eye or critical eye perspective on your design system practice. And that I think is like invaluable information because you can run all the surveys you want and this and that, but like to actually have someone in the team who you can build report with and talk to and build trust with, give you that real feedback.
Ben Callahan (24:57)
Just to bounce off like what you bounced off, what I bounced off. ⁓ I was just thinking like one other benefit of like having like the reverse kind of embed, like you get people who constantly give you feedback from like a fresh eye or critical eye perspective on your design system practice. And that I think is like invaluable information because you can run all the surveys you want and this and that, but like to actually have someone in the team who you can build a report with and talk to and build trust with, give you that real feedback.
ep072 faces raw (25:27)
I think is also a great way to improve both processes and the system itself and whatnot. And also practice how to onboard new joined RCP Red Bulling team. And then on Douglas points, I think we do runners, we call it, or whatever we call it, I don't know, some support people. We run a regularly sort of ⁓ rotating schedule with designers and developers every week.
ep072 screen raw (25:27)
I think is also a great way to improve both processes and the system itself and whatnot. And also practice how to onboard new joined RCP Red Bulling team. And then on Douglas points, I think we do runners, we call it, or whatever we call it, I don't know, some support people. We run a regularly sort of ⁓ rotating schedule with designers and developers every week.
Ben Callahan (25:27)
I think is also a great way to improve both processes and the system itself and whatnot. And also practice how to onboard new joined RCP Red Bulling team. And then on Douglas points, I think ⁓ we do runners, we call it, or whatever we call it, I don't know, some support people. We run a regularly sort of ⁓ rotating schedule with designers and developers every week.
ep072 faces raw (25:53)
And like one of the purposes of that is to make quick turnarounds on things like, you know, if we can fix something that is reported the same day or next day, like that person's main responsibility is to just do that. And that I think helped to avoid like drift in the system. Like if you constantly try to fix these little paper cuts rather than like waiting for a big span thingy. And now with AI especially, like we can just like get things fixed so fast and...
ep072 screen raw (25:53)
And like one of the purposes of that is to make quick turnarounds on things like, you know, if we can fix something that is reported the same day or next day, like that person's main responsibility is to just do that. And that I think helped to avoid like drift in the system. Like if you constantly try to fix these little paper cuts rather than like waiting for a big span thingy. And now with AI especially, like we can just like get things fixed so fast and...
Ben Callahan (25:53)
And like one of the purposes of that is to make quick turnarounds on things like, you know, if we can pick something that's is reported the same day or next day, like that person's main responsibility is to just do that. And that I think helped to avoid like drift in the system. Like if you constantly try to fix these little paper cuts rather than like waiting for a big span thingy. now with AI especially, like we can just like get things fixed so fast and...
ep072 faces raw (26:19)
kind of reverse the design process. keep telling my developers, please don't wait for me to run the whole, like, design sprint kind of thing. Like, just do the fix, send me the PR, let me review it. And if it's not right, if we need to change something, it's actually faster for me to, or for us to fix that in the PR than like waiting for me to give you the right token. like, I don't know, things are changing a lot right now, I feel. Yeah, that's awesome. Rebecca, jump in.
ep072 screen raw (26:19)
kind of reverse the design process. keep telling my developers, please don't wait for me to run the whole, like, design sprint kind of thing. Like, just do the fix, send me the PR, let me review it. And if it's not right, if we need to change something, it's actually faster for me to, or for us to fix that in the PR than like waiting for me to give you the right token. like, I don't know, things are changing a lot right now, I feel. Yeah, that's awesome. Rebecca, jump in.
Ben Callahan (26:19)
kind of reverse the design process. keep telling my developers, please don't wait for me to run the whole, like, design sprint kind of thing. Like, just do the fix, send me the PR, let me review it. And if it's not right, if we need to change something, it's actually faster for me to, or for us to fix that in the PR than like waiting for me to give you the right token. like, I don't know, things are changing a lot right now, I feel. Yeah, that's awesome. Rebecca, jump in.
ep072 faces raw (26:45)
Yeah, kind of just like adding to that, I think so much of this stuff is about building trust. And like, you can identify very quickly who's a blocker and who's a helper. And once you have that established, it's hard to change it. Like, I think, you know, just like how much trouble I will go to not to call Verizon or whatever. You know, it's like, when somebody's not helpful, you're just going to go around them. so I've really been trying to be responsive to people and, you know, make adjustments or get back to them or like, if something changes, I'll ping them so they know that it's fixed.
ep072 screen raw (26:45)
Yeah, kind of just like adding to that, I think so much of this stuff is about building trust. And like, you can identify very quickly who's a blocker and who's a helper. And once you have that established, it's hard to change it. Like, I think, you know, just like how much trouble I will go to not to call Verizon or whatever. You know, it's like, when somebody's not helpful, you're just going to go around them. And so I've really been trying to be responsive to people and, you know, make adjustments or get back to them or like, if something changes, I'll ping them so they know that it's fixed.
Ben Callahan (26:45)
Yeah, kind of just like adding to that, I think so much of this stuff is about building trust. And like, you can identify very quickly who's a blocker and who's a helper. And once you have that established, it's hard to change it. Like, I think, you know, just like how much trouble I will go to not to call Verizon or whatever. You know, it's like, when somebody's not helpful, you're just going to go around them. so I've really been trying to be responsive to people and, you know, make adjustments or get back to them or like, if something changes, I'll ping them so they know that it's fixed.
ep072 faces raw (27:14)
Not as fast as what Doug was talking about, but you really want to establish yourself as somebody that's going to be helpful because people learn from that. And meeting people where they're at. I know sometimes I don't want to post on a big Slack channel for everybody. That's just too intimidating. I will sometimes, and sometimes I don't. So just trying to be available, going to talk to people. Just establish yourself as somebody in your team, as somebody that you can come talk to. Because once you lose that, it's hard to get it back.
ep072 screen raw (27:14)
Not as fast as what Doug was talking about, but you really want to establish yourself as somebody that's going to be helpful because people learn from that. And meeting people where they're at. I know sometimes I don't want to post on a big Slack channel for everybody. That's just too intimidating. I will sometimes, and sometimes I don't. So just trying to be available, going to talk to people. Just establish yourself as somebody in your team, as somebody that you can come talk to. Because once you lose that, it's hard to get it back.
Ben Callahan (27:14)
Not as fast as what Doug was talking about, but you really want to establish yourself as somebody that's going to be helpful because people learn from that. And meeting people where they're at. I know sometimes I don't want to post on a big Slack channel for everybody. That's just too intimidating. I will sometimes, and sometimes I don't. So just trying to be available, going to talk to people. Just establish yourself as somebody in your team, as somebody that you can come talk to. Because once you lose that, it's hard to get it back.
Oh man, that's such I'm so glad you mentioned that. We lost that during our discussions. Ben and I last week discussed, because I hear teams all the time, and it's even in some of the answers here, talking about using AI bots and all these other things to save the team time, which might be a good solution. But one of the big things is just, I'd say we're 50-50 or even less that want to post in our public channel. So some of the devs post in the public channel, they build trust. We're not shaming them in that channel. We're not giving them help. But the other half reach out privately. And I think,
ep072 faces raw (27:40)
man, that's such I'm so glad you mentioned that. We lost that during our discussions. Ben and I last week discussed, because I hear teams all the time, and it's even in some of the answers here, talking about using AI bots and all these other things to save the team time, which might be a good solution. But one of the big things is just, ⁓ I'd say we're 50-50 or even less that want to post in our public channel. So some of the devs post in the public channel, they build trust. We're not shaming them in that channel. We're not giving them help. But the other half reach out privately. And I think...
ep072 screen raw (27:40)
man, that's such I'm so glad you mentioned that. We lost that during our discussions. Ben and I last week discussed, because I hear teams all the time, and it's even in some of the answers here, talking about using AI bots and all these other things to save the team time, which might be a good solution. But one of the big things is just, ⁓ I'd say we're 50-50 or even less that want to post in our public channel. So some of the devs post in the public channel, they build trust. We're not shaming them in that channel. We're not giving them help. But the other half reach out privately. And I think...
ep072 faces raw (28:08)
Cutting off that ability to reach out privately is part of this extreme sport. Don't do that. Allow them to do that because you're building relationships. You're giving them a place where they can ask a question they may think is dumb, but you want to know. I want to know what you're going to. I want to know that you couldn't understand our documentation site because now I can fix the thing that you're missing. And so sometimes even when they reach out privately and it's something they should have been able to find, I'll ask about, did you see this or whatever? Like, here's the link. And basically walk me through why that wasn't.
ep072 screen raw (28:08)
Cutting off that ability to reach out privately is part of this extreme sport. Don't do that. Allow them to do that because you're building relationships. You're giving them a place where they can ask a question they may think is dumb, but you want to know. I want to know what you're going to. I want to know that you couldn't understand our documentation site because now I can fix the thing that you're missing. And so sometimes even when they reach out privately and it's something they should have been able to find, I'll ask about, did you see this or whatever? Like, here's the link. And basically walk me through why that wasn't.
Ben Callahan (28:08)
Cutting off that ability to reach out privately is part of this extreme sport. Don't do that. Allow them to do that because you're building relationships. You're giving them a place where they can ask a question they may think is dumb, but you want to know. I want to know what you're going to. I want to know that you couldn't understand our documentation site because now I can fix the thing that you're missing. And so sometimes even when they reach out privately and it's something they should have been able to find, I'll ask about, did you see this or whatever? Like, here's the link. And basically walk me through why that wasn't.
ep072 faces raw (28:35)
discoverable and we'll find that they were on a different page and it makes sense what they're on that page. Anyway, but it's one of those things that's not always about efficiency, it's about building trust and effectiveness and those things aren't always the same thing. I think we all hate when we have to open an IT ticket and it asks us to like pre-categorize. I don't want to categorize this, you categorize this. I don't know which department this goes to. You figure it out. That's the type of thing too. Anyway, I'm so glad you brought that up, That's a huge piece of this.
ep072 screen raw (28:35)
discoverable and we'll find that they were on a different page and it makes sense what they're on that page. Anyway, but it's one of those things that's not always about efficiency, it's about building trust and effectiveness and those things aren't always the same thing. I think we all hate when we have to open an IT ticket and it asks us to like pre-categorize. I don't want to categorize this, you categorize this. I don't know which department this goes to. You figure it out. That's the type of thing too. Anyway, I'm so glad you brought that up, That's a huge piece of this.
Ben Callahan (28:35)
discoverable and we'll find that they were on a different page and it makes sense what they're on that page. Anyway, but it's one of those things that's not always about efficiency, it's about building trust and effectiveness and those things aren't always the same thing. I think we all hate when we have to open an IT ticket and it asks us to like pre-categorize. I don't want to categorize this, you categorize this. I don't know which department this goes to. You figure it out. That's the type of thing too. Anyway, I'm so glad you brought that up, That's a huge piece of this.
ep072 faces raw (29:04)
It really is. the idea of like, it's so easy to lose that trust and it takes a long time to build it back, right? Like, you know, that's just how that, that's just how it works. So really, really good observations. Okay, folks, this is awesome. Convo so far, we're over halfway through already. This flies as usual. Where else do we want to go? What else? Tell somebody, tell us some stories from your Q4 answers, question four answers, which was.
ep072 screen raw (29:04)
It really is. the idea of like, it's so easy to lose that trust and it takes a long time to build it back, right? Like, you know, that's just how that, that's just how it works. So really, really good observations. Okay, folks, this is awesome. Convo so far, we're over halfway through already. This flies as usual. Where else do we want to go? What else? Tell somebody, tell us some stories from your Q4 answers, question four answers, which was.
Ben Callahan (29:04)
It really is. the idea of like, it's so easy to lose that trust and it takes a long time to build it back, right? Like, you know, that's just how that, that's just how it works. So really, really good observations. Okay, folks, this is awesome. Convo so far, we're over halfway through already. This flies as usual. Where else do we want to go? What else? Tell somebody, tell us some stories from your Q4 answers, question four answers, which was.
ep072 faces raw (29:31)
Describe a time when going above and beyond and supporting a consuming team had a meaningful impact. We've talked a lot about embedding. What else has been really impactful for you in your experience? Tell us some stories.
ep072 screen raw (29:31)
Describe a time when going above and beyond and supporting a consuming team had a meaningful impact. We've talked a lot about embedding. What else has been really impactful for you in your experience? Tell us some stories.
Ben Callahan (29:31)
Describe a time when going above and beyond and supporting a consuming team had a meaningful impact. We've talked a lot about embedding. What else has been really impactful for you in your experience? Tell us some stories.
ep072 faces raw (29:43)
Go ahead, Taylor. think I've shared with some before, when at Fidelity, when we were a couple of years ago, we were trying to get folks to understand and want to buy into the idea of changing generations of a system. And they had been burned multiple times in the past of like leadership telling them one thing and then they told another. And we had also kind of just transitioned to a more scalable remote situation at that time. like culturally, it was an odd time, you know, whatever. And this was before pre-COVID.
ep072 screen raw (29:43)
Go ahead, Taylor. think I've shared with some before, ⁓ when at Fidelity, when we were a couple of years ago, we were trying to get folks to understand and want to buy into the idea of changing generations of a system. And they had been burned multiple times in the past of like leadership telling them one thing and then being told another. And we had also kind of just transitioned to a more scalable remote situation at that time. like culturally, it was an odd time, you know, whatever. And this was before pre-COVID.
Ben Callahan (29:43)
Go ahead, Taylor. think I've shared with some before, when at Fidelity, when we were a couple of years ago, we were trying to get folks to understand and want to buy into the idea of changing generations of a system. And they had been burned multiple times in the past of like leadership telling them one thing and then they told another. And we had also kind of just transitioned to a more scalable remote situation at that time. like culturally, it was an odd time, you know, whatever. And this was before pre-COVID.
ep072 faces raw (30:11)
Right. So this is like, it wasn't, couldn't travel because it wasn't any other bad reason to, but anyway, point being we flew our tech leads and our product owner and a few engineers to the group in Boston. We're like the cohort that we would normally like where the main business unit existed, where the ICs were that were like having to call in and give us challenges. And we wouldn't met with them and literally had like a two day workshop to just debug the big list of shit that was preventing them from even paying attention to us.
ep072 screen raw (30:11)
Right. So this is like, it wasn't, couldn't travel because it wasn't any other bad reason to, but anyway, point being we flew our tech leads and our product owner and a few engineers to the group in Boston. We're like the cohort that we would normally like where the main business unit existed, where the ICs were that were like having to call in and give us challenges. And we wouldn't met with them and literally had like a two day workshop to just debug the big list of shit that was preventing them from even paying attention to us.
Ben Callahan (30:11)
Right. this is like, wasn't, couldn't travel because it wasn't any other bad reason to, but anyway, point being we flew our tech leads and our product owner and a few engineers to the group in Boston. We're like the cohort that we would normally like where the main business unit existed, where the ICs were that were like having to call in and give us challenges. And we wouldn't met with them and literally had like a two day workshop to just debug the big list of shit that was preventing them from even paying attention to us.
ep072 screen raw (30:37)
And it was like a bridge building exercise. It debugged a bunch of stuff. helped understand the architecture better. Like all these things then went into rebuilding that relationship, getting out there. And it was inconvenient as hell. And it was contentious. And it was a lot of arguments in the beginning and a lot of like, we had to come and really like tuck our tails and be like, no, we didn't mean to break that. Sorry. Let's talk through this, you know, kind of thing. And it was, it was the.
ep072 faces raw (30:37)
And it was like a bridge building exercise. It debugged a bunch of stuff. helped understand the architecture better. Like all these things then went into rebuilding that relationship, getting out there. And it was inconvenient as hell. And it was contentious. And it was a lot of arguments in the beginning and a lot of like, we had to come and really like tuck our tails and be like, no, we didn't mean to break that. Sorry. Let's talk through this, you know, kind of thing. And it was, it was the.
Ben Callahan (30:37)
And it was like a bridge building exercise. It debugged a bunch of stuff. helped understand the architecture better. Like all these things then went into rebuilding that relationship, getting out there. And it was inconvenient as hell. And it was contentious. And it was a lot of arguments in the beginning and a lot of like, we had to come and really like tuck our tails and be like, no, we didn't mean to break that. Sorry. Let's talk through this, you know, kind of thing. And it was, it was the.
ep072 screen raw (31:00)
the floodgate, like the moment we went there and show them like we were humans, we were there to help fix their shit, we weren't there to break more stuff, we were willing to undo what we did to undo what we did, you know, and that we wanted to work with them. were like, ⁓ so this isn't going to be the, you know, the, one we just got shipped and told to do a thing. And then we get a call that like, we didn't do it right. We, actually showed up and are here and, it helped a lot with early, ⁓
ep072 faces raw (31:00)
the floodgate, like the moment we went there and show them like we were humans, we were there to help fix their shit, we weren't there to break more stuff, we were willing to undo what we did to undo what we did, you know, and that we wanted to work with them. were like, ⁓ so this isn't going to be the, you know, the, one we just got shipped and told to do a thing. And then we get a call that like, we didn't do it right. We, actually showed up and are here and, it helped a lot with early,
Ben Callahan (31:00)
the floodgate. Like the moment we went there and show them like we were humans, we were there to help fix their shit, we weren't there to break more stuff, we were willing to undo what we did to undo what we did, you know, and that we wanted to work with them. were like, ⁓ so this isn't going to be the, you know, the one we just got shipped and told to do a thing. And then we get a call that like, we didn't do it right. We they actually showed up and are here and it helped a lot with early. ⁓
ep072 faces raw (31:24)
early interest, because then those people, again, even that we flipped some of the dissenters into advocates, right? Or at least we turned some dissenters into, I'll give it a try, right? And that's a win, you know, on its own. So that, that's, that's the, the only ⁓ semi embed situation that we did there. The only, I'll just be really short. The only other one we did is we had a pattern group that was embedded into the design system. So we made sure that that group was there to behave. There's, there's some like intent on like scaling this approach to a large scale piece of a feature.
ep072 screen raw (31:24)
early interest, because then those people, again, even that we flipped some of the dissenters into advocates, right? Or at least we turned some dissenters into, I'll give it a try, right? And that's a win, you know, on its own. So that, that's, that's the, the only ⁓ semi embed situation that we did there. The only, I'll just be really short. The only other one we did is we had a pattern group that was embedded into the design system. So we made sure that that group was there to behave. There's, there's some like intent on like scaling this approach to a large scale piece of a feature.
Ben Callahan (31:24)
early interest, because then those people, again, even that we flipped some of the dissenters into advocates, right? Or at least we turned some dissenters into, I'll give it a try, right? And that's a win, you know, on its own. So that, that's, that's the, the only ⁓ semi embed situation that we did there. The only, I'll just be really short. The only other one we did is we had a pattern group that was embedded into the design system. So we made sure that that group was there to behave. There's, there's some like intent on like scaling this approach to a large scale piece of a feature.
ep072 faces raw (31:52)
Here's some slices that we can rip out and the design system can handle. So like there was like an embed situation there, but like, think we're talking about it more traditionally like this. Taylor, that's an awesome story, man. And I actually don't think I've heard you tell that one, but like putting people on a plane to go sit with them. That's yeah. understand for what it's worth. ⁓ that was not a fidelity. So Nathan Curtis at eight shapes was with us at the time. And he was like, we need to go there.
ep072 screen raw (31:52)
Here's some slices that we can rip out and the design system can handle. So like there was like an embed situation there, but like, think we're talking about it more traditionally like this. Taylor, that's an awesome story, man. And I actually don't think I've heard you tell that one, but like putting people on a plane to go sit with them. That's yeah. understand for what it's worth. ⁓ that was not a fidelity. So Nathan Curtis at eight shapes was with us at the time. And he was like, we need to go there.
Ben Callahan (31:52)
Here's some slices that we can rip out and the design system can handle. So like there was like an embed situation there, but like, I think we're talking about it more traditionally like this. Taylor, that's an awesome story, man. And I actually don't think I've heard you tell that one, but like putting people on a plane to go sit with them. That's yeah. understand for what it's worth. ⁓ that was not a fidelity. So Nathan Curtis at eight shapes was with us at the time. And he was like, we need to go there.
ep072 faces raw (32:18)
Like was like, can't do this online. It's not going to work. And Fidelity was like, no, it'll be fine. We do remote. And he was like, this is going to fail again if we don't go and like, talk to them. Props to Nathan. Yeah. Doug, what's up? So the one I actually wrote was the one I generally talk about, which was ⁓ a really important product to PlanViewer company. And we
ep072 screen raw (32:18)
Like was like, can't do this online. It's not going to work. And Fidelity was like, no, it'll be fine. We do remote. And he was like, this is going to fail again if we don't go and like, talk to them. Props to Nathan. Doug, what's up? So the one I actually wrote was the one I generally talk about, which was ⁓ a really important product to PlanViewer company. And we
Ben Callahan (32:18)
Like was like, can't do this online. It's not going to work. And fidelity was like, no, no, it'll be fine. We do remote. And he was like, this is going to fail again if we don't go and like, talk to them. Props to Nathan. Yeah. Doug, what's up? So the one I actually wrote was the one I generally talk about, which was ⁓ a really important product to PlanViewer company. And we
ep072 faces raw (32:43)
Basically had to prove that they could even use the technology that we're using so we didn't have to maintain multiple things. However, I just remembered another one where it was actually a negative story and it turned around later when we were just getting started. Our team had flown to Austin to plan to headquarters. We were meeting with all the different teams. ⁓ And I think we're just tired by the time it was like the fifth or sixth meeting we had and by that meeting the product. I don't know why, but we took this different approach. We're just kind of like, so nice to meet you. These are the components you're going to be used. We're going to be building.
ep072 screen raw (32:43)
Basically, I had to prove that they could even use the technology that we're using so we didn't have to maintain multiple things. However, I just remembered another one where it was actually a negative story and it turned around later. When we were just getting started, our team had flown to Austin to plan to headquarters. We were meeting with all the different teams. ⁓ And I think we're just tired by the time it was like the fifth or sixth meeting we had. And by that meeting, the product, I don't know why, but we took this different approach. We're just kind of like, so nice to meet you. These are the components you're going to be using. We're going to be building.
Ben Callahan (32:43)
Basically, I had to prove that they could even use the technology that we're using so we didn't have to maintain multiple things. However, I just remembered another one where it was actually a negative story and it turned around later. When we were just getting started, our team had flown to Austin to plan to headquarters. We were meeting with all the different teams. ⁓ And I think we're just tired by the time it was like the fifth or sixth meeting we had. And by that meeting, the product, I don't know why, but we took this different approach. We're just kind of like, so nice to meet you. These are the components you're going to be using. We're going to be building.
Basically, you're going to be changing direction to be doing this other thing. However it was presented, we weren't rude, but it was kind of like, this is what we're going to do. And we used React and the Angular Dev with a project that was just hired with all this Angular experience. Didn't really say much in the call. And then we did not hear anything from that team for like a year and a half. They just made sure that nothing ever made it over to us. They didn't use any of our components. They did some stuff under the radar, but it was like they went radio silent. Fast forward a year and a half, we started working with them again.
ep072 faces raw (33:12)
Basically, you're going to be changing direction to be doing this other thing. However it was presented, we weren't rude, but it was kind of like, this is what we're going to do. And we used React and the Angular Dev with a project that was just hired with all this Angular experience. Didn't really say much in the call. And then we did not hear anything from that team for like a year and a half. They just made sure that nothing ever made it over to us. They didn't use any of our components. They did some stuff under the radar, but it was like they went radio silent. Fast forward a year and a half, we started working with them again.
ep072 screen raw (33:12)
Basically, you're going to be changing direction to be doing this other thing. However it was presented, we weren't rude, but it was kind of like, this is what we're going to do. And we used React and the Angular Dev with a project that was just hired with all this Angular experience. Didn't really say much in the call. And then we did not hear anything from that team for like a year and a half. They just made sure that nothing ever made it over to us. They didn't use any of our components. They did some stuff under the radar, but it was like they went radio silent. Fast forward a year and a half, we started working with them again.
ep072 faces raw (33:41)
showed them some of the benefit. Their product manager saw a video of all things, a video of us showing off our grid component and all the stuff that it did, our data grid component, like a spreadsheet. And we started another conversation, very skeptical. I think we had burned some trust in that original meeting. Anyway, fast forward, worked with the team, did some prototypes, got their code. I think we even got the code running, or at least worked with them to get the prototype running, show them how to tie the stuff in, show them how the stuff worked. Now he is like,
ep072 screen raw (33:41)
showed them some of the benefit. Their product manager saw a video of all things, a video of us showing off our grid component and all the stuff that it did, our data grid component, like a spreadsheet. And we started another conversation, very skeptical. I think we had burned some trust in that original meeting. Anyway, fast forward, worked with the team, did some prototypes, got their code. I think we even got the code running, or at least worked with them to get the prototype running, show them how to tie the stuff in, show them how the stuff worked. Now he is like,
Ben Callahan (33:41)
showed them some of the benefit. Their product manager saw a video of all things, a video of us showing off our grid component and all the stuff that it did, our data grid component, like a spreadsheet. And we started another conversation, very skeptical. I think we had burned some trust in that original meeting. Anyway, fast forward, worked with the team, did some prototypes, got their code. I think we even got the code running, or at least worked with them to get the prototype running, show them how to tie the stuff in, show them how the stuff worked. Now he is like,
ep072 faces raw (34:07)
one of the, sings appraises all the time. He's like, the best thing Plane ever did was form your design system team. And I'm like, I remember when you're like, I will not work with you guys or work with this thing. But he's a huge believer in the design system and loves it. And anytime he gets to work on it. So that was one of the things where we kind of screwed it up with our approach, the very first approach of that team, but we were able to redeem ourselves later. So yeah. Ooh, what a good story. This stuff aligns with what I have been working with my sort of coaching and consulting teams.
ep072 screen raw (34:07)
one of the, sings appraises all the time. He's like, the best thing Plane ever did was form your design system team. And I'm like, I remember when you're like, I will not work with you guys or work with this thing. But he's a huge believer in the design system and loves it. And anytime he gets to work on it. So that was one of the things where we kind of screwed it up with our approach, the very first approach of that team, but we were able to redeem ourselves later. So yeah. Ooh, what a good story. This stuff aligns with what I have been working with my sort of coaching and consulting teams.
Ben Callahan (34:07)
one of the, sings appraises all the time. He's like, the best thing Plane ever did was form your design system team. And I'm like, I remember when you're like, I will not work with you guys or work with this thing. But he's a huge believer in the design system and loves it. And anytime he gets to work on it. So that was one of the things where we kind of screwed it up with our approach, the very first approach of that team, but we were able to redeem ourselves later. So yeah. Ooh, what a good story. This stuff aligns with what I have been working with my sort of coaching and consulting teams.
ep072 faces raw (34:37)
to do, which is I draw this kind of cheesy map of like, Hey, let's think about everybody in your organization who could consume the system on a scale from saboteur to advocate, like who really loves it and wants to do it already. Who's like, I'm going to make this fail. Right. So think about that scale. And then also who has influence in New York, who has, doesn't. And if you can, a lot of times we avoid this top left quadrant, cause it's kind of like tough, right? These influential folks, they're scary to talk to.
ep072 screen raw (34:37)
to do, which is I draw this kind of cheesy map of like, Hey, let's think about everybody in your organization who could consume the system on a scale from saboteur to advocate, like who really loves it and wants to do it already. Who's like, I'm going to make this fail. Right. So think about that scale. And then also who has influence in New York, who has, doesn't. And if you can, a lot of times we avoid this top left quadrant, cause it's kind of like tough, right? These influential folks, they're scary to talk to.
Ben Callahan (34:37)
to do, which is I draw this kind of cheesy map of like, Hey, let's think about everybody in your organization who could consume the system on a scale from saboteur to advocate, like who really loves it and wants to do it already. Who's like, I'm going to make this fail. Right. So think about that scale. And then also who has influence in New York, who has, who doesn't. And if you can, a lot of times we avoid this top left quadrant, cause it's kind of like tough, right? These influential folks, they're scary to talk to.
ep072 faces raw (35:05)
but and they don't like you already, right? But what you guys just did, you and Taylor both just told the story of working with those folks and basically moving them top right, which is this high influence to an advocate, right? And, and my gosh, the impact that has is massive for a system program. So it's hard to do it sometimes and it doesn't always work, but it will completely change the dynamic. So it's awesome to hear those stories. ⁓
ep072 screen raw (35:05)
but and they don't like you already, right? But what you guys just did, you and Taylor both just told the story of working with those folks and basically moving them top right, which is this high influence to an advocate, right? And, and my gosh, the impact that has is massive for a system program. So it's hard to do it sometimes and it doesn't always work, but it will completely change the dynamic. So it's awesome to hear those stories. ⁓
Ben Callahan (35:05)
but and they don't like you already, right? But what you guys just did, you and Taylor both just told the story of working with those folks and basically moving them top right, which is this high influence to an advocate, right? And, and my gosh, the impact that has is massive for a system program. So it's hard to do it sometimes and it doesn't always work, but it will completely change the dynamic. So it's awesome to hear those stories. ⁓
ep072 faces raw (35:30)
I want to take us in a different direction really quickly here because we're always 15 minutes left here. There was one person who had this story and this was Jane, think. I don't think Jane made it to the call, but ⁓ she said, so here's her Q2 answer and her Q4 answer. She said, we're a fairly large design system team for a smaller sized company, so we may fall into the category of extreme support.
ep072 screen raw (35:30)
I want to take us in a different direction really quickly here because we're always 15 minutes left here. There was one person who had this story and this was Jane, think. I don't think Jane made it to the call, but ⁓ she said, so here's her Q2 answer and her Q4 answer. She said, we're a fairly large design system team for a smaller sized company, so we may fall into the category of extreme support.
Ben Callahan (35:30)
I want to take us in a different direction really quickly here because we're always 15 minutes left here. There was one person who had this story and this was Jane, think. don't think Jane made it to the call, but ⁓ she said, so here's her Q2 answer and her Q4 answer. She said, we're a fairly large design system team for a smaller sized company, so we may fall into the category of extreme support.
ep072 faces raw (35:56)
I think sometimes I wish more designers and engineers self-serviced instead of asking. So I hope to build more tools to help with that. So this is ⁓ her saying like, hey, I'm feeling like we should do more that's less hands-on, you know? And then ⁓ the second part answer for her Q4, her story was, I think a high level of support is what has gotten us the adoption we've had. We do intakes with teams when they start a new project to onboard them in.
ep072 screen raw (35:56)
I think sometimes I wish more designers and engineers self-serviced instead of asking. So I hope to build more tools to help with that. So this is ⁓ her saying like, hey, I'm feeling like we should do more that's less hands-on, you know? And then ⁓ the second part answer for her Q4, her story was, I think a high level of support is what has gotten us the adoption we've had. We do intakes with teams when they start a new project to onboard them in.
Ben Callahan (35:56)
I think sometimes I wish more designers and engineers self-serviced instead of asking. So I hope to build more tools to help with that. So this is ⁓ her saying like, hey, I'm feeling like we should do more that's less hands-on, you know? And then ⁓ the second part answer for her Q4, her story was, I think a high level of support is what has gotten us the adoption we've had. We do intakes with teams when they start a new project to onboard them in.
ep072 faces raw (36:25)
into using components and tokens. And that helps in new areas learn our systems, but it's very high touch. And I think sometimes it burns out the design system team. So this is, think, like speaking to the other side of the coin with these very sort of high touch embedding type things where we're like, okay, what are we asking of our system people? ⁓ And so there wasn't a lot of mention of burnout in the answers, but this was one that really stood out to me.
ep072 screen raw (36:25)
into using components and tokens. And that helps in new areas learn our systems, but it's very high touch. And I think sometimes it burns out the design system team. So this is, think, like speaking to the other side of the coin with these very sort of high touch embedding type things where we're like, okay, what are we asking of our system people? ⁓ And so there wasn't a lot of mention of burnout in the answers, but this was one that really stood out to me.
Ben Callahan (36:25)
into using components and tokens. And that helps in new areas learn our systems, but it's very high touch. And I think sometimes it burns out the design system team. this is, think, like speaking to the other side of the coin with these very sort of high touch embedding type things where we're like, okay, what are we asking of our system people? ⁓ And so there wasn't a lot of mention of burnout in the answers, but this was one that really stood out to me.
ep072 faces raw (36:53)
And ⁓ Maya hit on it here with this question, when are we hand-holding too much versus empowering teams? I think there is a line to cross, right? And I think about this as like every interaction you have with a system team is also you training, or not with a system team, with a consuming team, is you training them how to behave with you, how to interact with you in the future. And so like to a certain extent,
ep072 screen raw (36:53)
And ⁓ Maya hit on it here with this question, when are we hand-holding too much versus empowering teams? I think there is a line to cross, right? And I think about this as like every interaction you have with a system team is also you training, or not with a system team, with a consuming team, is you training them how to behave with you, how to interact with you in the future. And so like to a certain extent,
Ben Callahan (36:53)
And ⁓ Maya hit on it here with this question, when are we hand-holding too much versus empowering teams? I think there is a line to cross, right? And I think about this as like every interaction you have with a system team is also you training, or not with a system team, with a consuming team, is you training them how to behave with you, how to interact with you in the future. And so like to a certain extent,
ep072 faces raw (37:19)
If it's not sustainable for you to continue to support them in these very heavy ways, then it might be risky to do that in the beginning. So that's just a couple of my thoughts here, but would love to hear from you all on this. Christine, what's up? I'd to know, like just in general, how folks are moving from that state of burnout and handholding to more self-service empowerment, things like that. Like, I know that some, it's just really going to depend on the org that you're in and the team.
ep072 screen raw (37:19)
If it's not sustainable for you to continue to support them in these very heavy ways, then it might be risky to do that in the beginning. So that's just a couple of my thoughts here, but would love to hear from you all on this. Christine, what's up? I'd to know, like just in general, how folks are moving from that state of burnout and handholding to more self-service empowerment, things like that. Like, I know that some, it's just really going to depend on the org that you're in and the team.
Ben Callahan (37:19)
If it's not sustainable for you to continue to support them in these very heavy ways, then it might be risky to do that in the beginning. So that's just a couple of my thoughts here, but would love to hear from you all on this. Christine, what's up? I'd to know, like just in general, how folks are moving from that state of burnout and handholding to more self-service empowerment, things like that. Like, I know that some, it's just really gonna depend on the org that you're in and the team.
ep072 faces raw (37:49)
that you're serving. yeah, yeah, I feel like that's one thing that I personally felt a little stuck with. Just because at my organization, it is a lot of handholding with some teams. And when we try to do self-service, crickets, nobody really looks at this. Yeah. Anybody have thoughts on that? I just want to ask you a question.
ep072 screen raw (37:49)
that you're serving. yeah, yeah, I feel like that's one thing that I personally felt a little stuck with. Just because at my organization, it is a lot of handholding with some teams. And when we try to do self-service, crickets, nobody really looks at this. Yeah. Anybody have thoughts on that? I just want to ask you a question.
Ben Callahan (37:49)
that you're serving. yeah, yeah, I feel like that's one thing that I personally felt a little stuck with. Just because at my organization, it is a lot of handholding with some teams. And when we try to do self-service, crickets, nobody really looks at this. Yeah. Anybody have thoughts on that? I just want to ask you a question.
when you say handholding, it's just like you've covered the same topic three, four times, the same team, and they're just not getting, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I have very little patience for it's the same topic across multiple teams, and we've tried to make it as simple and easy to find as possible. Sure.
ep072 faces raw (38:17)
when you say handholding, it's just like, you've covered the same topic three, four times, the same team, and they're just not getting, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I have very little it's the same topic across multiple teams, and we've tried to make it as simple and easy to find as possible. Sure.
ep072 screen raw (38:17)
when you say handholding, it's just like, you've covered the same topic three, four times, the same team, and they're just not getting, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I have very little it's the same topic across multiple teams, and we've tried to make it as simple and easy to find as possible. Sure.
ep072 faces raw (38:37)
Taylor? Yeah, I think the first thing is, I hear you, like it's a problem. think we tend to frame this though as like it has to go from like, people really need help with their hands on thing to everyone eventually gets to a self-service spot and then we kind of like progress. like, think like Christine, that's how it's framed for us, right? But in reality, like it's always both, right? There's going to be some folks we have docked that they'll read on their own. It's going be some folks that enter the org news. There's going be a team that forgets something, right? So like, I think it's almost...
ep072 screen raw (38:37)
Taylor, got an answer? Yeah. Yeah. think the first thing is, I hear you, like it's a problem. think we tend to frame this though as like it has to go from like, people really need help with their hands-on thing to everyone eventually gets to a self-service spot and then we kind of like progress. like, think like Christine, that's how it's framed for us, right? But in reality, like it's always both, right? There's going to be some folks we have docked that they'll read on their own. It's going be some folks that enter the org news. There's going be a team that forgets something, right? So like, I think it's almost...
Ben Callahan (38:37)
Taylor? Yeah, I think the first thing is, I hear you, like it's a problem. think we tend to frame this though as like it has to go from like, people really need help with their hands on thing to everyone eventually gets to a self-service spot and then we kind of like progress. like, think like Christine, that's how it's framed for us, right? But in reality, like it's always both, right? There's going to be some folks we have docked that they'll read on their own. It's going be some folks that enter the org news, it's be a team that forgets something, right? So like, I think it's almost, ⁓
ep072 faces raw (39:09)
combative. I don't know the softer word than that. But like, it hurts us to say it's one or the other, right? In a certain way. So I wonder if the approach rather is like, is that the other thing you mentioned about those engineers, sorry, engineers, teams, not engineers, specifically, teams that are kind of you repeatedly go back to them, right? And what what was embedded into my head was like, number one, this like idea of like, you have to have both, like, swallow it. It's just what it is. There's no progression. It's always all. And then the other thing was like,
ep072 screen raw (39:09)
combative. I don't know a softer word than that. But like, it hurts us to say it's one or the other, right? In a certain way. So I wonder if the approach rather is like, is that the other thing you mentioned about those engineers, sorry, engineers, teams, not engineers, specifically, teams that are kind of you repeatedly go back to them, right? And what what was embedded into my head was like, number one, this like idea of like, you have to have both, like, swallow it. It's just what it is. There's no progression. It's always all. And then the other thing was like,
Ben Callahan (39:09)
combative. don't know the softer word than that. But like, it hurts us to say it's one or the other, right? In a certain way. So I wonder if the approach rather is like, is that the other thing you mentioned about those engineers, sorry, engineers, teams, not engineers, specifically, teams that are kind of you repeatedly go back to them, right? And what what was embedded into my head was like, number one, this like idea of like, have to have both, like, swallow it. It's just what it is. There's no progression. It's always all. And then the other thing was like,
ep072 faces raw (39:39)
the idea that ⁓ this is the job, right? Like being able to pivot on that is part of the thing, right? And that's the hardest bit is like, wonder if this is like, I don't think we could solve this, right? Cause like every person is gonna come at a project at a different time at a different reset, they're gonna need to be reminded. Like it feels like it's repetition for us cause we live in it. But for everyone, it's always only like 5 % of their brain, right? So like, I think we talk a lot about the service part and you're right, like it's exhausting.
ep072 screen raw (39:39)
the idea that ⁓ this is the job, right? Like being able to pivot on that is part of the thing, right? And that's the hardest bit is like, wonder if this is like, I don't think we could solve this, right? Cause like every person is gonna come at a project at a different time at a different reset, they're gonna need to be reminded. Like it feels like it's repetition for us cause we live in it. But for everyone, it's always only like 5 % of their brain, right? So like, I think we talk a lot about the service part and you're right, like it's exhausting.
Ben Callahan (39:39)
the idea that ⁓ this is the job, right? Like being able to pivot on that is part of the thing, right? And that's the hardest bit is like, wonder if this is like, I don't think we could solve this, right? Cause like every person is gonna come at a project at a different time, at a different reset, they're gonna need to be reminded. Like it feels like it's repetition for us cause we live in it. But for everyone, it's always only like 5 % of their brain, right? So like, I think we talk a lot about the service part and you're right, like it's exhausting.
ep072 faces raw (40:08)
But I wonder if that's just in the nature of like, sure, but that's because we're so close to it all the time. Like maybe that's a layer we tend to forget to, like for myself, I know I forget to do that. So I wonder if that's something. Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely something. I feel like too, we super care about all of these details, all these things. And yeah, sometimes it is just hard to distance ourselves a bit from it. So, yeah. Yeah. It's also, sometimes you have to understand, at least for us,
ep072 screen raw (40:08)
But I wonder if that's just in the nature of like, sure, but that's because we're so close to it all the time. Like maybe that's a layer we tend to forget to, like for myself, I know I forget to do that. So I wonder if that's something. Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely something. I feel like too, we super care about all of these details, all these things. And yeah, sometimes it is just hard to distance ourselves a bit from it. So, yeah. Yeah. It's also, sometimes you have to understand, at least for us,
Ben Callahan (40:08)
But I wonder if that's just in the nature of like, sure, but that's because we're so close to it all the time. Like maybe that's a layer we tend to forget to, like for myself, I know I forget to do that. So I wonder if that's something. Yeah, yeah. That's definitely something. I feel like too, we super care about all of these details, all these things. And yeah, sometimes it is just hard to distance ourselves a bit from it. So yeah, yeah. It's also, sometimes you have to understand, at least for us,
ep072 faces raw (40:37)
Occasionally, planned people free up a backend developer that just had some extra time. They're like, do these frontend tasks? They have no idea about accessibility, about responsive, just about anything. And I will answer their questions. So of course, I'm not going to not provide them, but I'm also not going to get on a three hour pairing session with them because it's completely pointless. That education needs to be provided by our company to them separately from the design system. So in cases where that's happened, don't go over and above because it's going to be completely.
ep072 screen raw (40:37)
Occasionally, planned people free up a backend developer that just had some extra time. They're like, do these frontend tasks? They have no idea about accessibility, about responsiveness, about anything. And I will answer their questions. So of course, I'm not going to not provide them, but I'm also not going to get on a three hour pairing session with them because it's completely pointless. That education needs to be provided by our company to them separately from the design system. So in cases where that's happened, we don't go over and above because it's going to be completely.
Ben Callahan (40:37)
Occasionally, PlanVue will free up a backend developer that has had some extra time. They're like, do these run-in tasks? They have no idea about accessibility, about responsive, just about anything. And I will answer their questions, so of course, I'm not going to not provide them. But I'm also not going to get on a three-hour pairing session with them because it's completely pointless. That education needs to be provided by our company to them separately from the design system. So in cases where that's happened, don't go over and above because it's going to be completely
ep072 faces raw (41:06)
I can't guarantee it'll be throwaway, but it's almost gonna be throwaway time. This isn't helping a front end engineer to get better at what they're doing. This is helping someone fill the gap that they're go back to database stuff next week. sometimes you just can't spend the time. Yeah, and I feel like it just brings it back to that wicked problem of like, what's the design systems responsibility for providing support and education versus what's somebody else's. But yeah, that's off topic.
ep072 screen raw (41:06)
I can't guarantee it'll be throwaway, but it's almost gonna be throwaway time. This isn't helping a front end engineer to get better at what they're doing. This is helping someone fill the gap that they're go back to database stuff next week. sometimes you just can't spend the time. Yeah, and I feel like it just brings it back to that wicked problem of like, what's the design systems responsibility for providing support and education versus what's somebody else's. But yeah, that's off topic.
Ben Callahan (41:06)
I can't guarantee it'll be throwaway, but it's almost going to be throwaway time. isn't helping a front end engineer to get better at what they're doing. This is helping someone fill the gap that they're going to go back to database stuff next week. sometimes you just can't spend the time. Yeah. And I feel like it just brings it back to that wicked problem of like, what's the design system's responsibility for providing support and education versus what somebody else's. But yeah, that's off topic.
ep072 faces raw (41:35)
Well, no, it comes up in almost every one of these. I think that the boundaries of system team responsibility are blurry, and ⁓ it's hard to know that. But Doug, you just described, I would guess, is a very sort of like earned knowledge from you over a long time of doing this work, which is like the intuition to know whether
ep072 screen raw (41:35)
Well, no, it comes up in almost every one of these. I think that the boundaries of system team responsibility are blurry, and ⁓ it's hard to know that. But Doug, you just described, I would guess, is a very sort of like earned knowledge from you over a long time of doing this work, which is like the intuition to know whether
Ben Callahan (41:35)
Well, no, it comes up in almost every one of these. I think that the boundaries of system team responsibility are blurry, and ⁓ it's hard to know that. But Doug, you just described, I would guess, is a very sort of like earned knowledge from you over a long time of doing this work, which is like the intuition to know whether
ep072 faces raw (42:03)
This moment is the right one to invest in because it's going to have good reward for us long term. Like how do you, can you sort of make that more objective for us? Like what's your, what's the qualification for that? You I think it's, I guess very subjective, but it's when you understand that the question being asked reflects such a knowledge gap that no amount of time you could spend that day is going to bridge that gap. This isn't about how do I achieve this known
ep072 screen raw (42:03)
this moment is the right one to invest in because it's going to have good reward for us long-term. Like how do you, can you sort of make that more objective for us? Like what's your, what's the qualification for that? You I think it's, I guess very subjective, but it's when you understand that the question being asked reflects such a knowledge gap that no amount of time you could spend that day is going to bridge that gap. This isn't about how do I achieve this known
Ben Callahan (42:03)
This moment is the right one to invest in because it's going to have good reward for us long-term. Like how do you, can you sort of make that more objective for us? Like what's your, what's the qualification for that? You know, I think it's, I guess very subjective, but it's when you understand that the question being asked reflects such a knowledge gap that no amount of time you could spend that day is going to bridge that gap. This isn't about how do I achieve this known
ep072 faces raw (42:33)
an engineer or I'm from engineering, I'm sorry I can only speak to that. Our designers deal similar things with Figma. But I think it's when you realize that the question being asked or the code being shown is at such a gap between where it needs to be and where it is that you kind of have to move. The difference is I'm a principal software engineer at Plainview, so I normally will then escalate that to someone else, to someone else on the team that's a lead, like this person needs help or.
ep072 screen raw (42:33)
an engineer or I'm from engineering, I'm sorry I can only speak to that. Our designers deal similar things with Figma. But I think it's when you realize that the question being asked or the code being shown is it's such a gap between where it needs to be and where it is that you kind of have to move. The difference is I'm a principal software engineer at Plainview, so I normally will then escalate that to someone else, to someone else on the team that's a lead, like this person needs help or.
Ben Callahan (42:33)
an engineer or I'm from engineering, I'm sorry I can only speak to that. Our designers deal similar things with Figma. But I think it's when you realize that the question being asked or the code being shown is at such a gap between where it needs to be and where it is that you kind of have to move. The difference is I'm a principal software engineer at Plainview, so I normally will then escalate that to someone else, to someone else on the team that's a lead, like this person needs help or.
that type of thing if I can. It just depends on who it is. That's a really hard question to answer, I'm sorry. Most of the time I do the support, even if it's gonna be wasted, but there's been a few key moments where you're like, this is guaranteed to be wasted time. I will just point them to the documentation. They're gonna watch, what's the website? They're gonna watch some React training on some website, and then maybe we'll be okay.
ep072 faces raw (43:02)
that type of thing if I can. It just depends on who it is. That's a really hard question to answer, I'm sorry. Most of the time I do the support, even if it's gonna be wasted, but there's been a few key moments where you're like, this is guaranteed to be wasted time. I will just point them to the documentation. They're gonna watch, what's the website? They're gonna watch some React training on some website, and then maybe we'll be okay.
ep072 screen raw (43:02)
that type of thing if I can. It just depends on who it is. That's a really hard question to answer, I'm sorry. Most of the time I do the support, even if it's gonna be wasted, but there's been a few key moments where you're like, this is guaranteed to be wasted time. I will just point them to the documentation. They're gonna watch, what's the website? They're gonna watch some React training on some website, and then maybe we'll be okay.
ep072 faces raw (43:30)
We've got a few minutes left, folks. Any other sort big thoughts from looking at the data? ⁓ Other questions that you have? Doug, see our somebody did this for us. Thank you for whoever helped with this. ⁓ Lots of overlap there, perfectionist and system practitioner, as we may be suspected. So ⁓ any other big thoughts from folks?
ep072 screen raw (43:30)
We've got a few minutes left, folks. Any other sort big thoughts from looking at the data? ⁓ Other questions that you have? Doug, see our somebody did this for us. Thank you for whoever helped with this. ⁓ Lots of overlap there, perfectionist and system practitioner, as we may be suspected. So ⁓ any other big thoughts from folks?
Ben Callahan (43:30)
We've got a few minutes left, folks. Any other sort big thoughts from looking at the data? ⁓ Other questions that you have? Doug, see our somebody did this for us. Thank you for whoever helped with this. ⁓ Lots of overlap there, perfectionist and system practitioner, as we may be suspected. So any other big thoughts from folks?
ep072 faces raw (43:51)
one that I didn't really get to talk to, and Chad's here, so Chad's our director of design at Planview. ⁓ And one thing he reaches out, he's very sparing because he knows that we don't have a ton of time, but he'll reach out and say, hey, we want to do this thing with a component. We don't see that it's possible for the design documentation. Can this be done? And so ⁓ generally, Chad's someone I'll drop what I'm doing, and I'm like, yep, we're going to spend some time. Because he's such a huge advocate for a design system on the design tier. So then.
ep072 screen raw (43:51)
one that I didn't really get to talk to, and Chad's here, so Chad's our director of design at Planview. ⁓ And one thing he reaches out, he's very sparing because he knows that we don't have a ton of time, but he'll reach out and say, hey, we want to do this thing with a component. We don't see that it's possible for the design documentation. Can this be done? And so ⁓ generally, Chad's someone I'll drop what I'm doing, and I'm like, yep, we're going to spend some time. Because he's such a huge advocate for a design system on the design tier. So then.
Ben Callahan (43:51)
one that I didn't really get to talk to, and Chad's here, so Chad's our director of design at Plainview. ⁓ And one thing he reaches out, he's very sparing because he knows that we don't have a ton of time, but he'll reach out and say, hey, we want to do this thing with a component. We don't see that it's possible for the design documentation. Can this be done? And so ⁓ generally, Chad's someone I'll drop what I'm doing, and I'm like, yep, we're going to spend some time. Because he's such a huge advocate for a design system on the design tier. So then.
ep072 faces raw (44:19)
it will quickly exercise the components. have a way of publishing those demos to our design site. So then we can share that with both the developers that will eventually build the product or the feature and the designers for them to see their design running in real life. And that one's been a really fun collaboration because then it'll be like, I didn't expect this. And we can go back and forth quick with a very low touch environment and then give them even sometimes it's even what a couple ⁓ ways. Like you could do it this way, you could do it this way. ⁓ And that will influence our roadmap.
ep072 screen raw (44:19)
it will quickly exercise the components. have a way of publishing those demos to our design site. So then we can share that with both the developers that will eventually build the product or the feature and the designers for them to see their design running in real life. And that one's been a really fun collaboration because then it'll be like, I didn't expect this. And we can go back and forth quick with a very low touch environment and then give them even sometimes it's even what a couple ⁓ ways. Like you could do it this way, you could do it this way. ⁓ And that will influence our roadmap.
Ben Callahan (44:19)
it will quickly exercise the components. have a way of publishing those demos to our design site. So then we can share that with both the developers that will eventually build the product or the feature and the designers for them to see their design running in real life. And that one's been a really fun collaboration because then it'll be like, I didn't expect this. And we can go back and forth quick with a very low touch environment and then give them even sometimes it's even what a couple ⁓ ways. Like you could do it this way, you could do it this way. ⁓ And that will influence our roadmap.
ep072 faces raw (44:48)
often, ⁓ or it will just give them a way to do what they're looking for or ⁓ compromise. Like, I know you wanted this, but you can do it this way with what components already have, which means no extra work for your team, no custom components. So that's been a fun thing that I would categorize in our, don't know that everyone gets a chance to do that. So that one's been fun. ⁓ Doug, I also remember you telling me at one point that you mark components in Figma and say,
ep072 screen raw (44:48)
often, ⁓ or it will just give them a way to do what they're looking for or ⁓ compromise. Like, I know you wanted this, but you can do it this way with what components already have, which means no extra work for your team, no custom components. So that's been a fun thing that I would categorize in our, don't know that everyone gets a chance to do that. So that one's been fun. Doug, I also remember you telling me at one point that you mark components in Figma and say,
Ben Callahan (44:48)
often, ⁓ or it will just give them a way to do what they're looking for or ⁓ compromise. Like, I know you wanted this, but you can do it this way with what components already have, which means no extra work for your team, no custom components. So that's been a fun thing that I would categorize in our, don't know that everyone gets a chance to do that. So that one's been fun. Doug, I also remember you telling me at one point that you mark components in Figma and say,
ep072 faces raw (45:15)
detach this like you're like you like advertised to do in certain circumstances or something. Is that right? Pre slots. Yes, that's changing with slots. But yes, for things that would previously intended to be customized, we'll have detachable templates. So like in a toolbar, the left and right sections were part of a detachable or the toolbar itself is detachable and then inside it has components. But I think that's all changing with Figma slots. So yeah, love it. Any other thoughts?
ep072 screen raw (45:15)
detach this like you're like you like advertised to do in certain circumstances or something. Is that right? Pre slots. Yes, that's changing with slots. But yes, for things that would previously intended to be customized, we'll have detachable templates. So like in a toolbar, the left and right sections were part of a detachable or the toolbar itself is detachable and then inside it has components. But I think that's all changing with Figma slots. So yeah, love it. Any other thoughts?
Ben Callahan (45:15)
detach this like you're like you like advertised to do in certain circumstances or something. Is that right? Pre slots. Yes, that's changing with slots. But yes, for things that would previously intended to be customized, we'll have detachable templates. So like in a toolbar, the left and right sections were part of a detachable or the toolbar itself is detachable and then inside it has components. But I think that's all changing with Figma slots. So yeah, love it. Any other thoughts?
ep072 faces raw (45:44)
This is so good. So many good ideas here.
ep072 screen raw (45:44)
This is so good. So many good ideas here.
Ben Callahan (45:44)
This is so good. So many good ideas here.
ep072 faces raw (45:50)
What else did we hit on? mean, I feel like there's like lots of places to go deep, but what was this pole you asking? we were talking about embedding, there was a whole bunch of conversation about video and producing videos. Yeah. Which was something like, I never got to the point of producing videos. I'd be interested to hear about people who have been working on videos. Yeah. Who's doing that? Christine, I think you said you were. Tell us how it's going.
ep072 screen raw (45:50)
What else did we hit on? mean, I feel like there's like lots of places to go deep, but what was this pole you asking? we were talking about embedding, there was a whole bunch of conversation about video and producing videos. Yeah. Which was something like, I never got to the point of producing videos. I'd be interested to hear about people who have been working on videos. Yeah. Who's doing that? Christine, I think you said you were. Tell us how it's going.
Ben Callahan (45:50)
What else did we hit on? mean, I feel like there's like lots of places to go deep, but what was this pole you asking? we were talking about embedding, there was a whole bunch of conversation about video and producing videos. Yeah. Which was something like, I never got to the point of producing videos. I'd be interested to hear about people who have been working on videos. Yeah. Who's doing that? Christine, I think you said you were. Tell us how it's going.
ep072 faces raw (46:21)
Pretty good. ⁓ So I wrote it way up in the chat somewhere. ⁓ I run a bi-weekly program where we take a five to 10 minute, honestly sometimes 20 minute chunk of our office hours just to show anybody who shows up ⁓ what we've been building, whether that's a bug fix enhancement, completely new feature in Figma or GitHub, things like that. And the people who attend, they love it.
ep072 screen raw (46:21)
Pretty good. ⁓ So I wrote it way up in the chat somewhere. ⁓ I run a bi-weekly program where we take a five to 10 minute, honestly sometimes 20 minute chunk of our office hours just to show anybody who shows up ⁓ what we've been building, whether that's a bug fix enhancement, completely new feature in Figma or GitHub, things like that. And the people who attend, they love it.
Ben Callahan (46:21)
Pretty good. ⁓ So I wrote it way up in the chat somewhere. ⁓ I run a bi-weekly program where we take a five to 10 minute, honestly sometimes 20 minute chunk of our office hours just to show anybody who shows up ⁓ what we've been building, whether that's a bug fix enhancement, completely new feature in Figma or GitHub, things like that. And the people who attend, they love it.
ep072 faces raw (46:50)
⁓ It's been really, really helping them learn about the design system, how to implement it, ⁓ things like that. But our main issue is reach to the rest of the organization. ⁓ So far it's going really, really well with design, ⁓ engineering. We have a lot of hiccups to work through, but yeah, like overall it's doing pretty good. Why do you think it's better with design versus engineering?
ep072 screen raw (46:50)
⁓ It's been really, really helping them learn about the design system, how to implement it, ⁓ things like that. But our main issue is reach to the rest of the organization. ⁓ So far it's going really, really well with design, ⁓ engineering. We have a lot of hiccups to work through, but yeah, like overall it's doing pretty good. Why do you think it's better with design versus engineering?
Ben Callahan (46:50)
⁓ It's been really, really helping them learn about the design system, how to implement it, ⁓ things like that. But our main issue is reach to the rest of the organization. ⁓ So far it's going really, really well with design, ⁓ engineering. We have a lot of hiccups to work through, but yeah, like overall it's doing pretty good. Why do you think it's better with design versus engineering? ⁓
ep072 faces raw (47:21)
Just because with design, we do have our ambassador program and that ties into attendance and just advocacy itself. ⁓ That really helps a lot getting engagement, getting other people besides the ambassadors in those meetings. ⁓ Also in engineering, a lot of it is just the time of the current meeting, where engineers are learning, things like that. Like I'm actually working with one of our senior engineers on the team.
ep072 screen raw (47:21)
Just because with design, we do have our ambassador program and that ties into attendance and just advocacy itself. ⁓ That really helps a lot getting engagement, getting other people besides the ambassadors in those meetings. ⁓ Also in engineering, a lot of it is just the time of the current meeting, where engineers are learning, things like that. Like I'm actually working with one of our senior engineers on the team.
Ben Callahan (47:21)
Just because like with design, we do have our ambassador program and that ties into attendance and just advocacy itself. ⁓ That really helps a lot getting engagement, getting other people besides the ambassadors in those meetings. ⁓ Also in engineering, a lot of it is just the time of the current meeting where engineers are learning, things like that. Like I'm actually working with one of our senior engineers on the team.
ep072 faces raw (47:50)
later today to help brainstorm different ideas that we can do.
ep072 screen raw (47:50)
later today to help brainstorm different ideas that we can do.
Ben Callahan (47:50)
later today to help brainstorm different ideas that we can do. ⁓
ep072 faces raw (47:56)
Very cool. Well, we're rapidly approaching the end here, folks. Thanks for ⁓ diving into this topic. Thanks for all the amazing answers too. There's so much. if you only have time to go read a little bit, go read the answers to question four, like just the stories of what has really worked well for folks are really inspiring. So again, in the FigJam, there's that link to the raw data and you'll see the fourth column underneath the intro is kind of where you can read those. It's really, really good stuff. ⁓
ep072 screen raw (47:56)
Very cool. Well, we're rapidly approaching the end here, folks. Thanks for ⁓ diving into this topic. Thanks for all the amazing answers too. There's so much. if you only have time to go read a little bit, go read the answers to question four, like just the stories of what has really worked well for folks are really inspiring. So again, in the FigJam, there's that link to the raw data and you'll see the fourth column underneath the intro is kind of where you can read those. It's really, really good stuff. ⁓
Ben Callahan (47:56)
Very cool. Well, we're rapidly approaching the end here, folks. Thanks for ⁓ diving into this topic. Thanks for all the amazing answers too. There's so much. if you only have time to go read a little bit, go read the answers to question four, like just the stories of what has really worked well for folks are really inspiring. So again, in the FigJam, there's that link to the raw data and you'll see the fourth column underneath the intro is kind of where you can read those. It's really, really good stuff. ⁓
ep072 faces raw (48:25)
Well, there's a lot going on. ⁓ We're into conference season here. Just so that you know, if you like this kind of engaging sort of discussion and conversation with other like-minded system thinkers, Redwoods is open. ⁓ It's inexpensive. It fits into almost everybody's education budget if you have one. So please consider joining that. Last episode was with Vitaly and the deep dives are live as well as the ⁓ recaps. So can go listen to those or watch those.
ep072 screen raw (48:25)
Well, there's a lot going on. ⁓ We're into conference season here. Just so that you know, if you like this kind of engaging sort of discussion and conversation with other like-minded system thinkers, Redwoods is open. ⁓ It's inexpensive. It fits into almost everybody's education budget if you have one. So please consider joining that. Last episode was with Vitaly and the deep dives are live as well as the ⁓ recaps. So can go listen to those or watch those.
Ben Callahan (48:25)
Well, there's a lot going on. ⁓ We're into conference season here. Just so that you know, if you like this kind of engaging sort of discussion and conversation with other like-minded system thinkers, Redwoods is open. ⁓ It's inexpensive. It fits into almost everybody's education budget if you have one. So please consider joining that. Last episode was with Vitaly and the deep dives are live as well as the ⁓ recaps. So can go listen to those or watch those.
ep072 faces raw (48:55)
A bunch of folks from Redwoods have been publishing lately, so you can check out all the articles from folks who are over in Redwoods doing great work. Actually, Maya, you're here, and you were just interviewed by Elise, so that's really cool. Thanks for showing up. ⁓ Elise has this amazing podcast called On Theme. Check that one out. Dan is spinning up Design System Triage again. He and Hannah are. ⁓ That was something we started like two or three years ago, and it's going to have a new life, so excited about that. TJ's publishing, as always, every day.
ep072 screen raw (48:55)
A bunch of folks from Redwoods have been publishing lately, so you can check out all the articles from folks who are over in Redwoods doing great work. Actually, Maya, you're here, and you were just interviewed by Elise, so that's really cool. Thanks for showing up. ⁓ Elise has this amazing podcast called On Theme. Check that one out. Dan is spinning up Design System Triage again. He and Hannah are. ⁓ That was something we started like two or three years ago, and it's going to have a new life, so excited about that. TJ's publishing, as always, every day.
Ben Callahan (48:55)
A bunch of folks from Redwoods have been publishing lately, so you can check out all the articles from folks who are over in Redwoods doing great work. Actually, Maya, you're here, and you were just interviewed by Elise, so that's really cool. Thanks for showing up. ⁓ Elise has this amazing podcast called On Theme. Check that one out. Dan is spinning up Design System Triage again. He and Hannah are. ⁓ That was something we started like two or three years ago, and it's going to have a new life, so excited about that. TJ's publishing, as always, every day.
ep072 faces raw (49:25)
So don't check out his stuff. ⁓ Lots of other cool things happening as well. ⁓ If you were around last year in October to go to Converge ⁓ in Bristol, I think last year it was an amazing event and we had so much fun. We went and found some redwood trees just outside of Bristol. They're coming back, but this time to Newcastle. Is that right? think. Yes, Newcastle. Good.
ep072 screen raw (49:25)
So don't check out his stuff. ⁓ Lots of other cool things happening as well. ⁓ If you were around last year in October to go to Converge ⁓ in Bristol, I think last year it was an amazing event and we had so much fun. We went and found some redwood trees just outside of Bristol. They're coming back, but this time to Newcastle. Is that right? think. Yes, Newcastle. Good.
Ben Callahan (49:25)
So don't check out his stuff. ⁓ Lots of other cool things happening as well. ⁓ If you were around last year in October to go to Converge ⁓ in Bristol, I think last year it was an amazing event and we had so much fun. We went and found some redwood trees just outside of Bristol. They're coming back, but this time to Newcastle. Is that right? think. Yes, Newcastle. Good.
ep072 faces raw (49:49)
So grab a ticket. They're on their extreme discounts because it's early bird right now, but this is going to be an awesome event. They always do a good one and a bunch of Redwoods folks are going be there. We're going to find some trees. We're going to do a hike like we do. That's all. That's all folks. Doug, thank you so much, man, for bringing this topic. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having
Ben Callahan (49:49)
So grab a ticket. They're on their extreme discounts because it's early bird right now, but this is going to be an awesome event. They always do a good one and a bunch of Redwoods folks are going be there. We're going to find some trees. We're going to do a hike like we do. That's all. That's all folks. Doug, thank you so much, man, for bringing this topic. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having
ep072 screen raw (49:49)
So grab a ticket. They're on their extreme discounts because it's early bird right now, but this is going to be an awesome event. They always do a good one and a bunch of Redwoods folks are going be there. We're going to find some trees. We're going to do a hike like we do. ⁓ That's all. That's all folks. Doug, thank you so much, man, for bringing this topic. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for having
Ben Callahan (50:09)
Thank you so much for joining us on episode 072 of The Question. This format doesn't work unless folks like you are willing to share some of your experience and then show up here in learning mode. Remember, you can get access to the raw data, the collaborative FigJam, and all of the recordings for this and many more episodes on my website, bencallahan.com
If you or your team could use an outside perspective on your design system program, I'd be honored to support you in that way. There's much more information about my coaching and consulting work over on the site. Thanks for being here, and remember, stay in learning mode.