Career Growth for Designers: 4 Steps Towards Fast Promotion

“Want a raise? Show some initiative: show your real worth to the company”. You might have heard similar advice from your more experienced colleagues.

So, one day, you come to your manager with ideas for new features or a redesign for the product you’re working for. Your hopes are high: you are eager to be promoted. The manager praises you, but none of your ideas ever reach production. You are nowhere near the desired promotion.

Does this story sound familiar? Let’s explore how to take initiative the right way – and achieve both professional and personal growth.

The meaning behind your initiative

I know the example I described above more than most because I’ve gone through a similar unfortunate experience myself. I worked at Yandex then, one of the largest IT companies in Russia and Eastern Europe. We had performance reviews every six months. If you met expectations, you stayed at your current level. Exceeding them could lead to a promotion.

In this context, exceeding the company’s expectations means taking the initiative and solving problems that are important to the business.“Importance for the business” could be interpreted in a variety of ways. At the beginning of my career in design, I was pretty sure that it was enough to look closely at the product and then find and ease users’ pains that no one had discovered before me. A shortcut to promotion seemed obvious: 1) find a problem, 2) solve the problem, 3) prove your worth.

Following this approach, I developed concepts for two problems I had identified in the product. I interviewed users, made prototypes, and created a presentation for the company’s management. All in all, it took 72 hours of my free time. However… Unfortunately, none of my ideas were implemented, as the company was focused on other priorities at the time.

I realized that my initiatives were going nowhere. Looking back at my actions, I concluded I had completely misunderstood the ‘importance of the business.’ Noticing users’ pain points and knowing how to solve them is, indeed, good, but it’s not enough. Applying a product design approach to the company’s internal (operational) processes is crucial. You need to recognize and analyze ongoing problems shared or solved by your colleagues. This is what ‘taking initiative’ really means.

Next, let’s explore who you need to talk to in order to identify the problems and what steps you need to take with your research results to implement your solutions – and, ultimately, secure that promotion.

Steps

1. Searching for ideas
2. Interviewing colleagues
3. Implementing your solutions
4. Analyzing what has been done so far

Step 1: Searching for ideas

First of all, you need to find a problem worth solving. Something significant for the business.

At this stage, try to gather as many ideas as possible. Start by listing the difficulties you’ve encountered in your work. Then, ask your colleagues about their pain points. Re-read your company’s goals and skim through user reviews on the App Store or Google Play to understand what people think about your product and those of your competitors. This way, you might discover exciting features to implement in your app or identify errors and bugs to avoid.

Once you’ve collected the ideas, you need to rate them. The three criteria to apply here are:

• How difficult it is to implement
• How important it is for your company
• How useful it is for you

Choose projects that deal with the largest number of both your and the company’s needs.

Example: Imagine there are two tasks. The first is to update a set of icons— a skill you mastered long ago. The second is to organize the design system. While upgrading icons may be valuable for the company, working on the design system will benefit both you and the company, helping you enhance your design and management skills.

Step 2: interviewing colleagues

Moving on. You’ve gathered the ideas that would be of help both to yourself and the company. Now, following the rules of the design process in a product, it’s time to test them and probably learn more about your team’s problems. This can be done by interviewing your colleagues. The process is generally similar to interviewing users – with a few corrections.

1. Don’t prepare the questions in advance

In principle, only these three questions are essential:

1. What do you want to change and why — both in terms of how you communicate with the design team and in the company overall?
2. What should never be changed?
3. What goals do you set for yourself, and how do you determine when they are successfully achieved?

As for the rest, go with the flow of your conversation. A list of questions arranged in advance would create unnecessary limits for you and your colleagues. Because of that, you might miss some valuable insights, as problems are not always found where you search for them. So, let your interviewees be candid.

2. Don’t start with your own ideas

First of all, listen to your colleagues and understand their problems and goals. This way, you could get a wider and more detailed perspective on what is happening in the company. Leave the discussion of your ideas for the second half of the conversation.

3. Talk to different teams

The more points of view you gather, the more comprehensive picture you’ll get. It will help you to compensate for your own blind spots. For instance, you’ve discovered a problem in a developer team, but it would take ages and be challenging to solve. Try talking to another team – perhaps, there you might find even more severe problems, and yet it would be easier to solve them.

Example:

Colleagues from QA told me that quite a lot of bugs were found in the mobile app after its release. It turned out that designers missed the stage when the front-end work was completed and needed a design review. The corresponding email simply got lost in the pile of other inbox messages. I decided that colleagues required a more effective way of delivering the message. A colleague from QA and I quickly made a chatbot in Telegram. It tagged designers when the front-end team completed the coding based on the mockups, notifying them to check if it matched the Figma designs. The solution was really effective – from then on, designers always reviewed beta versions before the final release.

4. Talk to managers

Want to gain a meta-view of the business’s problems and strategy? Go to the managers. They can tell you about their tasks and visions. During this step, you can collect problems you couldn’t see previously, prove or disprove your hypotheses, and find support from your teammates who’d like to solve the same issues.

Step 3: Implementing your solutions

Alright, you’ve gathered your hypotheses and are ready to begin. What follows is a lot of hard work and unexpected challenges. Prepare yourself to exchange your weekends and long hours of sleep for progress and success. Let me share with you some lifehacks that helped me survive without burnout.

1. Stay connected to reality

Set interim goals for yourself and regularly check whether they are still aligned with the company’s current priorities. This is crucial because pain points and priorities can shift, impacting the value of the problem you are solving. It’s also a good idea to ask the company’s art director for feedback on your progress. This way, it would be easier to understand whether you are on the right track. If you sense changes, try adapting or choosing another idea. It would be better than working on something that the business will never use.

2. Ask for help

Feeling tired and overwhelmed with tasks? Suggest collaboration with a colleague who likes challenges. Feeling lost and unable to find the right solution to your problem? Ask the experts. It’s a rare practice in corporations, which makes it even more valuable. Chances are, one of your colleagues has worked on a similar case and can offer you some advice.

Example:

One day, I was tasked with redesigning the main page for Auto.ru (a part of Yandex). I started gathering references but felt that I was missing the reasoning behind these examples. I then asked my colleagues who were working on a similar case. It turned out that Yango’s design team was also redesigning their website, but they were a few steps ahead of us. I contacted Yango’s art director. Our colleague shared their experience and the metrics behind their design decisions. It helped my team redesign faster and avoid possible mistakes.

3. Manage your time wisely

Side projects tend to take up a lot of time, which is why it’s better to give yourself plenty of extra time in case you miscalculate or something goes wrong. I don’t recommend taking on more than one or two projects besides your main work, even if a project consists of a small task that only takes a few hours. As time goes on, try adding one more task — this way, you can gradually find the workload that suits you best.

4. Prepare your colleagues

People often resist changes even if these changes lead to better products or processes. To avoid negative reactions, try to prepare the room for changes in advance. You can use the Attitude-Awareness Matrix for this purpose. It will help you understand what stage you’re at and how to open people’s minds to the changes you’re proposing. There are three stages: 1) recognition, 2) interest, and 3) support. Your goal is to guide your team smoothly through these stages by involving them in activities and discussions. This way, you can avoid conflicts and misunderstandings, making it easier for the team to accept your ideas.

Example:

At a daily meeting, a newly-joined designer suggested reorganizing our design system. Initially, everyone welcomed the initiative, as the changes were clearly needed. However, the designer failed to establish proper communication and didn’t prepare the team for the upcoming changes. As a result, the team wasn’t fully engaged in the process and couldn’t immediately accept the radical changes being imposed. The conflict was only resolved after regular meetings were introduced, which aligned everyone and provided the necessary and timely feedback.

Step 4: Analyzing what has been done so far

You’ve done the research, found support from your colleagues, and finally implemented the projects. Congrats, you are fantastic! But it’s not the time to relax just yet. You need to analyze and understand what worked well and which mistakes should be avoided in the future – this is the only way to make progress and get promoted. And by the way, don’t forget to share your success with others!

1. Analyze whether your project helped to solve the problem. If the answer is ‘Yes,’ prepare a case presentation for your next performance review. It’s even better if you can include metrics to evaluate the results. If the answer is ‘No,’ put in some additional work on the project to achieve the desired results.”
2. Share your success story. Don’t be shy about sharing your achievements with both you and other teams. It will help you build support among colleagues and advance your career. Back up your story with analytics or any other tangible results. Explain your process. You can also share your vision for the project’s future. You might even have some concepts to present.
3. Keep records of your projects. Continue analyzing your actions – both the good ones and those that led to failure. If you failed, find out what went wrong and how to avoid similar mistakes in the future. And then try again.

At this point you might wonder: but what if I don’t want to sacrifice my free time and precious sleep? Is there any other way? The answer is – yes, there is. Try marrying your initiative to your work. However, you need some luck and thorough preparations.

Initiative as part of your daily work

1. The first route is to search for growth points among your current tasks. Start with the following question: is it possible to scale the solution you are working on? Perhaps you created filters for a web page. Look closely at other sections of your site or app: maybe it can fit there, too?
2. The second route is to turn your initiative into one of your daily tasks. To make this work, you need to persuade the management. It’s not easy, but possible.

Here’s one more example from my own experience

For quite a long time, organizing the design system was some kind of a “side hustle” for my team. However, when the company decided to redesign their app and website, I realized that we weren’t able to manage this without a fully functioning design system. We simply lacked the components to work with. I prepared a presentation for the management explaining why we needed a design system and how we were going to work on it. And it was a success: our “side hustle” turned into one of the “official” tasks of my team, which we managed during our working hours.

Though preparing for a presentation seems obvious, here are a few key points worth remembering. Rehearse your pitch in advance. Articulate the main problems and key points. It’s a good idea to create a simple presentation with draft visuals and comments. No fancy design is needed —  the goal is to make your ideas clear. Sometimes, I ask one of my colleagues (who understands the subject but doesn’t make final decisions) to listen to my pitch in advance. It helps me prepare for potential questions and eases my nerves.

3. The third route is to try to optimize your working routine. Search for ways to accelerate your design process and spare some time for side projects during work hours.

   
   

Here are a couple of ideas:

• Choose shorter iterations. Try to utilize even small breaks during the day.  Work regularly and keep up with your interim goals.
• Analyze your productivity patterns. Be mindful of the moments when you feel stuck and identify the reasons behind them. For example, if you’re stuck on a concept, allow yourself to start with more abstract ideas and work out the details later. Keep track of what you’ve been doing throughout the day, collect data over two weeks, and then analyze it.
• Plan your research. If you lack the context to fully understand a problem, initiate research. Discuss it with your manager.

Conclusion

Let’s list all the positive results you can achieve by taking the initiative correctly.

Increasing your value in a team

By solving real problems, you not only help your colleagues and the company but also become a more valuable professional — one who is worthy of promotion.

Expanding your expertise

Leading a project is challenging; it requires both design and management skills. You will encounter problems you haven’t faced before — such as securing a budget for your project. Despite the pressure, you will gain valuable experience beyond your usual responsibilities.

Adding valuable cases to your portfolio

Projects you’ve initiated are a great way to showcase your skills. Even if you can’t bring your concepts to life, you can still talk about the work you’ve done and the lessons you’ve learned. It will make you stand out from other candidates.

Feeling motivated and confident

Ultimately, we all want to feel confident and in demand, and there’s no better motivation than knowing your work makes a real difference and is truly appreciated.