Design Leaders

Are you a design professional who is struggling to get your organization to adopt modern product and design methodologies and processes? Have you had success and failures scaling, nurturing and managing design teams? Are you currently and individual contributor who's interested in a leadership role? Do you need some Design Therapy? If so we would love to see you at our next event.

MISSION:

Our mission is to advance the practice of design by building a supportive and inclusive community of design leaders to share and learn from each other, heal from our challenges, and share our mistakes and successes of leading design teams and increasing design's visibility and value in the orgs we support.

ELIGIBILITY:

Our group is open to anyone who's interested in design leadership. We have a focus on software development topics but welcome all disciplines including but not limited to Hardware Design, Marketing, Graphic Design, Customer Experience, Advertising, Branding and Copywriting. 

FORMAT:

We meet 1-2 times per month, in-person and or remote, to share, vent and collaborate on a variety of topics. Content may include design workshops, guest speakers, process deep-dives, success stories and hard-truth challenges. Activity and topic ideas can be submitted by any participant for group review.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

Members can participate in several ways:

- Slack Workspace (Global Access)
- Webinar Panels & Presentations (Global Access) 
- Denver, Colorado Panels & Presentations *Free lunch provided (In-person & Webinar Access) 
- Denver, Colorado Interactive Workshops and Discussions *Free lunch provided (In-person Only) 
- Denver, Colorado Happy Hours (In-person Only)

CODE OF CONDUCT:

Members of our community make a commitment to uphold the following principles inside and outside of the group.

1. HUMILITY: This is a flat organization. No one is perfect. Failures are the best feedback.  Executive or team of one, all contribution in the group is equal in value.

2. HONESTY: Be honest with yourself. Make a commitment to conduct regular personal and professional inventories.

3. TRANSPARENCY: We make a commitment to cultivate transparency in siloed organizations. We don’t hide opportunity from others. Group feedback on our ideas is welcome and serves the greater good. We make a case for breaking down walls to create efficiencies and improve trust.

4. SAFETY: This is a safe place to share the conversations no one feels comfortable sharing at other meetups. Please respect the safety of the participants who are brave enough to share their challenges with the group. If you have a concern with something shared please let the moderator know discretely before voicing the concern publicly.

5. COMMUNICATION: We make a commitment to communicate even when it’s not pleasant to do so. Be brave and communicate with who you need to when you need to.

6. MATURITY: Act like an emotionally mature adult. Never use any demeaning, harassing, discriminatory, derogatory, abusive speech or behavior. Doing so will result in immediate and permanent dismissal from the group.

7. CONTRIBUTION: Grow through contribution. Do your best to contribute to the discussion. If you’re interested in helping others grow please consider offering mentoring opportunities to those in need. If you need a mentor please let us know and we will do our best to find someone.

8. TRUST: We make a commitment to cultivate trust in zero trust organizations. To be successful it takes emotional fortitude, courage and patience. By properly implementing the above principles you open the door to creating trust.

9. MEDIATION: We value collaboration over conflict. If necessary our group offers mediation services if both parties agree to sharing in advance of the meeting.

10. CONFIDENTIALITY: Sensitive information related to organizational challenges, process and human resources is confidential. Please respect the transparency of our participants by not sharing any sensitive information with anyone outside the group.