During the process of design LinkedIn new mobile app - Voyager, we led a design war room effort to help archive UX goals, build a collaborative design culture and get shit done.

1. Voyager Design War Room Recap
6.22 - 7.15. 2015
By Joann Wu & Corine Yang

2. PROBLEMS & CHALLENGES
- 7 teams, 9 tracks had been designing in parallel
- UI looked similar but not as a family, nor ONE APP
- We had been meeting weekly but tight alignment was not happening fast
enough

3. Move Fast. Fail Fast. Act Fast.

4. STORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMINGFORMING RECOGNIZING
Bringing the teams together and have them
work on a single goal.

5. What we did
• Design Managers set up the war room
goals and objectives
• We plan ahead, in detail, on timelines,
priorities, deliverables and
responsibilities
• Provide direction on how to approach
it (eg. Started with IOS - Android -
Mobile Web)
• Establish roles (eg. Landing page
team - sub-page team)
• Take risks, Iterate fast and make rapid
decisions

6. Establish process and structure on how to
accomplish that goal
FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMINGSTORMING RECOGNIZING

7. What we did
• Include all ideas and opinions (start with
group discussions)
• Identify stakeholders and determine
their interests and needs (eg. Art Deco
team was embedded in the process)
• Define operational agreements (eg.
Assigned POC for each task & pattern)
• Raise difficult issues and coach team
through struggles (eg. Parking lot, follow
up)

8. FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMINGNORMING RECOGNIZING
Solidify ideas, resolve differences and
leverage each other’s strengths to execute
towards the common goal.

9. What we did
• Establish daily routines and
milestones
• Hold open forums on tasks and
relationships
• Build appropriate feedback loops
with external relationships (eg.
Engg, Art Deco)
• Work toward consensus on
overarching issues
• Negotiate and navigate where
appropriate

10. FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMINGPERFORMING RECOGNIZING
Culmination of all the previous stages.
Team Members coming together,
executing towards the goal.

11. What we did
• Continuously seek to improve tasks
and relationships
• Assess and evaluate results against
team purpose and external needs
• Celebrate success - reward and
recognize both team and individual
wins
• Continuously test for better methods
and approaches

12. FORMING STORMING NORMING PERFORMING RECOGNIZING
Take the time to recognize the heroic effort
put in by the team and celebrate.

13. What we did
• Celebrate small wins, every
step of the way (weekly)
• Team building event at the end
to celebrate our
accomplishments.

14. #warroom #awesome

15. ACHIEVEMENTS
- 17 business days, 20 designers
- Designed and aligned +350 screens
- Established Art Deco component library: can be leveraged not only by
designers, but also by Eng, Devs
- Created 3 inVision prototypes: IOS, Android, Mobile Web
- Proposed solution for Phone landscape and Tablet.

16. TAKEAWAYS for improvement
- Setting up design principles to guide design decisions
- Using the right set of tools to bring team efficiency
- Leveraging war room’s physical space better to mark down all decisions
made through the whole progress.
- “Parking lot” was useful, but should resolve “Left overs” as soon as possible