figmaOct 11, 2023

Shishir Mehrotra’s 10 rules for leading great team meetings | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

The post argues that effective teams deliberately design two products: what they deliver to customers and the workplace experience that enables employees to do their best work. Shishir Mehrotra frames this employee experience as a system of named, known, and templated rituals—especially meetings. Great teams use different meeting types intentionally and create durable rhythms that keep ambitious work moving. ## Rituals as the “Employee Product” - Company culture becomes tangible through recurring behaviors and rituals. - Strong rituals share three traits: - They are explicitly named. - Employees learn them early. - They follow a repeatable template. - Teams do not need to invent every practice themselves; they can borrow proven rituals from other organizations. ## Three Types of Team Meetings Mehrotra and meeting expert Elise Keith categorize meetings into three groups: - **Cadence meetings** - Examples include staff meetings, stand-ups, and project syncs. - They recur with the same participants and maintain forward momentum. - Their core question is: **Are we on track toward our goals?** - **Catalyst meetings** - Examples include decision forums, product reviews, and design critiques. - They are intended to change direction or resolve important questions. - Their core question is: **Did we reach an answer?** - Too many catalyst meetings can exhaust teams. - **Context meetings** - Examples include all-hands meetings, off-sites, orientations, and one-on-ones. - They establish shared information, insight, and relationships. - Their core question is: **Are we better enabled to do our jobs?** ## Sustaining Long-Term Goals - Mehrotra uses John F. Kennedy’s moonshot as an example of the power of cadence. - Kennedy reinforced the decade-long objective with a weekly meeting involving NASA’s leadership. - Regular meetings can maintain progress on ambitious goals, but they often feel repetitive or obligatory. - Teams should therefore design engaging rituals that make recurring meetings feel purposeful rather than like a chore. - The article points readers to meeting templates and a ritual toolkit for practical examples. ## Practical Takeaway Treat meetings as designed team products, not unavoidable calendar events. Choose the right meeting type, define its purpose and success question, and establish a clear, repeatable ritual that supports the team’s long-term goals.

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figmaMar 14, 2023

How to get the most out of teams | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Effective people management is about creating conditions where teams can act with autonomy, focus, and purpose. The article recommends a few practical systems: limit goals, protect uninterrupted work, make participation equitable, encourage experimentation, and actively support career development. These practices help employees do better work while making managers accountable for the team’s success. ## Set Fewer, More Meaningful Goals - Ask team members to list their priorities at the start of a quarter or half. - Reduce an initial list of 10–15 goals to just three, forcing clear choices about what can realistically be completed. - Connect individual goals to the company’s most urgent strategic initiatives. - Make goals concrete and measurable by defining the impact they should create. - Share goals with other leaders to improve alignment and accountability. ## Make Meetings Worthwhile - Work & Co. limits teams to one daily check-in, leaving the rest of the day for focused individual work and collaboration. - Managers should distinguish between issues that require meetings and those that can be handled asynchronously in Slack or FigJam. - For unavoidable meetings, use structures that prevent outspoken participants from dominating. - Twitch adapted Amazon’s written-memo format for hybrid work: - Participants read a shared six-page document. - They spend 10–15 minutes adding questions and comments. - The group discusses the annotations afterward. - Written participation gives quieter employees a meaningful voice, especially in large meetings. ## Make Ideas More Valuable Than Turf - Ambiguous responsibilities can cause conflict, while overly rigid job descriptions can prevent innovation. - Oura Ring treats campaigns and projects as experiments built around strong hypotheses. - Teams measure results, then decide whether to scale, repeat, or abandon an idea. - Making experimentation everyone’s responsibility reduces confusion about ownership. - Employees are encouraged to pursue opportunities outside their formal roles, even when that means occasionally crossing boundaries. ## Support Nonlinear Career Conversations - Careers rarely follow a straightforward upward path. - Managers should help employees imagine multiple possible directions rather than presenting advancement as a single ladder. - This guidance is particularly important in remote work, where informal networking and spontaneous conversations happen less often. Managers can unlock their teams’ potential by replacing excessive control with clear priorities, focused collaboration, room for experimentation, and deliberate career support.

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figmaJul 7, 2021

Introducing Figma’s New York City hub | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma opened a new hub in New York City as part of its hybrid work strategy, which combines remote flexibility with optional in-person collaboration. The company views hubs as flexible spaces for connection, creativity, and customer engagement rather than traditional assigned-desk offices. New York was chosen for its diverse talent, strong customer base, and influential design culture. ## A Hybrid Model Built Around Choice - Figma’s hybrid approach offers employees both remote and in-person work options. - The company’s hubs are intended to help employees connect with colleagues and users worldwide. - An internal 2020 survey found that 68% of employees would consider relocating away from a Figma hub if all roles could be remote. - The article emphasizes that distributed work can provide flexibility, eliminate commuting, and support different lifestyles. ## Supporting Remote Employees - The author joined Figma during the pandemic and initially worked entirely remotely. - Her team encouraged employees to ask for help and made quick virtual collaboration easy. - Figma created structures for remote engagement, including: - Virtual onboarding through “Figma Today” - Globally accessible Maker Week events - Spaces for openly discussing challenges - Although remote work was effective, the author personally found shared physical spaces more fulfilling. ## Reimagining the Office - Figma’s hubs are designed to accommodate different work preferences. - They have no assigned desks and include informal gathering areas. - The goal is to create flexible, inspiring environments where people and ideas can meet. - The spaces are intended to encourage conversation, curiosity, experimentation, and collaboration. ## Why New York City? - New York offers: - A deep and diverse talent pool - Many existing Figma customers - A significant history and influence in design - Strong creative communities across industries - Figma plans to grow sales and product development teams in the city, while making many other roles available there as well. - These teams will help build customer relationships, understand business needs, and deliver products that serve a broad range of users. ## Growing the Figma Community - Figma’s workforce had doubled since the beginning of 2020. - The New York landing team was responsible for establishing and expanding the new hub. - The author viewed relocating as an opportunity to be closer to family, experience a new environment, and participate in New York’s culture. Figma presents the New York hub as a flexible complement to remote work, giving employees the freedom to choose how they work while strengthening collaboration, hiring, and customer relationships.

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figmaAug 10, 2020

How work is changing at Figma | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Figma decided to move from a mostly in-person workplace to a hybrid model offering both office-based and remote work. The decision was driven by COVID-19, changing employee needs, and the recognition that both flexibility and in-person connection matter. Rather than wait for other companies, Figma used employee survey data and conversations with hybrid organizations to shape its policy. ## Making a Decision During Uncertainty - Figma separated its long-term workplace strategy from the immediate question of reopening offices. - Leadership chose to make a decision quickly because uncertainty was increasing employee anxiety. - Company values, especially “Be Bold,” encouraged Figma to act rather than wait for other companies to set a precedent. - The team created a custom workforce-planning survey after finding that existing templates did not fit its needs. - The survey combined quantitative questions with personal stories about: - Commutes - Productivity during COVID-19 - Remote-work preferences - Desired work schedules and locations ## What Employees Wanted - More than 90% of employees completed the survey within one week. - Employees had highly varied opinions about what “flexibility” meant, particularly regarding which days should be available for working from home. - Nearly half of San Francisco-based employees would consider moving to another nearby city if they could work from home several days per week. - Almost two-thirds would consider moving to a non-hub location by the end of 2022 if all roles could be remote. - Common motivations included: - Lower cost of living - Home ownership - Being closer to family - Employees also expressed strong affection for the office and the connection and serendipitous interactions it enabled. - Although employees generally considered themselves productive, many felt they were not building relationships outside their immediate teams and were missing opportunities to meet new hires. ## Lessons from Other Hybrid Companies Figma spoke with organizations already operating with hybrid models and identified several challenges: - Employees need a predictable understanding of where colleagues can be found. - Completely flexible office attendance can produce a largely empty “ghost town” office. - Shared office days are important for preserving connection and serendipitous collaboration. - Hybrid work is difficult, particularly when ensuring remote employees are included equally. ## Figma’s Hybrid Policy - Employees must choose whether they are associated with a physical hub or work as remote employees. - The San Francisco hub would use a flexible model requiring employees to come into the office on at least two specific days each week. - Those office days would be shared across the hub to ensure people were present at the same time. Figma’s approach emphasizes making a clear, employee-informed decision while preserving both remote flexibility and the social benefits of office work.

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