Lead to succeed
Managed the Santa Clara design team (7 designers) to successfully deliver designs in a highly fluid environment with critical timelines, ambiguous requirements, multiple reviewers, review cycles and technical constraints.
Unified 3 different teams to function as a collaborative, engaged, motivated and high-performing team.
Kept team motivated to perform well through various transitions, changing processes and priorities.
To boost team morale and engagement, organized team events at least once every quarter for my org, larger CX org and larger CX+PM org. After we started working remotely, made sure that we various online events for birthdays, baby showers, team-bonding, etc.
Coached team on how to be more efficient, explain design rationale, influence stakeholders, and negotiate for the best user experience possible within the constraints.
Design direction
As a hands-on design manager to many junior team members, provided direction on all aspects of visual, interaction, and information design.
Reviewed designs and gave feedback in a helpful, encouraging manner that moved designs forward.
Created a safe environment for collaborative, helpful, action-oriented design reviews.
Created practice of daily office hours to ensure designers could grab me when they needed, but did not have to attend when they were not needed. Received feedback numerous times that designers really appreciate and value this practice. This practice is now being followed by the other Design Managers too.
Grow
After observing team, established learning objectives for the team. Designed training curriculum to expose team to various design strategies, processes, product demos and research methodologies. Worked with various SMEs to teach the team.
Ran workshops to practice ideation.
Provided coaching on design, process, project planning, communication / collaboration with stakeholders, hiring, managing employees, mentorship.
Organized Guest speaker series for all of CX, beyond just designers. Audience included designers, researchers, technical writers, engineers, etc.
Created a monthly Learning Club for my team. Designers would take turns picking an article / video of interest and leading the group in a discussion on that item.
Improve process
Was chosen by leadership to create a “Veritas CX Definition of Good Design” / CX standards for high quality and consistency - a checklist of tasks to perform, processes to follow and questions to ask to ensure design was of high quality.
After inheriting 3 different design teams, I established a design process that unified the team, improved efficiency and increased quality. Other design managers have now adopted the same for their teams.
Coached team to use project phase to determine appropriate level of fidelity (lo-fi versus hi-fi) and appropriate exercises/artifacts for various project phases (design thinking activities, heuristic evals, mind-maps, flowcharts, swim lane diagrams, storyboards, wireframes, key frames).
Worked with Engineering, PM and CX to get out of inefficient practice of producing a hi-fi for each and every single in the user flow.
Manisha is a highly experienced designer and leader that brings wit, grit, and determination to every project that she works on and leads. I had the privilege of having Manisha as my manager from 2018-2020.
Throughout the time that I collaborated with Manisha I instantly became inspired by her expertise, her passion for user-centered design, and her strong work ethic. She is an excellent collaborator, presenter, and she builds strong relationships with the PM and Engineering teams.
As a manager and leader, she empowers everyone on the team to share their perspective and makes us all feel heard and valued. She dedicates time out of each day to have design office hours where she spends time with her team to review designs and brainstorm. The dedication that she shows is truly invaluable. She helps everyone on the team thrive and grow in their positions by providing insightful feedback on our designs and gives us opportunities to empower us to grow in our career.
Manisha is dedicated to producing simple and intuitive user experiences as well as bolstering our team culture. Among the many impactful events she has done, Manisha organized an art gallery for our Customer Experience organization to showcase our talents. She goes the extra mile to make everyone feel appreciated, seen, and heard. She is a part of our Women Empowered at Veritas Employee Resource Group and she did a TechTalk where she shared experiences in her career and her passion for UX. To have Manisha in your organization, you are very lucky! She is an extremely hard worker, a leader, and she inspires everyone around her.
Melanie Greene, Senior Product Marketing Specialist at Veritas