How Klaviyo's design team scaled onboarding during hyper growth
A template for design managers or designers to get up to speed quickly in any new role.
👋 Hey, Mat Budelman here. I'm excited to share the first of many ⭐️ Superstar Guest Posts ⭐️.
This week, , Product Design & Design Ops Lead at Klaviyo, walks us through her Ramp-up Guide. It’s a template she developed while helping new designers find success quickly during Klayvio's rapid growth and hiring phase. It’s like self-driving for onboarding. A helpful template not only for managers, but also designers.
Julie's work and her adaptability in switching roles from Product Design to Design Manager and then to Design-Ops helped Klayvio scale all the way to IPO in May 2023 at a $9.2 billion valuation.
Julie is not just a friend, she is also an empathetic, talented, and driven product designer. I’m excited to have her as a guest, and I hope you enjoy her story as much as I have.
🙇♂️
About three years ago, I found myself at the helm of Klaviyo’s design team. Navigating leadership changes, and tasked with both hiring and onboarding a new wave of team members, I felt like a pilot assembling a plane mid-flight. With limited experience and guidance, I was piecing together the puzzle of hiring and onboarding, all in the hope that what I was building mid-air would be sufficient to set my team up for success.
These years were a period marked by the constant pursuit of refining our onboarding process and what has evolved is a guide that has proven invaluable to managers of welcoming new team members onto their teams.
Onboarding people during hyper growth
In the early days, when our team was a handful of individuals and our growth rate was gradual, managing onboarding was relatively straightforward.The time spent tailoring onboarding to each new person worked fine. However, as our hiring rate doubled, I began to notice the need for a scalable onboarding strategy. I found myself and my colleagues repeating the same tasks for each new team member, making the need for a better process clear.
Typically after completing the very structured Klaviyo and design team onboarding, which is a few weeks in total, employees were placed onto a team and left to figure things out on their own. This contrast was brought up time and again. And given the unique dynamics of each team and manager, some people received sufficient context on their projects, while others did not. It wasn't entirely the manager's fault, but there was room for improvement. We not only dedicated time to revamping our onboarding program (stay tuned for a blog post on this!), but we also recognized a significant need for additional guidance once a new team member actually joined a team.
Onboarding at scale
Enter the role ramp-up guide—a scalable, and proactive approach to onboarding any new team member. The guide consists of an organized overview and set of checklists, essentially serving as your team's personalized toolkit.
Managers, this guide is designed for you to customize and adapt to the unique needs of each team. It can be presented to your new team members as a dynamic tool during their onboarding journey and as they integrate into their team. Within the realm of product design, collaborating with engineering and product partners, Its purpose is to ensure that team members, whether newcomers or undergoing internal shifts, hit the ground running and are set up for success. It's important to note that this guide doesn't replace your company or design team's onboarding experience; instead, it complements it, providing that extra boost to set everyone up for success in their new roles.
Three skills to onboard effectively
Before we jump into the ramp up template, let me share three core skills that I always keep in the back of my mind, not just for my own growth but to help every team member cultivate healthy and robust relationships with their colleagues and partners.
Be an active listener
I realized the power of being an active listener. Communication is more than just hearing words—it's a two-way street. Being an active listener means giving your full attention, minimizing distractions, and making eye contact to show that you're fully present and value what the other person has to say. This one is the hardest of the three and takes a lot of practice and self awareness!
Be curious
Embracing curiosity is to have an active and genuine interest in understanding and learning more about who you are speaking with. You can seek to understand by asking thoughtful and open-ended questions, being open to hearing different perspectives, and being willing to learn from others’ point of view. Leave the ego at the door.
Communicate clearly
Clear communication is a cornerstone for building connections. Whether spoken or written, tailoring your communication to your audience is key. When meeting someone for the first time, provide enough context to help them grasp the background and relevance of the conversation. Be concise in your writing and speaking, use simple language, and avoid unnecessary details.
Building trust through communication is a journey that takes time and continuous effort. It's about consistency and intentional actions, making sure your interactions contribute to a foundation of trust that strengthens over time. So, let's dive into the guide, keeping these principles in mind as we embark on this journey together.
How to use the ramp up guide template
Let's dig into the template—it's your personalized playbook with two parts: the overview and the checklists. Just a quick reminder, you are the author beyond this guide and you know what's best for your newest team member. Oh, and here's the deal—it's not a one-hit wonder. This guide sets the expectation that your employee will be rocking these tasks regularly to crush their role!
Overview
This section is straightforward. It lists the mission, team members, and those crucial docs and links you don’t want your employee to lose track of and helps them navigate the team dynamics.
Checklists
Understanding your customer
Delve into the intricacies of your user base. A deep dive into competitors, industry trends, and target customers is crucial for designers. This involves three fundamental components:
Take a good look at what your competitors are up to.
Listen in or join sales and support calls to learn from real interactions.
Watch how customers use your product in action.
Understanding your product
Before getting started on the work, it is essential to gain a clear understanding of the ongoing projects. Beyond reviewing the roadmap, consider conducting a UX audit to really see what product improvements are needed and to gain a point of view. At Klaviyo, we like to stick to the NNGroup’s “10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design” for identifying design issues.
Get friendly with your team
This part is all about building effective relationships with key partners. Since you’ll be spending a lot of time working together, it’s important to understand their expectations for the product and to be aware of any considerations before the work begins. The section includes a set of questions to facilitate a well-rounded understanding and starting point. And remember, this isn’t a one-time thing – it’s an ongoing journey, even after you’ve finished the guide.
Schedule time with your product manager(s)
Schedule time with your engineer(s)
Schedule time with other designers
Schedule time with other team members across the company
Wrapping up
So far, the Klaviyo design team has used this guide to successfully onboard 40 employees onto the design team and the numbers keep growing! Here’s some feedback that we’ve received from recent hires:
“...it definitely gave me a clear checklist of documents to review and people to set up time with”
“Overall, I felt like the guide was super helpful in helping me gain context”.
"It may just be how my brain works, but I found the checklist format in there super helpful. I break down everything into tasks already, so I liked being able to treat everything in the guide as an item to check off (including the 1:1's to meet the team)."
If you're like I once was on a journey of trial and error, feeling uncertain about onboarding a growing team, I hope this guide can boost your confidence and set your team up for success!
That’s all for this week. 🙌
Have you dealt with a similar situation? Got any advice?
Please hit reply, comment, or reach out! I would love to hear about your experience and any templates, resources, or guides you’ve found useful.
Have a great week!
-Mat Budelman