Shaping culture, process, and growth at Thriva’s Design & Research team
Levelling the team, setting direction and building processes that improved motivation, quality and outcomes. 2022.
Thriva
B2C/B2B Series A healthtech scaleup, London
My role
Design manager
Team
Up to 7 designers / user researchers
Diagnosing challenges
Thriva’s CRD team was in flux — I started by assessing team health
When I joined Thriva, the CRD (Content, Research & Design) team was in flux. Designers were leaving, and those who remained felt unsettled.
As the company scaled, it was clear the design organisation needed stronger structure and leadership.
One of my first steps was to host a team health check — a structured way to understand how people felt across key areas and surface challenges early. It not only provided a benchmark for improvement but created a safe space for open conversation. It helped me understand the problems the team was facing, both collectively and individually.
individual consultations
Listening to the team
I spent a lot of one-to-one time with each of my reports — building trust and understanding their goals, experiences and frustrations.
I also ran an exit interview with a designer who’d handed in their notice. Among several themes, one stood out: a lack of clarity around progression.
Progression framework
Setting expectations for levels and progression
It was becoming clear that unclear levelling and the absence of a progression framework were harming the team.
Designers felt mis-levelled, and morale was slipping. It’s vital that people feel their roles are properly recognised and valued.
With input from the whole team, and after researching approaches in other design orgs, I created a progression framework suitable for Thriva's CRD team.
I then spent a lot of time socialising it and weaving it in to our development conversations and 1:1s.
Alongside this work, I led a difficult performance process for one designer, which ultimately led them to moving on to a more suitable role. I found it very challenging — but it was the right outcome both for the individual and the team, and helped re-establish clarity and trust.
PROMOTION
From clearer expectations to a well-earned promotion
With clearer expectations across the team, it became easier to tell the story of what “senior” looked like — and to craft development goals that supported individual growth.
One of those individuals was Andrea, a mid-level content designer. Together, we co-created a pathway to help her progress to senior level. I spent a lot of time supporting her — through coaching, feedback and more tactical guidance.
Early on, we did some role plotting to clarify how she wanted her role to evolve and where she wanted to stretch.
One of my proudest and most joyful moments as a manager was giving Andrea her well-deserved promotion.
Team enablement
Enabling transparency and a healthy crit culture
One area for improvement we identified was reducing silos between designers. We wanted to work more transparently, so we could better support each other. The problem was never more starkly exposed as when two designers were unknowingly working on the same problem.
A new designer, Nick, helped gather feedback on how we might address this without adding unnecessary process. Based on those insights, I created a Trello board — a simple, lightweight way to make work visible across the team. We coupled it with a weekly check-in ritual.
(I wrote about this in more detail in my blog post, Less faff, more capybaras: how we keep our work visible.)
Around the same time, I helped establish a healthy design crit culture — something I see as foundational to any well-performing design team. I encouraged designers to share work early, often, and openly — and led by example. Good crits help us support each other and level up, and keep things fun and energising!
Direction
Setting direction and driving outcomes
With new hires in place, clearer expectations, and more transparent ways of working, the team now had a strong foundation for impact.
That was particularly evident in Q1 2023, when all our designers came together across product teams to deliver a major new subscription service.
I co-led the initiative alongside leads from Product, Engineering and Clinical. My focus was ensuring designers worked with clarity and visibility — creating shared understanding through workshops, defining guardrails, and maintaining alignment as we moved toward launch.
The cross-functional collaboration paid off: under significant time pressures, the project launched on time in early Q2.
Outcomes
Growth, stability and renewed motivation
– We hired three exceptional designers — Emma, Storm and Nick — who brought new energy and capability to the team.
– There was zero staff turnover.
– Andrea was promoted to Senior Content Designer.
– Team motivation, transparency and alignment all improved significantly.
Feedback from my reports reflected that change — both in how supported they felt and in their confidence as a team
These outcomes were the clearest signal that the foundations we’d built — around trust, clarity and growth — were working.
Reflections
Reflections
I overthought the progression framework — it was impactful and effective, but, looking back, I feel I could have achieved the same thing faster. (Or perhaps I'm overthinking that now, knowing how quickly the same thing could be achieved today with AI.)
Managing the designer out of the business taught me a valuable lesson — that sometimes difficult decisions that feel disruptive in the moment can lead to better outcomes for everyone.