Insights from the RGD's Time Tracking and Other Metrics Webinar for In-House Designers

04/06/21

On May 12, the RGD hosted a webinar, sponsored by FunctionFox, on the importance of time-tracking and metrics collection for organizations and how it helps their design teams behind the scenes.

Moderated by Kathleen Scott RGD and presented by Andrew Flaro, Senior Account Manager at FunctionFox; Wendy Millard RGD, Director of Design Services at Empire Life and Christopher James Moorehead RGD, P Eng, Head of Design at CaseWare International Inc., below we share highlights from the webinar:

"In this time of remote work, it's never been more important to be transparent with what the team is working on and to track time. Having a transparent view of where time is being spent allows you to better manage and lead your team." — Wendy Millard RGD

"Tracking design metrics will help you streamline your workflow and improve efficiencies. These are good for you, as well as for the people who are paying your salaries." — Christopher James Moorehead RGD, P Eng

"The goal of time tracking should be to make your creative team better. Don't do it to micromanage people, do it to make your team more efficient and more valuable to your organization." — Andrew Flaro

"Tracking time is the foundation for all the metrics that we can generate — we have to measure what is going on with the work in order to have insight, to see the value your team brings to the table." — Wendy Millard RGD

"Tracking time can give you a better sense of the available resources and workload. Being able to understand how many actual design hours you have in a week can be really, really important." — Andrew Flaro

"If your team is not tracking time yet, start here: create a spread sheet that can be seen by all of you and start with your plans. For each project, write an estimate time a project will take and then have your designers add in the actual time it took." — Wendy Millard RGD

"The important thing is when you're choosing your design metrics they have to be metrics that matter to your business. This is something you essentially negotiate with the other partners of the organization or your superiors and decide what are the things that are going to matter to them." — Christopher James Moorehead RGD, P Eng

"Never be afraid to put a dollar value to the work that you're doing because people in the organization will see that and understand a little bit better why you're important." — Andrew Flaro

"Ensure the metrics can be understood, are easily defended and viewed as logical, credible." — Christopher James Moorehead RGD, P Eng

"It takes time to build up the data; it takes time to build good time tracking habits" — Andrew Flaro

Watch a clip from the Webinar: