As a Lead, Staff, or Principal designers part of our role is to raise the level of craft, quality, and execution across teams. Carving out a weekly, fortnightly, or quarterly space to level up is critical and The Design Dojo is a fantastic approach I was introduced to at Pivotal Labs where we had just that. These can range from how-to demos, to in-depth case studies, to more casual "fireside" chats about the industry or how the team executes design.

Read below about how to get setup with an ongoing Design Dojo in your org, or skip directly to the Figma template.

What is this?



This is a simple critique format that foregoes lengthy presentations and jumps right into getting feedback on any problem or scenario you are working on.





Why use a this?



Leverage the collective knowledge of your design team to improve design quality, hammer out details and edge cases, align your work to the design system, build your team’s awareness of other projects that are in-flight.





When should this be used?



I recommend once a week on Thursday mornings. You’ll have the week to work, then a check-in on Thursday before making updates on Friday.





Required materials:

Any concepts or flows and this Figma file. How many concepts and flows is up to the designer, but it’s wise to keep this manageable if you have several presenters.





What is the end result?

Lots of sticky notes for updates, and hopefully a better design as a result of the critique.