Philosophy & Studio Practice
1. The team as the main pillar
The team is the true foundation of mendesaltaren. Since the beginning we were very aware that this group of people would make us grow and evolve as a company. And for the individuals to function as a team we rely on generosity and honesty as fundamental values.
A large part of the team is made up of product designers, but as we have grown we have brought in other profiles to reinforce the management of the company. We look for diversity, both in terms of skills and people, which makes us grow as a studio.
How we are organized
As a digital product studio, the design team takes a central place in our structure. We organize the team by squads, based on the team of teams approach. Each squad is composed of a Lead and two to three designers with different levels of experience. Under this model, designers work together to combine knowledge, generate synergies and connect the team, always under the leadership.
A high-performance team
Just as an elite athlete needs the best conditions to develop their full potential and achieve their goals, at mendesaltaren we seek to provide the best conditions for our employees so they can succeed and develop in their careers. One of the studio's priorities is to create an ecosystem that facilitates the growth of people, providing the necessary tools and processes for their career development.
Group over individual
For us, the team is much more than a group of individuals working together: it is an interconnected network of people who, by collaborating and sharing their talents, achieve the most demanding goals. That's why we look for team players and place great importance on the relationships between people. The ability to unite our diverse skills and experiences enriches us and allows us to transcend our individual limitations.
A Business Strategy
mendesaltaren's differential product is the ability to impact organizations, and that is why we know that the most effective way to grow is to invest in the development of people. To say that the team is at the center of our decisions is not a commercial slogan: the satisfaction of our members influences all our decisions, from how we organize ourselves internally to our business strategy. We firmly believe that having a motivated team, which feels that is growing alongside the company, is the difference between success and failure.
Growing together
In the last few years mendesaltaren has grown a lot and very fast, but we have to say that it has been conscious and measured. As the team continues to grow, new nodes and connections are created in our structure, ensuring that the team remains connected and knowledge is not diluted. This growth has allowed us to incorporate new figures and has given the team new opportunities and challenges to achieve one of our main objectives as a company: to learning continuously.
Development and growth
From the moment a new team member is hired, at mendesaltaren we work on their career and growth plan, seeking to align their objectives with those of the company in order to grow together. We work on this development in an individual and personalized way, and we articulate it through three main practices:
- Mentoring: each team member has a mentor, with whom they meet at least once a month to develop their career plan, give close feedback on short-term progress, adjust medium and long-term objectives, and provide the necessary tools for growth.
- Follow-ups with the core team: in order to ensure that the mentoring information is passed on to the studio's leadership and that it does not lose sight of the growth of the people, the partners, Head of Product Design and Head of People hold internal sessions to review the fit and adoption of the culture, assess performance and motivation, and look for the best fit in the projects based on individual and studio objectives.
- Annual review: once a year, each member of the team meets with one of the firm's partners to review their development and give feedback on the impact of their work on the organization, review compensation and align it with their skills and experience.
These career plans are designed with each person seeking synergies between their interests and those of the studio. This allows us to create different paths within the studio, let people know how they can progress and grow, visibilize their work and talk about what is expected. Additionally, we then can make all the salary ranges visible internally and have traceability of the team's development.
2. Work Principles
At mendesaltaren we rely on 5 working principles that define how we work within the organization and how we generate impact outside of it. These principles are rigor, rebelliousness, generosity, essentialism and honesty, and they are our guide for decision making: if an action goes against any of these principles, it means that it does not serve us and is discarded; but if it meets all 5, we know that we are on the right path.
If we talk about rigor, we talk about being responsible, seeking efficiency in processes and always keeping the customer in mind. If we talk about rebellion, we talk about never taking anything for granted and questioning tasks before executing them. If we talk about generosity, we talk about thinking of the group before the individual and helping others. If we talk about essentialism, we talk about focusing on what is important and cutting through the noise. And if we talk about honesty, we talk about being transparent and sincere at all times.
Psychological security and safe environments
At mendesaltaren we believe that failure is an opportunity to grow and improve as individuals. For this, it is essential to create and maintain safe spaces where people are confident to express their opinions and make mistakes without any fear. That is why we consider feedback, given in an empathetic, open, direct, actionable and prompt way. This is such an essential component of our culture. Giving and receiving constructive feedback allows us to understand our strengths and areas for improvement and enables us to improve as professionals and as a company.
Our values
Beyond the 5 working principles, as a team we share other sets of beliefs that shape how we approach solutions together.
- Organization: Good organization reduces uncertainty, minimizes distractions and puts the focus on what is really important.
- Client focus: the client's needs and aspirations must be present in every decision made by each member of the team.
- Product mindset: we were born as digital product designers, and we continue to apply this way of thinking when faced with decision making.
- Culture of excellence: we not only seek to solve our clients' problems, but to do so with the highest quality results.
- Empathy: we approach projects from this point of view of understanding. We need to know and understand the context and needs before proposing anything.
- Remote work: we strive to develop and improve processes that ensure effective communication in an asynchronous and contextual manner.
- Up to date documentation: oral communication helps those present; written communication helps the whole team. That's why we make every effort to ensure that documentation is clear and up to date.
3. A designer in the studio
“Design is the process of going from an existing condition to a preferred one. Observe that there’s no relationship to art.” Milton Glaser
Of the 50 people that make up the mendesaltaren team, 40 of us are designers; design is an intrinsic part of our culture. And although due to the enormous evolution and specialization that the discipline has undergone in recent decades it is increasingly difficult to be 360 designers, we aspire to that ideal.
We believe that design is one and continuous, and that a good designer must combine skills from different areas of knowledge: analysis and definition, client management, design and general culture, spoken and written communication... We seek inspiration in other disciplines, such as architecture, photography, fashion, advertising and music of the last 60 years, and in figures such as Dieter Rams, Ray and Charles Eames, Mies van der Rohe, Rem Koolhaas, Massimo Vignelli or Otl Aicher, among many others. We want to build ourselves as a team from this multifaceted vision and the pride of belonging to this tradition of professionals.
We are very fortunate that our profession requires and feeds a curiosity that is endless. Our discipline requires a deep knowledge of the historical, artistic and technological context to design products adapted to each moment, and that is why a good designer lives immersed in the zeitgeist. Any knowledge, from design hermeneutics to pop culture, can be useful if we know how to choose the right moment to use it. As mendesaltaren designers, we must have a critical capacity towards our work, but also towards what we listen to and what we read, in order to know ourselves and what is happening around us better.