My design group consists of four designers working across different product teams, working on multiple product streams simultaneously. In a scale-up, each product team focused individually on their team goals. In this situation, designers have limited time to communicate and collaborate with each other, which leads to the following challenges for designers.

• Finding it difficult to connect and discuss their work at a convenient time.
• A lack of awareness of each other's work, preventing them from leveraging each other's learning.
• A lack of time resulting in fragmentation in common design operations such as research, product journey, and Figma organization.
• Insufficient time for designers to provide constructive feedback on each other's work.

These three tactical initiatives helped me establish a continuous cross pollination between my design groups and break these silos. 

#1 Creating one Figma file for all design critiques
The designers place their work into this file when they need help or critiques. Over time, this has become a space where designers often share their work in progress. We've started to see that it has become quite common for them to collaborate closely on the designs in this file. Our design group has moved from struggling to set up time together to reviewing each other's designs on a regular basis. Collaboration is asynchronous, and no immediate response is required if an urgent need is not stated. 

#2 Holding in-person design forums every month or every two months 
I started this with a very low threshold where designers had one day in a month to sit and work in the same space. If possible, they could talk or present something relevant at one time. This initiative was called Nebula. Today, Nebula meets regularly to discuss topics and actions. Now we often say, "We should call this a Nebula.". Now for upcoming Nebulas, we suggest topics and actions. This day is to talk and get things done together as much as possible. We have already made presentations for design events, set up proper Figma organization, created common research templates in Notion, and presented our project and methods within our team during the Nebula days. 

#3 Idea Space: Preserving and exhibiting creative explorations 
Designers often create a lot ideas which never go into implementation. They remain in different files and eventually be forgotten. In the "idea space" (placeholder name :)), designers can add mockups and screenshots without excessive documentation. I'd like to see if we can make this a repository that people in the organization can use to bring back ideas or collaborate with authors. It's a new initiative, and I'm still shaping it. I'll update as I see the results.