# Asis Panda's Manager Readme

**Head of Design at PayU Credit**

# **This Me**

Hi, I’m Asis. My name phonetically goes by “Aashish” but yes the spelling is still “Asis.” I love tinkering/hacking/building things. At the water cooler you’ll find me talking about cool new tech developments in engg, design or AI. After work you’ll find me tinkering on Raspberry Pi or riding my bike or cooking up a recently watched viral food video. Read more about me and what I’ve been doing in the past here: [https://asis.design](https://asis.design) and [https://old.asis.design](https://old.asis.design).

# **My role**

As the head of design, I’m responsible for all the design outcomes of the company. I’m answerable to myself and others about every experience element and pixel on the products. I intend to deliver world class design solutions for the products along with the team.

The above responsibility is brought through by enabling you and your peers in the team. If anything comes in the way of you doing your best work, you tell me. I’ll be your greatest ally, coach, and cheerleader in this journey.

# **What do I value most?**

In the order mentioned, the following are what I care about the most:

1. Reportee's state of mind **I firmly believe that a healthy, happy, and mentally fit person delivers better work and does so at ease. Your state of mind is not only your job to maintain but also mine. Towards this, I expect you to reach out to me whenever work becomes overbearing or challenging for you.**
2. Growth **I believe growth is crucial to you as an individual contributor. We must be growing tangibly and towards a certain destination that is visible, achievable, and motivating for us individually. If you're not growing then both me and you are doing something wrong. Growth would happen in many areas; it could be you in your career, responsibilities that you have, in the design field, in the design community, etc.**
3. Quality of design output **Given you have a healthy state-of-mind and growing, the output of your design work must be up to the team's standard and consistent. Here consistency is key. Anything affecting this needs to be looked at since your performance is based on this consistency of quality.**
4. Commitments are sacred **I believe nothing is more important than our word. By that, I mean living by and adhering to what we have verbally or in any form committed to another team or person. If we cannot maintain consistency in what we commit to and deliver then it reflects poorly on our abilities.**
5. Design Team Culture **A team with a great culture is highly dependable, values meritocracy encourages constructive criticism, has a strong sense of ownership of these values, and feels like a Creed. Our team's culture shapes the work we deliver, how we think and approach projects, and eventually our career. Our culture needs to be held to a high bar and individually we must look out for any habits that detract our culture and work towards one that promotes good culture.**

# **1-1 Meetings**

We'll have a bi-monthly 1:1, that is, once in two weeks. I want you to drive the 1-1. The 1-1 is a light, casual, comfortable but important call for both you and me where we can get on the same page regarding everything that is important to us in the context of work.

Here's an outline of how we can structure our 1-1 meetings. Although we might not talk about each and every point in all our 1-1 meetings, having this structure will enable us to not miss out on a point that we might have considered as important prior to the meeting:

1. How are you doing? How are you feeling? Any cause of worry?
2. What are your current challenges in your pod?
3. How are we doing with quarterly OKRs that you're responsible for?
4. How do you think our team is doing and where the design field is going?
5. Touch-base on your Career Roadmap
6. Exchange feedback about each other

# **Communication**

This is a critical one to figure out and usually the hardest at any workplace. Here's how I function when it comes to communicating. I try to operate from this position and can often use your help to reinforce it:

"Do not assume you or I already know."

Offload any thought or concern you might have or are planning to save to talk over our 1-1s to an instant message over Slack. The sooner and unfiltered your thoughts are to me, the better. Sometimes, we'd need and expect structure and well thought out decisions but the sooner you and I get on the same page about an issue, the faster I can help you or arrange for help to put you at ease with the same.

Let's speak with context. Often if we're trying to talk about a certain point it's likely that we were not in the same meeting which had lead to this conversation. Hence, laying out the context helps both of us to get on the same page faster and get resolving the issue at hand.

# **Time**

My calendar will always have the most up to date availability. I strongly recommend you send across a calendar invite and block some time if you want to have an ad-hoc conversation. My calendar takes precedence over commitments made over Slack messages.

I switch-off after work hours and expect the same of you. I'll not reach out to you post-work hours unless there is a big crisis.

# **Personality quirks**

**Hopeful**  - I'm generally very hopeful about things. I believe in the power of good and intention, and that given enough time and motivation we can move mountains.

**Context Switching**  - I need a bit longer time to context switch, usually happens when moving from one meeting to another. I usually need about 5-10 minutes to re-align and focus on the new discussion or meeting.

**Humour**  - I forget to express through humour at work. However, who doesn't like a good laugh, hence, if you can spot this feel free to humour me and share a joke. Maybe I'll surprise you with one of mine.

**Gifts**  - I love to send things to the people I care about. Please allow me to send small things from time to time. This is my personal expression of thanks or wellbeing. I do not expect the same of you, it's just my thing and like it that way.

# **Where to focus on your first 90 days?**

The _ **first 90 days** _ are critical for any new joiner. It is so because one can leverage "being new" to the organisation to learn a lot, form relationships, and get to the rhythm of their co-workers. After the first 90 days, one is perceived as not being a new employee anymore and hence the expectations from their role start stacking up.

The most important job during your first 90 days is to form relationships across the company. A company at the end of the day is people, teams are people, and dependencies are also often on people. The more people with whom we form dependable relationships we'll be working with directly and going forward indirectly the better.

The _ **second** _ most important job for you on during your first 90 days is to learn about the platform and tools you'll be working on and with. Since post 90 days the expectation from you would be to deliver working with those same platforms and tools like your peers, the 90 days lead time provides for that opportunity.

Lastly, the _ **third** _ most important point is to work with me to develop your desired "Growth Roadmap." A growth roadmap is specific to you and lays out all the steps that you need to take and goals to achieve for you to grow into the next step of your career. Towards this, you need to spend time with yourself and asking and determining where you want to be 1-2 years from now in your career.