House of Řezáč in 2019

The turn of the year is a time for recap and reflection. Before Christmas we did it together in a team, now I will try it again myself.

2019 was from my point of view House of Řezáč best year ever. We started it with an unconventional 14 days on the island of Madeira — part work and part vacation.

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The product originated in Madeira Audit of the site — the most extensive revision of the content, technical solution and graphics of the site that faithfully reflects the state of your marketing communications.

On Site Audit, I realized the inertia of our business. In the first half of the year practically no one wanted it, in the second half it became our most demanded product and we audited everything from small websites, to e-shops to corporate multi-lingual multi-page presentations.

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At the same time, the website audit was the first House product that we significantly processed. If I were to name my biggest awareness of 2019, it would go something like this: “The boss can't do projects — he has to set up processes — or rather create an environment in which everyone sets up and improves repeatable processes. “ I still have about seven roles in the company, so I also participate in the creation of all projects, but I devote the greatest amount of energy to the processes.

Last year was marked by the standardization of all types of processes — from management, through trade to production and HR. The processes sound boring, corporate, and when we started with them in the second half of 2018, the family had a certain aversion to them. In retrospect, I view processes as the most important change for the better. Without processes, there is no shared know-how and so there is nothing to improve.

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For us, the process means that key activities in the manual are recorded and I can bounce back from them when I'm doing some activity. If I want to do a Design Studio tomorrow, I can go to our manual, read the progress of the workshop, adjust it according to the needs of the project, and then implement it instead of fumbling in vain what I did last time and what actually worked... and revise the manual after the workshop.

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Strategic Mapping

Another significant change was the genus's approach to strategy. We began to use Strategic Mappingin order to have a better idea of the situation of our business and we made The first steps to change the direction of the company. Mapping has made us think about what we do, how we do it and why.

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Based on mapping, we modified the product portfolio and began to move more towards business design (slower) and product/service design (faster). I see strategic mapping as useful and I am not alone — towards the end of the year I facilitated at least one mapping workshop with clients per week.

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In the middle of the year, we introduced 6+1 work cycles. Instead of starting projects on an ongoing basis, we have a year divided into seven-week units, during which it is possible to actually move the project forward (the month is usually too short for us).

6+1 means a block of 6 weeks of work on client projects followed by 1 week of reflection, learning and planning. Maru Kortanova helped us a lot with the implementation (thanks!) , describes the methodology itself Slaughter or It's basecamp.

In September, we launched a new genus website on Webflow. Outwardly, you can hardly recognize anything, but it has accelerated all the editing of the site from three months to minutes or hours.

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During the year, we trained several dozen people in user research in Brno and Prague for training Strategic Research (March 5, 2020 Prague, March 11, 2020 Brno). We also succeeded write scripts for training participantswhich we continuously update and improve.

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Client work

We did dozens of projects last year. For me, the most interesting thing was the collaboration with Konica Minolta on UX design of a Europe-wide customer care portal. It meant onboarding a complicated project, facilitating international workshops, conducting international user research, or advancing the in-house team's training in UX design and web analytics.

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On the project, we ran into the limits of pair design — the collaboration was too extensive for one design pair. Today, 5 designers are working on the project, including myself, an analyst and a project manager.

In 2019, we also cooperated with various parts MUNI, we redesigned marketing communications PKV — number one among energy consultants or designing a new website for a courier service The Messenger.

At the end of the year, we waved away the old offices and relocated a few hundred yards to the new ones. Bigger ones.

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What awaits us in 2020?

Let's start the shaming again. The most prominent handbook in the portfolio is UX Accelerator, a unique three-month program for marketers, designers or product makers who want to improve their website or digital product and gain know-how for its further development.

UX Accelerator allows agency and client participation on a joint project (you get 2x as many consulting hours). Do you have a website, digital product or service? There is nothing to wait for — the early bird price will only be until the end of January, start in March. I will be happy to answer any questions in person in January over coffee.

It's the first run -- that means we're going to try a lot of things and to give participants increased care. UX Accelerator will only be in Brno for now, but we are planning a second run in Prague in the autumn. If you are interested in Prague, sign up for our newsletter, we'll let you know.

We wish you a successful 2020!