Kristina Williams, Director of Design Technology

Interview Description

The Design Technology team at Lionakis is confronted with the challenge of keeping up with the ever changing and diverse needs of a growing firm with four offices, six rapidly evolving market-based studios, and a continuously changing technology landscape. As a response to this challenge, Lionakis introduced the Design Technology Support Specialist role nine years ago. DTS Specialists are technologically-advanced, billable staff embedded on projects across the firm. DTS Specialists help introduce new technologies and workflows to the project teams, serving as embedded change agents who provide a local touch to continuous change efforts.

In this Deep Dive, Kristina shared the nuts and bolts of the DTSS program and talked about the essential role DTS Specialists play in managing change at Lionakis.

Speaker Bio

As Director of Design Technology at Lionakis, Kristina Williams' aim is to incorporate technology in a way that makes staff feel comfort with - and excitement for - the rapidly changing applications that help her firm deliver projects and communicate design. She works closely with all levels of the firm to strategically drive the implementation of current technologies, while also exploring emerging technologies for future use. In her role, she wears many hats, including delivering training, researching new tools, and advocating for professional development and knowledge management.

Interview Summary

01:14 Embedded Change Agents: Design Technology at Lionakis
02:10 Introduction to Lionakis
03:16 Design Technology 101
04:08 Design Boot Camp
07:35 DTSS to Production User Ratio
08:12 Hours Invested per DTSS

09:15 The Boot Camp Effect
09:32 Curriculum
09:45 Cross-Market Small Group Format
10:45 Deep Dive into Why's
11:17 Camaraderie
12:05 Retention and Recaps
12:35 Team Building
12:50 Boot Camp Effect Summary

13:18 Change Agents Take Shape
14:15 Characteristics of DTSS
15:33 Change Agent Mentality
15:52 #DTea Time Microtraining
16:45 Technical Support & Training
17:24 Production Standards
18:33 Specialty Role: Content Champion
19:24 Other Specialty Roles

19:45 2020 Boot Camp
19:55 Shifting to Virtual

21:10 How Did We Get Here?
21:22 Created Out of a Need: Revit Adoption
21:53 Initial Requirements
22:10 Original Training Timeline
22:35 Getting Buy-In
24:05 Adapting Training Timeline
26:50 Selecting Candidates: Timing, Traits, Interest, Skills
30:44 Part of the Culture

31:46 What's Next?
32:33 DTSS Specialties
32:55 Career Progression
33:20 Metrics & ROI
33:45 Performance Plans

Q+A
34:48 Where do you go to learn about Design Technology? Where do you go for conferences?
36:48 Are there any full time staff members in your DT group?
38:12 Is there also separate full time IT staff?
38:52 Are all disciplines learning the same content to become DTSS?
40:38 Is there any non-technical training in the Boot Camp (eg soft skills)?
42:10 Knowing what you know now, how would you begin a program differently?
43:55 What was your “favorite mistake”?
46:10 How do you take these design lessons over to the marketing/client services side?
49:52 How did you persuade the old timers who were reluctant?
51:15 Is this part of the framework for overall developmental initiatives? Is there a broader program that includes role descriptions, KPI’s, and performance plans?
53:30 For marketing, are you finding that a firmwide professional development program is feeding back into innovation?

Read the Collaborative Notes

Members of our team and the KA Connect community took collaborative notes during this Deep Dive using Google Docs. Collaborative note-taking helped us summarize key takeaways, collect related links, and will provide us with a quick reference when we return to this topic in the future. We've found the notes quite useful so far and hope you will as well.

Read Notes