What are embedded Teams?
Blink embedded teams consist of one or more experienced UX practitioners who are hired to work on-site at your organization to support your product work and development efforts. Embedded teams will add horsepower to your company in a fraction of the time it would take to recruit a traditional project team. Engagements can range in duration from just a few months to several years.
A Blink embedded team can consist of one practitioner or a combination of experts, including a user researcher, interaction and visual designer, and a developer or software engineer. These practitioners can add a variety of expertise to your team, such as experience with website development, design systems, mobile application development, IoT, service design, and product design. Although embedded teams can assist with a variety of projects, we traditionally recommend hiring a team with a distinct specialty — such as web applications or product development — to support a larger project or team.
Our embedded teams often collaborate with client roles throughout development iterations. These roles can include product managers, engineers, and the marketing team. Our teams have experience supporting large-scale, customer-facing projects and will remain flexible to meet your needs and expectations as they evolve.
Why do you need an embedded team?
Adding an embedded team to your organization offers many benefits. Working with a Blink embedded team or employee will:
Add valuable expertise to your product team in a cost-effective way
Provide immediate support for time-sensitive projects
Contribute a fresh perspective to your project team
Eliminate your need for extensive recruiting and onboarding
Tips for embedding team members
After over 20 years of embedding employees into organizations, we have learned a few key lessons from the process. Here are some tips for setting your embedded employees up for success.
Hire the right people
Our recruiters will work with you to identify the key skills and competencies needed for each position on your embedded team. Our network stretches far beyond LinkedIn to identify potential candidates for each role. During the hiring process, we set clear expectations regarding the assignment scope, collaboration, and duration, and we ensure each candidate understands the role’s opportunities and challenges from a UX perspective.
Create structure
Giving your embedded product team members comprehensible guidelines will ensure that they have a clear direction for their work. In most cases, this will include defining the intended outcome of their time with your company.
Provide the necessary tools and access
UX professionals need to have the right tools during the design process. Blink’s embedded teams receive the necessary hardware and software to do their jobs without waiting on corporate processes. Through Blink, embedded employees will have access to programs such as Adobe Suite, Figma, Slack, and Microsoft Teams. Additionally, our onboarding and IT teams will work with you to provide the necessary network access for embedded team members working on- or off-site.
Prioritize a positive work culture
Giving team members a sense of purpose and belonging is key to having a happy and productive team. With a clear mission, embedded employees are more likely to feel productive and engaged in their work. To further support the embedded team, we will work with you to pair embedded employees with mentors in your company to create a culture of support.
How can Blink help?
Blink’s 20 years of experience in the UX field provides us with a unique advantage when helping our clients scale their efforts quickly. We guide our clients to follow best practices and encourage them to stay in close contact with our team to ensure success over time.
