DESIGN THINKING FOR BUILDING EQUITABLE TEAMS ❤ 

Hi, I’m Steven! FOUNDER & PRESIDENT 

QTBIPOC Design Empowering LGBTQ+ designers of color with free & accessible education, mentorship, and networking opportunities. 

My Journey 

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Stop working so hard. LOL LESSON 1 Sustainability and rest are core components of activism and change. 

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Your journey and discovery of identity is the key towards your individual activism. LESSON 2 

Creating Equitable Design Teams 

Diversity Inclusion ≠ Equity ≠ 

Diversity Inclusion Equity 

McKinsey (2020): Companies in the top quartile for both gender and ethnic diversity are 12 percent more likely to outperform all other companies in the data set. Diverse teams perform better 

International Labour Organization (2019): - 59.1% increase in creativity, innovation, and openness. - 37.9% better assessment of consumer interest and demand. Inclusive cultures led to increased creativity 

Junior Associate Senior Manager Director / VP C-Suite Board Intention: “We want to hire more diverse teams” Diversity Diversity Diversity Diversity Diversity Diversity Diversity Microaggressions Unequal pay No voice No other representation 
 (tokenization) No promotion No future D/E/I starts with improving our existing culture 

No matter the DEI quota or intent, inequitable culture leads to poor retention. LESSON 3 Our focus should first address systemic cultural patterns. 

Designer “Me” Top-down Community “Us” Bottom-up How are we understanding each other? How are we iterating on solutions together? How are we reinforcing practices together? 1 2 3 4 

Reinforce 4 Iterate 3 Understand 2 Ground 1 Creating an equitable team 

1. Center in community-first approach Reinforce 4 Iterate 3 Understand 2 Ground 1 1. 1:1 meetings to assess individual needs 
 How have people shown up for you in the past? How have people not shown up for you in the past? 2. Identify gaps within teams 
 Cultural, racial, economic, cognitive, physical, or even aesthetic di ff erences 3. Establish guiding principles & goals 
 Codify mission statement documentation with regular reminders / check-ins to evaluate against goals 

2. Create safe spaces for dialogue Reinforce 4 Iterate 3 Understand 2 Ground 1 1. Establish safe spaces 
 Set the intention with words & language 2. Seek to understand 
 Shi ft narrative to understand others before understanding the work 3. Create emptiness 
 Open container physically/digitally/ mentally for feedback and thoughts with silence, time, and space; slowing down 4. Invite healthy banter & braveness 
 Ask questions, assign devil’s advocate 

3. Build solutions that extend Reinforce 4 Iterate 3 Understand 2 Ground 1 1. Honor the past 
 Avoid tearing down to create; build upon insights and lessons from previous framework; seek to understand 2. Build on top 
 Plus-up the work of others instead of creating a separate track; unite e ff orts 3. Aim for consistency 
 Regular e ff ort (even smallest amount) creates a larger movement 

4. Reward with positive encouragement Reinforce 4 Iterate 3 Understand 2 Ground 1 1. Leverage positive feedback 
 Shi ft away from immediate short-term wins to establishing long-term impact 2. Amplify & echo actions 
 A ff irm wanted/positive behaviors 3. Lead by example 
 Exemplify the behaviors you want to see more of and lead by example; show not tell 

Increasing pipeline of diverse candidates 1. Build long-term relationships with local community & orgs 
 Connect with marginalized communities and their leaders, engage with projects, questions, consulting, or un-tethered support, “how can I support you?” 2. Co-create with educational institutions 
 Universities, bootcamps, and non-profits run initiatives to provide education to marginalized communities, o ft en lacking funds and visibility to their projects 3. Connect with recruiters focused on recruitment & placement of diverse talent 
 Look for more than just buzzwords, diverse placement into the right environments 

Creating equity and dismantling the system of inequity is a lifelong process. LESSON 4 If we all took small deliberate actions today, tomorrow would be a whole new world. 

Why should I care? 

Our job is to design. Not make art. Design is about solving problems for myriad of communities. 

30 Shi ft toward community-centered design practices Creative Reaction Lab creativereactionlab.com National Equity Project nationalequityproject.org 
 Project Inkblot projectinkblot.com 

“Empathy is a pretty word for exclusion. I’ve seen all-male all-white teams taking ‘empathy workshops’ to see how women think. If you want to know how women would use something you’re designing, get a woman on your design team. They’re not extinct. We don’t need to study them. We can hire them!” 
 - Mike Monteiro, Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It 

To design for our communities, we must design with and include our communities within the process. LESSON 5 

DEI is not a resource issue, nor is it for an individual or ERG to solve for an entire company. 

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DEI is a group e ff ort that requires consistent actions from every one of us. LESSON 6 Our liberation is intertwined - we cannot be liberated without one another. 

To exist in today’s world, means to live & experience both privilege and inequity that has been passed down upon us 

In the system of inequity, we are all losing. LESSON 7 

“Don’t show up for me because you want to protect me, or you want to help me… I would rephrase your question to be, ‘Can you help me get free?’ not, ‘Can you help me help you.’” 
 - Alok Vaid-Menon (@alokvmenon) x Man Enough Podcast 

Am I ready to design? Am I ready to be liberated? Am I ready to diversify my team? 

Thank you UX Australia! FOUNDER & PRESIDENT URL: QTBIPOC.DESIGN COME JOIN US OR BE A PARTNER! TWITTER: @WAKUU LINKEDIN: @STEVENWAKABAYASHI INSTAGRAM: @STEVENWAKABAYASHI