How garden3D works
“What is garden3D?” “Is it Sanctuary?” “There are two design studios?”
These are questions we hear a lot. We know it can be confusing!
Let’s break it down.
Three studios, one support team
garden3D is comprised of three studios — XXIX, Manhattan Hydraulics, and Sanctuary Computer — and one Support Team.
While our team members span multiple disciplines, each studio/team has a specific practice.
- XXIX focuses on brand and identity design.
- Manhattan Hydraulics focuses on software design.
- Sanctuary Computer focuses on software development.
- Support Team focuses on the health of our organization.
We strive to be highly aligned yet loosely coupled. Good software tends to be cohesive, yet low on dependencies. The same is true for good organizations. Our studios are tightly aligned around building high-quality products, websites, and digital experiences. Yet each studio and project team operates autonomously.
This way we can move more quickly and, ultimately, learn more quickly.
Support Team & Studio Co-Ordinators scope the work
Each studio has at least one Studio Co-Ordinator.
- XXIX’s Studio Co-Ordinator is currently Jacob Heftmann and Jake Hobart.
- Sanctuary’s Studio Co-Ordinator is currently Hugh Francis.
- Hydraulics’s Studio Co-Ordinator is currently Tim Casasola.
Studio Co-Ordinators work with the Support Team to scope incoming client work. Our clients come to us from each studio’s various network.
When a project signs, we get to work!
Project Teams do the work
Now let’s say you’re a client of ours. You’d work directly with a Project Team: a dedicated group working on your project.
Project Teams by default have the following roles:
- Air Traffic Controller (ATC) — the individual that is your main point of contact. They track progress, communicate concerns/challenges that require your input, and unblock the work.
- Individual Contributor (IC) — the team member(s) move your project forward! You may have more than one IC on your project, depending on its scope.
Sometimes, your project team will only come from one studio. For example: if you ask us to build a website and your designs are done, your project team needs only developers!
However, if you want us to build a website/app/experience that has yet to be designed, your project team would be comprise of members from all three studios.
Our rules of thumb are:
- If your project needs design work, at least one member from XXIX or Manhattan Hydraulics would be on your Project Team.
- If a project requires development, at least one member from Sanctuary Computer would be be on your Project Team.
Our ATCs are makers
For projects that require both design and development,
- Our ATC for the design phase is a designer
- Our ATC for the development phase is a developer
We find it beneficial to the project if the ATC has a background in strategy, design, or development as opposed to project management. This way, if you’re the client, you’re interacting with someone who has expertise related to the work at hand.
And the team can make faster decisions if the ATC is also a strategist, designer, or developer.
garden3d is also the umbrella for a number of different efforts.
- Index — our mixed-use, peer-to-peer community center
- Seaborne — our sustainability consulting practice
- In-House (in progress) — our effort to build and sell premium Shopify applications and themes
An ongoing work in progress
To recap, we have Project Teams, Studios, and garden3D. Lets think about the “jobs” for each:
- Project Teams get the work done!
- XXIX designs brand for both physical and digital products.
- Manhattan Hydraulics does product design for complex software projects.
- Sanctuary Computer focuses on software development.
- The Support Team focuses on the health of our organization.
- And garden3D communicates the vision, wins the work we want, and improves the quality of our workplace.
Of course, this structure is iterative. We believe good organizational structures are dynamic, rather than static. Responsive over rigid. Our structure exists as a framework to realize Garden3D’s vision and strategy. It is designed to adapt when we shift our strategy or encounter new information to help us better realize that vision.
We’ll continue to share what we learn here!
Manhattan Hydraulics is hiring a product design lead!
We’re hiring an experienced product designer to help us mentor our designers, build our way of working, and ship world-class software.
Job description here.
If that’s you, we’d love for your to apply! And if you know someone who’d be a great fit, feel free to share them the job description.
Thank you to Simone Robert for designing the diagrams! Your diagrams are the real star of this essay.
And thank you Elie Andersen for your editing on this post. My writing is clearer because of your eye.