Why do so many creative teams fall short despite having talented individuals?

The problem isn't a lack of creativity or experience. It's an imbalance. Skillsets that are too redundant, too narrow, or too random can quietly sabotage even the most experienced teams.

I've experienced this firsthand over more than a decade in design. I started in graphic, UI/UX design, and today I'm a Lead Product Designer at PolyAI, where I manage and mentor other designers. Throughout that journey, one challenge has remained constant: how to build teams where everyone's skills not only shine individually but also complement each other as a whole.

Finding the right mix of deep expertise and broad collaborative flexibility but at the same time enable growth and keep everyone motivated, is both art and science. Too much specialization, and the team becomes siloed. Too much generalization, and execution suffers.

This article shares a practical, experience-based framework for building creative teams using the T-shape framework for evaluating specialists.

I'll offer insights on:

  • What skills are essential at different career stages(Junior, Middle, Senior)
  • How to identify which skills are needed for the team
  • How to keep the team aligned and growing together
  • How to intentionally assemble a team to achieve business goals

This guide will help those who are trying to find a way to make their team not just functional, but exceptional.

Understanding Designer Levels and Skill Evolution

As designers grow in their careers, their skillsets don't just get deeper; they also get broader. But what does that growth actually look like? And how can we map it in a way that helps individuals and teams stay aligned?

Let’s break down how skills evolve across different designer levels, using the T-shaped framework as a practical lens. There are many ways to visualize design capability, e.g. skills matrices, radar charts, ladders, but T-shapes remain one of the most intuitive and widely adopted tools, especially for creative and product teams.

To ground this in reality, let’s use the path of a UI/UX or product designer as the primary example. This isn't just theoretical. it's based on patterns was observed by mentoring designers and watching them progress from junior to mid-level and beyond.

Juniors: Building the Foundation

For junior product/UI/UX designers, the focus is often (and rightly) on developing core individual skills. This is the base of their "T," a strong vertical built on:

  • Mastering the fundamentals of UI and UX craft
  • Gaining confidence in tools, processes, and feedback
  • Learning to deliver consistent, high-quality work
  • Operating partially independently, with a limited collaboration scope

At this stage, collaboration is present, but not central. Juniors typically work within a well-defined brief, with guardrails that allow them to focus on craft without being overwhelmed by complexity.

Their T-shape might look a bit too narrow or built on only one core skill, but it is still early in cross-disciplinary exposure.

Mid-Level Designers: When Company Skills Emerge

As designers grow, something shifts: they begin to think beyond pixels and flows. This is the turning point where company context starts to matter and where the horizontal of the “T” begins to form.

This phase often involves:

  • Understanding how their work impacts business goals
  • Becoming aware of product strategy and team dynamics
  • Navigating collaboration with engineers, PMs, and stakeholders
  • Shifting from being just a strong individual contributor to becoming a reliable team player

It's not that their core skills stop growing, but now, breadth matters. They need to speak the language of the business and build trust across functions. This broader awareness becomes their advantage that supports their future leadership, influence, and growth.

In the picture below, middle designers start getting "Company-based skill". It is a skill that is crucial for a company, as their work, e.g., as a UX designer in the game industry, might require a certain skill in Game Design, or a Product designer at an AI company might need to have skills in Prompt engineering.

Senior and Above: The Company Skills Imperative

As designers step into senior and leadership roles, the game changes. Executional excellence is expected, but it's no longer enough. What sets senior designers apart is their ability to connect the dots between design, business, and team dynamics.

For seniors and above, the T-shape broadens significantly at the top. Designers must:

  • Develop strong business acumen and understand the company strategy
  • Think beyond features to product vision, user outcomes, and long-term value
  • Guide product decisions through design thinking and systems-level insight
  • Mentor and support junior team members, shaping both culture and capability

But here's the tradeoff: as designers grow in influence, their time and energy often shift away from pure craft. Many senior designers end up doubling down on the skills most valued by their organization, e.g., presentation, stakeholder alignment, and strategy, while letting their hands-on capabilities fade.

Sometimes it's intentional. Sometimes it's just survival. But either way, it's a critical pattern to understand and manage.

The more experienced designer has more company-based skills that might be suitable for a specific field in comparison to junior or mid-level designers. 

At higher levels, designers face a complex challenge: how to grow into broader, more strategic roles without losing the sharp edge of their craft. This is where the T-shape can become distorted. Too wide and shallow, or top-heavy without a strong vertical foundation, or too random.

Common pitfalls include:

  • Over-rotating into business or team dynamics and losing touch with design execution
  • Becoming a "meeting-only" designer with little time for hands-on growth
  • Failing to invest in personal learning because company priorities always come first

To stay balanced, senior designers and beyond need to actively protect and nurture their individual skills, even those not currently "useful" to the business. Deepening expertise, exploring new tools, and carving out creative space are not just nice-to-haves but essential to long-term career health and credibility.

A well-balanced T-shape at the senior level isn't just wide. It's an intentional blend of personal mastery and strategic contribution that evolves with both the individual and the organization.

Team Composition

The performance of a creative team hinges on the composition of its individual strengths and collective capabilities. Through the lens of T-shaped skills, it is easier to understand how to create complementary abilities while recognising the unique dynamics different team compositions create.

Homogeneous Teams

What it looks like:
A homogeneous team often feels like a group of peers who share the same background, skill focus (often UI/UX or visual design), and sometimes similar levels of experience. There's a strong sense of alignment where everyone "gets it" without much explanation.

The reality:
These teams are incredibly efficient at executing within their comfort zone. Communication is smooth, collaboration is natural, and there's often an immediate sense of momentum. But over time, ideas can start to feel repetitive, blind spots go unchallenged, and innovation can stagnate.

Personal observations:
What worked was the speed and cohesion. Projects moved quickly, and team morale was high when things stayed within familiar territory. But they might struggle with ambiguity, strategy shifts, or challenges that require different thinking. These types of teams usually don’t have the range to adapt or push into new spaces.

Key lesson:
Homogeneous teams thrive when the work is predictable and well-scoped. But when growth, experimentation, or problem-solving is needed, “sameness” becomes a constraint. 

Heterogeneous Teams

What it looks like:
A heterogeneous team is a mix of skill sets, backgrounds, experience levels, and perspectives. A team might have one designer strong in UX research, another in motion, a junior learning the illustration, and a senior with strong business insight and it is all on the same team.

The reality:
The dynamic is more complex. Misalignments happen. Communication can be messier. But the creative potential is significantly higher. This kind of team can attack a problem from multiple angles and often land somewhere more innovative than any single specialist would have.

Personal observations:
Unfortunately, many teams faced mismatched expectations, uneven contributions, and the need for strong facilitation. But also, it is the perfect place for the breakthroughs, e.g., insights and solutions that only emerged because of that tension. For leaders and managers, this type of team might be a bit of a challenge because it is harder to check the velocity and the predictability of the individual capacity or support due to a bit too diverse skills.

Key lesson:
Diversity in skills and experience requires thoughtful leadership, but it's worth the effort. The key is embracing the messiness and turning it into momentum. Without clear roles and shared goals, a heterogeneous team can drift. But with intention, it can outperform every other kind.

Balanced Teams

What it looks like:
Balanced teams are built with intention. They bring together T-shaped specialists whose deep skills complement each other, and broad collaboration abilities keep the whole system connected. There's enough overlap for smooth collaboration, and enough variety to stay innovative.

The reality:
These teams don't happen by accident. They require careful hiring, open communication, and ongoing adjustment. When they work, they represent the sweet spot: teams that move fast and think big. They're adaptable, resilient, and capable of both executing and evolving.

Personal observations:
Some of the most rewarding projects for individuals came from balanced teams. People felt empowered in their zone of expertise while learning from each other's strengths. This type of team has productive tension and not conflict, so the team could stretch without breaking.

Key lesson:
Balance isn't a finish line, but it's a constant practice. Roles evolve, needs shift, and the team must adjust. But with a shared vision and regular check-ins, it is possible to maintain the kind of team that performs consistently and grows sustainably.

A Practical Guide for Team Development

As a design leader, the job isn’t just to ship products; it's to build a team that can evolve, adapt, and scale with the work. Competency growth should not be treated as an isolated activity or an annual review checkbox. It needs to be embedded into the day-to-day activities of how the team operates.

This section outlines a practical framework that helps assess, plan, and sustain skills development both at the individual and team level.


Competency Mapping

Growth starts with clarity. Before giving an order on what skill to build. It is essential to map what’s already there.

  • Identify skills. Run a skills audit using a visual mapping technique like the T-shaped model to capture each team member’s depth and breadth across disciplines.
  • Gaps and overlaps. Where are the critical capabilities missing? Are certain areas overrepresented or underutilized?
  • Track growth trajectories. Understand not only who’s strong today, but where each designer wants to grow. This informs pairing, project assignments, and hiring plans.

Developing Skills That Matter

Once the skillset of the team is identified, it is necessary to support meaningful and aligned growth by weaving development into everyday work.

On the Individual Level:

  • Self-reflection & curiosity. Encourage regular reflection on strengths and growth areas. Let people follow what energizes them.
  • Mentorship and learning resources. Support courses, design challenges, or peer coaching that match their goals and role context.
  • Community & exposure. Create space to connect with others through events, talks, or cross-team projects.

On the Team Level:

  • Create a Team Skills Map. Combine individual T’s into a collective team map to identify strengths, overlaps, and skill gaps.
  • Create skill rotation opportunities. Let designers stretch into new focus areas temporarily (e.g., research, systems, motion).
  • Run internal knowledge shares. Team talks, critique circles, and informal lightning rounds make learning contagious.
  • Identify need. Determine if any new general or specialized skills are required by the business, project, or industry trends
  • Use project assignments intentionally. Align growth goals with real project work because this is where the learning sticks.

Continuous Assessment: Keeping Growth Aligned with Reality

Great teams don’t just add skills, they adapt them.

  • Do regular team health checks. Quarterly skill map reviews or team retros help track progress and surface needs early.
  • Evolve roles with the work. The skillset needed at MVP is not the same as what’s needed to scale. Don’t be afraid to rebalance.
  • Know when to hire vs. grow. If a capability is critical but no one wants to own it or it’s too far out of reach, it may be time to bring in new expertise.

Building a Balanced Team Strategy

Whether the team is at the stage of scaling or restructuring, decisions about building a team should be made intentionally and not reactively.

  • Hire for team shape, not individual genius. Look at what the team needs in terms of complementary strengths.
  • Restructure roles when needed. Strategic realignment can unlock energy and better match designers to their evolving skillsets.
  • Set clear growth expectations. Normalize development in 1:1s, project planning, and performance check-ins. Learning is part of the job, not a side project.

Wrapping up

Just like great products, great teams don’t happen by accident; they’re intentionally shaped, tested, and iterated. As designers, we’re trained to think in systems, understand user needs, and balance form with function. Growing personal skills or building a strong creative team is no different.

The ideal balance of T-shaped specialists isn’t a static formula, but it’s a dynamic framework that adapts to people, goals, and the context. It’s about pairing depth with breadth, individual growth with team evolution, and structure with flexibility. It’s about understanding that not every gap needs filling right away, and not every strength needs to be the same.

Whether you’re mentoring juniors, managing seniors, or designing the next hire, your role as a leader is to recognise potential, create opportunity, and shape an environment where complementary skills can thrive. Balance is never permanent, but with the right mindset and tools, it becomes sustainable.

In the end, building effective creative teams isn’t just an operational task. It’s one of the most impactful design challenges and one of the most rewarding when we get it right.