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Summary
Kim Annex, currently leading product design at Zendesk, draws on her 25+ years of experience working in distributed and global teams to outline best practices for managing large, multi-national design organizations. She recounts challenges faced in prior roles at companies like Palm and Samsung, emphasizing the evolution of technology from fax and limited video conferencing to modern tools like Slack and Google Docs that now facilitate asynchronous collaboration. At Zendesk, she manages a 50-plus member team distributed across eight countries, including multiple acquisitions such as the Smooch team from Montreal and Cel from Krakow. Kim highlights the importance of a triad leadership model—product design, engineering, and business—to foster a consensus-driven culture. She underscores the critical role of building trust through annual off-sites, social interactions, and informal communication channels like Instagram to overcome the isolation of remote work. Asynchronous communication, clear role ownership, and consistent onboarding are vital to reduce misunderstandings caused by distributed work. Kim discusses the expansion of specialist roles beyond product design—such as design systems, operations, research, and content strategy—to support scaling and integration of multiple products. She stresses sustaining design quality through shared critiques, coordinated goals aligned with business objectives, and regular in-person workshops despite a heavily distributed workforce. Kim also reflects on hybrid remote versus co-located work models, advocating frequent co-location events and cultural empathy as key to durable collaboration. Finally, she embraces the ambiguity of high growth and encourages her teams to take intelligent risks and challenge status quo to innovate across integrated product experiences.
Key Insights
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Trust is foundational for successful collaboration in distributed product teams.
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Zendesk uses a triad leadership model of product design, engineering, and business founders to guide culture.
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Building personal bonds through socializing and informal channels like Instagram strengthens remote team connections.
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Acquisitions require a dedicated integration playbook that includes a hands-off initial period and gradual cultural and tooling integration.
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Synchronous meetings are limited and rotated across time zones; most collaboration happens asynchronously via shared digital tools.
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Investing in design specialists such as design systems, user research, design operations, and content strategy enhances team scalability and product quality.
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Consistent onboarding and clear communication of work preferences and hours are critical to managing global teams.
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Design quality is maintained through scheduled design critiques, leadership reviews, aligned goals, and co-located workshops.
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Cultural empathy and embracing differences are essential for a globally distributed workforce.
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Despite being distributed, Zendesk values co-location and invests heavily in in-person workshops, off-sites, and travel to solidify relationships.
Notable Quotes
"My team spans a 17-hour time zone spread, so collaboration requires intentional approaches."
"Nothing gets done without fostering and building trust with your product partners."
"Sharing meals and breaking bread together really builds trust in a way that might sound funny but it works."
"I have a private Instagram account and I connect with co-workers who have open profiles to see what they’re doing outside work."
"The telephone game happens all the time in distributed teams – what you start saying and what reaches the end can be totally different."
"We limit routine global calls and try to keep meetings to a minimum, favoring asynchronous communication instead."
"Our design system, Garden, is treated like a product with its own product manager to scale effectively."
"Co-location is expensive but necessary, especially for workshops and user research during discovery phases."
"We ask our designers to design the right thing and design the thing right, taking intelligent risks and challenging status quo."
"Culture at Zendesk values humility and confidence – we expect people to be humble but also confident in their work."
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