Naming a team

At Meta, there were already plenty of content design resources available to help with naming products and teams. Content designers also had several forums where we could ask for feedback and advice on our work. However, there were many teams that didn't have content design coverage and not many content designers who could support those teams. 

A reorganization effort led to the merging of three teams, and they didn't have a name. They also didn't have any content design support. When they needed a resource to run their own "namestorm," I seized the opportunity to create one for them. 

I combined an internal content design resource with the Brand Sprint exercise by Jake Knapp (Google Ventures) to create a framework that would help the team get together and name themselves. Since these were all separate teams that had merged after the reorg, they needed to align on their purpose together. There wasn't yet any clarity on the mission and vision of the new team, so this exercise also helped them discover all that. 

This was almost like writing a recipe! The exercise came with

• detailed instructions

• async activities that the team members could do in their own team

• all the activities they needed for a namestorm meeting

• all the resources they needed to arrive at a consensus as a team

The goal was to support the team without "peanut buttering" the content designers. With this exercise, the team was able to conduct their own namestorm according to their own timeline and come up with a name that accurately described them and brought all the members together.

Download the PDF of the team-naming exercise here.