We have a very senior core team of designers and one gets paired with each new hire to get them rolling. This involves a "starter project" thats essentially just an open-ended idea or problem to be solved with design - something like "design an app for people that have lost pets". Most have nothing to do with any of client work.
The designer gets to take the idea in any way they want and their progress is shared in our twice-weekly Design Stand-ups. Once actual client work starts coming in, the starter project just gets put on the back burner until it is eventually finished.
We've actually kept a bunch of these starter projects, or components of them, in our backlog for potential future products etc.
We have a very senior core team of designers and one gets paired with each new hire to get them rolling. This involves a "starter project" thats essentially just an open-ended idea or problem to be solved with design - something like "design an app for people that have lost pets". Most have nothing to do with any of client work.
The designer gets to take the idea in any way they want and their progress is shared in our twice-weekly Design Stand-ups. Once actual client work starts coming in, the starter project just gets put on the back burner until it is eventually finished.
We've actually kept a bunch of these starter projects, or components of them, in our backlog for potential future products etc.