Establishing Harmony between Product Designers & Product Managers

Tactical tips for developing healthy, collaborative and high-functioning relationships between Product Designers and Product Managers. (Originally presented at Designers + Geeks NYC, June 28, 2018).

Transcript

1. Deepa Subramaniam where-with-all.com (@iamdeepa) Establishing harmony between Product Designers & Product Managers
2. We spend more time with our colleagues then we do with our own friends & family. ✨We should enjoy work.✨
3. How can teams be productive while also having fun, maintaining a healthy culture, and collaborating well, despite different roles, different goals and the realities of startup life? 3
4. Make the implicit, explicit: Proactively translate for each other Regularly clarify roles & responsibilities Partner on Research Spend time to gain alignment at the start Openly discuss your working styles Join forces, lead by example 1 2 3 4 5 6
5. Proactively translate for each other
7. Discovery Design Development Testing & Deployment Post-Deployment & Iteration Framing the problem, opportunity & approach Based on the problem, identify solutions Build feature reliably, securely & w/ quality Test & ship the feature Based on how the feature is doing, decide what’s next?
8. Consider roleplaying product conversations…. ….the resulting empathy is magical!
9. Regularly clarify roles & responsibilities
10. Seamless collaboration requires clarity. Who does what, when? “Well, That’s not my job.” “Wait, I already did that.” “Uh, who was supposed to do that?”
11. Lack of role clarity manifests as inertia, chaos or ambivalence.
13. Product Manager Responsible for….. Product Designer ∩ Product Manager Responsible for…. ∩ Product Designer Responsible for…..
14. Product Manager owns the story of “what” & “why” Product Designer ∩ Product Manager Responsible for the success of the product ∩ Product Designer owns the story of “how” and “when”
15. Product Manager owns the story of “?” Engineering Lead owns the story of “?” Product Designer owns the story of “?” PM ∩ PD ∩ EL: Responsible for the overall success of the product ∩
16. Defined roles, ratified across teams produce better accountability & higher velocity. Do this exercise often!
17. Spend time to gain alignment at the start
18. Discovery Design Development Testing & Deployment Post-Deployment & Iteration Framing the problem, opportunity & approach Based on the problem, identify solutions Build feature reliably, securely & w/ quality Test & ship the feature Based on how the feature is doing, decide what’s next? Partnership is key, determine your focus!
19. Good questions to ask • What is the user-facing problem we’re trying to solve? • What evidence do we have that this is a problem? • What is the business-facing problem we’re trying to solve? • How does it affect different parts of the business? • What evidence do we have that this is a problem? • Who is our target user? • What do we know about them? • Who are we not targeting? • What do we know about this audience of users (their motivations, their needs, their friction points, etc) • What are the user goals of this project? • What are non-goals for this project? • What does success look like?
20. Partner on Research
21. Product Manager: Define targets Assist analysis Product Designer: Lead Sprints Disseminate insights
22. Openly discuss your working styles
23. What you expect of them? What they expect of you? When and in what medium? Strategy Feedback Project Management Help/Support [Adapted from Lara Hogan’s worksheet here (larahogan.me/resources)]
24. Pro-Tip: Talk about meetings
25. Join forces, lead by example
26. Disjointed things happen in siloed teams
27. Lead cross-functionally • Pair facilitation • Present together • Jointly author written comms
28. When the broader team sees you both coordinating and holding each other accountable, they will follow suit.
29. Honesty + Candidness Trust + Accountability
30. Make the implicit, explicit: Proactively translate for each other Regularly clarify roles & responsibilities Partner on Research Spend time to gain alignment at the start Openly discuss your working styles Join forces, lead by example 1 2 3 4 5 6
31. Q&A