Collaboration between Product, Design & Engineering

I’ve been thinking about the different styles of collaboration that Product people can use in engaging with their colleagues in Design and…

I’ve been thinking about the different styles of collaboration that Product people can use in engaging with their colleagues in Design and Engineering.

I’ve been working closely with both types of teams for my entire professional life. I have noticed that they have very different styles when they collaborate with each other.

When collaborating, creative people are likely to ask each other questions. If asked for feedback by a designer, one might say “Tell me, why did you make this?” and the designer might reply “I wanted to improve the user experience by making the calls to action easier to find” or “I wanted to fit more information on the page without making it cluttered.”

On the other hand, let’s say an engineer is sharing her work on a cache invalidation algorithm and you ask “Why did you make this?” You should *not* do this, because there is a real possibility that she might punch you in the face. And, I’m sorry, you would deserve it.

Many engineering discussions focus on implementation choices — “how” rather than “why” questions. But my favorite collaborations with creative people happen when we use the work to focus our understanding of the users’ problems — “why” rather than “how.”

Thanks to COVID, violence in the workplace is low. Let’s all do our part to keep it that way. Here are my quick tips for collaborating with Product and Design teams:

1) Good advice often repeated: Try not to frame your feedback as an opinion. Try framing feedback as a question instead. I stupidly gave a “hot take” in my first design review at the new job, and got some gentle ribbing for it which I richly deserved and will never forget. 🤦🏻‍♂️

2) Avoid “solutioning*” when you are meant to be exploring the problem space, which is most of the time. As a general rule, if you are a Product Manager in some kind of collaboration over design work, almost all of the sounds coming out of your mouth should be about the problem rather than the solution. You can say something like “Customers entering expenses are often in a big hurry. How might we speed this up for them?” instead of saying “Could we combine this form into one big field?” Getting good at this is hard, but you can do it. Good luck.

3) Celebrate the creative and collaborative process in your work, not just their artifacts. This process is so important to your people. When it’s working well, they feel effective, understood, and powerful. Ask designers how they feel about how you currently collaborate. Ask yourself what you can do to create more collaboration between teams, make them more engaging and productive, and share the benefits of that work beyond the people in the room.

That’s all for today. Let’s be careful out there!