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When do you bring in Product Design? (And why that's a bad question.)

Michael Marks

We were taught as kids that there was no such thing as a bad question. I disagree.


Product Designers are treated very differently depending on the organization's understanding of what they bring to the table. I've seen beautiful examples of collaboration and teamwork early in the discovery process, to the point where Product Designer and Product Manager could finish each others' sentences in design reviews. I've also seen Design viewed as a "receiver" of product requirements, where PMs just toss the PRD over the wall and expect Design to work with Engineering to figure out the "how" entirely on their own.


So - the question of "when do you bring in Product Design?" as part of your discovery processes is a bad question. (You can tell your second grade teacher I said that.)


As a PM, the first person you should call when you have an idea you want to explore is your Product Designer. They have skills that compliment yours to research and vet out the quality of the idea and sniff out the usability risks of the idea. Designers can also build prototypes and run experiments to fine tune the idea to help inform you whether it's something to continue pursuing or not. And the end result will greatly benefit from Designers being involved from the get-go, as directly hearing your prospective users' feedback will shape the ultimate design.


Now, working with Design early in the process has a lot of positive outcomes. However, working this closely with Design can create some tension, and there are 2 chief complaints I've heard from Design that you'll want to be aware of.

  • Not aware of strategy changes

  • Designing shelf-ware


Not aware of strategy changes

The story typically goes something like this - the team has decided to build out a new capability. The Design team is working through their process, PM is writing up user stories and KPIs, Engineering is doing architectural designs and providing estimates. Then something happens... the executive team pivots hard and the new capability is postponed, the CTO decides it is time to focus on quality and performance instead of new capabilities, or a new, more important feature supersedes the inflight work. It sucks when this happens - and it really shouldn't happen that often. But the reality is that it does happen.


For some reason, Design always seems to be the last to know. And if the change happens during the discovery/design phase, a "drop what you're doing and start on this instead" change will affect Design more than other teams... they've scheduled customer interviews for the next couple of weeks, they've put in a LOT of work tweaking the prototypes and designs based on user feedback, and it's difficult to leave an inflight project in a place where it can be easily picked back up later.


Here's what to do about it:

  • Minimize the number of times this happens.

    • Unless you are working in a truly empowered team structure, the chances are that the PM didn't really make the strategy change. However, you can work with the key decision makers to try to defer strategy shifts to minimize the impact on the team.

  • Overcommunicate

    • Ensure that the entire team, Designers included, are aware of potential strategy changes. Include the context, the possibility that the change will actually happen, and who is ultimately going to make the call.

  • Create time and space to transition

    • It will take time for Design team to wrap up what they have and leave it in a place where either they or someone on their team can pick it up in the future. Give them time and space to wind down what they're working on before asking them to engage in the new effort.


Designing Shelf-ware

Shelf-ware is what happens when a new product or capability is fully designed, vetted with prospective users, ready to start being developed... and then is put on the shelf instead of actually being worked on. PM and Designers share a lot of the same frustration when this happens, and it creates a moment for the 2 to sit in the suck together and build some empathy for one another. After all, the biggest payoff of working in Product (as a PM or Designer) is getting the product in users' hands and seeing how you improved their life. To work incredibly hard on an idea that you think will help your users and then not get the payoff of seeing it in the wild is deflating. But, there are a finite number of engineers with a seemingly infinite number of priorities, and sometimes tough decisions have to be made. By working closely with Design super early in the discovery process, you are almost guaranteeing that you will have them design things that will never see the light of the day. Here's how to help work through it:

  • Acknowledge the chances of them working on potential shelf-ware, and provide guidance on how much to invest

    • "Look, I'm going to get you involved early on for this new idea because your perspective and skills are insanely valuable. There are currently a lot of priorities for the team right now, so there's a chance that this new idea may not get into the backlog any time soon. We might get market feedback that we need to prioritize it higher - it's just too early for me to tell right now and I need your help to figure it out. Can you give me 3 hours a week to meet with users and help develop a prototype?"

  • Give Designers a full strategy review and roadmap presentation

    • Ensure that Designers understand why the other things that are being worked are more important or more strategically aligned than the current shelf-ware. It'll still suck that the shelf-ware is there, but it should take the sting out of it if they understand the "why?"


Getting the partnership and collaboration right between Product and Design results in amazing products. It's important to invest in this relationship and understand what each of you bring to the table. Working closely has its challenges - like the 2 I mentioned above. But if you can work through it, you'll achieve great things within a happy team.




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