Product Management
Working With Designers
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Working With Designers is part of our Engineering Career Leveling Framework. Explore next steps in your career from this industry-standard model.
Intro to Working with Designers
Working with designers is crucial for businesses to create successful products and services. Designers bring a unique perspective to problem-solving and can help create user-centered solutions.
How Product Managers and Designers Work Together by XO Group PMShilpi provides a high-level overview of how roles & responsibilities are split between product and design and common collaboration challenges that occur.
Detailed Collaboration Tips
Collaboration between designers and other team members is key to creating successful products. Clear communication, regular check-ins, and Transparency are all important factors in collaboration.
PM 101: Working With Product DesignersJens-Fabian provides 7 tips for how to work effectively with designers: 1. Agree on responsibilities and ways of working 2. Start with why 3. Focus on the user, educate about the business 4. Define the problem before the solution 5. Provide space for creative chaos 6. Be crystal clear about expectations 7. Make only promises you can keep
How to Work with Designers: A Cheat Sheet for Engineers and PMsJulie uses experience as both a designer and a PM to provide tips on how to work with designer: • Understand the strengths of the designer you're working with, across visual design, interaction design, and product design • Map the scope of the design problem to the experience level of the designer • The more time a designer spends with other designers, the better the work (and the designer) • A lot of what designers value and strive for in their work is hard to measure • The most direct path to a designer’s heart is to care about the details
What do designers really want from product managers?Jess provides collaboration tips on how to explain problems, when to use mockups, how to write requirements for designers, and how to advocate for user experience goals.
Frameworks for Product Design Processes
Frameworks such as Design Thinking and Agile can help guide the product Design Process. These frameworks prioritize user needs and allow for iteration and flexibility throughout the Design Process.
The Zendesk Triple Diamond: Visualizing the product design processMike provides the overall product development collaboration process between PMs and designers at Zendesk, with a detailed dive into discovery, development, validation, and rollout.