How to make your kick offs count
Getting off on the right foot can make or break your project kick-off. Not getting the correct information at the start of a project can cause conflict, delays in timelines, and rework. Of course, specific organizations will make these easier than others; however, advocating for the information you need before design starts will help everyone in the long run.
Getting in the right room at the right time
So when do you need to be involved as a product designer? Ideally, from the moment an initiative is started. Although, as a designer, this may seem overkill, I mean, do you really need to be involved in meetings from the start? I would argue a firm yes. As a product designer, you have a perspective that focuses on the user, solutions over features, and outcomes over outputs. This approach can help influence the direction of the project to be user-centric from the start.
So how do you get involved in the conversation when you may not even know it’s happening? There’s a couple of tactics you can employ to increase your chances of success.
Understanding the Org Chart
One of the first things on your list when joining a new project should be getting a better understanding of the org chart. The org chart isn’t limited to just people’s names and titles. While those are important, the real benefit will come from understanding people’s roles/responsibilities and working relationships between individuals.
Getting a grasp on who does what
If you understand who does what on a team or project, you’ll save yourself a headache down the road. Instead of chasing down people trying to search for resources or answers about a specific topic or area, you can narrow it down to a handful of people within reason. Another benefit comes from knowing whom to ask when you want to be involved in a specific project or conversation. Finally, understanding roles and responsibilities is the first step towards bridging teams and creating cross-functional alignment.
On a small project, this is relatively straightforward and should be a simple process. However, this can get tricky on a large project that spans multiple teams — sometimes across various organizations! In these more complex scenarios, it may be beneficial to reach out to the primary project manager to get a shortlist of who does what. If that isn’t available, reaching out to each team lead may provide you with the same results.
Identifying the whales
No, I don’t mean grabbing a set of binoculars and going whale watching. In finance lingo, a “whale” is a person who has such a large amount of money or influence that they can directly influence the price of a stock. There are whales in the world of products, just as there are in the world of finance. However, instead of impacting stocks, they influence the direction of a project.
It’s essential to watch and understand how and why decisions are made. It’s not always the project leader who is influencing the decisions. Occasionally, a person held in high esteem on the team may have sway over key stakeholders. If you identify these people, you will better understand the political landscape the project is built on.
Making the ask
Now that you understand who does what and who decides what, you’ll be prepared to ask to get involved in the conversations you want to be a part of. To successfully be forwarded an invite, it’s essential to reach out with timing, tact, and a good cause.
No one likes someone busting their door down and sharing an unsolicited opinion. Unless you have a good working relationship before your ask, it will be critical that you approach the situation with tact. Instead of asking to be involved because your opinion should help shape the project’s direction, reframe it in a way that doesn’t feel like an underlying threat to the plan. I generally recommend asking to be invited to the meeting so that you can “have the context you need to do your part faster and better.” Anything you can say that will reassure those you’re asking that you are not only prepared but proactive in your contribution to the project will get you a more guaranteed invite.
Advocating for Agile
Depending on the organization or client you’re working with, this step will most likely continue throughout the project. However, you’ll have much more success if you start advocating for agile processes right from the start. I won’t get too much into this section, as we’ll cover agile and lean UX later in this blog. However, I want to emphasize here that getting off on the right foot means getting started with the right processes and systems in place.
Teach Product & Design Teams
Part of being a design leader is teaching the teams and individuals you work with. Teaching is often done by leading by example and advocating for best practices. If you are working with a client, this means teaching your client and their teams as well. The more everyone learns and grows together; the more successful the project will ultimately be. Here are a few things to keep in mind.
The culture will affect the tone
Culture plays a huge role in whether or not advocating for best practices and modern-product will be successful. In short, it will undoubtedly affect the tone of your work; however, it will not dictate the tone. The semantic difference is subtle but important. Your approach for improving and guiding the team will need to adapt to the culture. However, you do have a certain (albeit limited) pull over the culture in your immediate team and other teams you interface with. Capitalizing on this pull is imperative to your success as a design leader, and when done successfully, can have a positive ripple effect across the entire project.
Saying ‘No’ is just as important as saying ‘Yes.’
As I like to say, push back to push forward. As uncomfortable as it may be, being willing to push back on decisions that don’t serve the team or the product can help move the needle better than being a “yes man.” While it’s essential to learn how to pick your battles, healthy conflict can be productive and team-building.
Drive lessons home (gently)
Documentation is your friend. Did the deadline get pushed back because initial conversations didn’t include you from the start, and now everyone is upset? Bring this up gently and tactfully. Learning from past experiences will help teach your team and partners the behaviors that you want to encourage. Allowing consequences to be felt from poor planning or communication, while uncomfortable, can be healthy. We do our part to mitigate those consequences, but inevitably, there will be outcomes outside our control when the process is ignored, or recommendations are pushed aside.
Getting the information you need upfront
So, you know the people, and you’ve opened up the dialogue — now what? Before you jump into ideating or soliciting recommendations: Listen and ask questions. Making sure you have a firm grasp of the entire scope and context of the project and the problems you’re trying to solve will make you much more successful in providing your expertise.
Asking the right questions
Here’s a rhyme to remember: Ask as many questions as you need to get yourself up to speed.
It’s as true as it is catchy. Asking questions is one half of what you need to do; asking the right questions is the other half. Of course, the questions you ask will vary. Questions will depend on the project you’re working on, your role, and whether this is a new or ongoing initiative. That said, you can generally simplify it into WWWWWH questions.
Who
- Who is involved in this project?
- Who are our users?
What
- What problems are we trying to solve?
- What obstacles or challenges do we need to consider?
- What are the business needs driving this?
- What is the scope?
When
- When does this need to be done?
Where
- Where will this solution live? Digital, physical, both?
Why
- Why are we trying to solve these problems?
How
- How are we going to solve these problems?
- How are we going to overcome obstacles or challenges?
- How will we know when or if we’ve succeeded?
Getting the necessary materials
Before you get knee-deep in conversations and work, make sure you get your hands on any project materials — you’ll thank me later. This means confluence links, brand guides, pitch decks, research documents, and everything in between. While you may not use all of these items, having them on hand will serve two purposes: you’ll be able to brush up on project history and key information, and you’ll be able to reference them later (if needed) without having to chase someone down.
Getting your hands on these resources is as easy as writing an email to someone or as hard as chasing different folks down to compile your single source of truth — it just depends on the project and level of organization currently in place.
So there you have it! Starting a project off on the right foot certainly takes some initial leg work, but it’ll save you a headache down the road.