3 principles for better collaboration between Design and Product Management

As more product teams adopt agile working styles, poor collaboration between Design and Product Management can be detrimental to the team's ability to deliver customer and business value. 

After speaking with several Designers and Product Managers (PMs) and reflecting on our own experiences, we've come up with three principles that provide a path to better collaboration between Design and Product Management: 

1. Build relationships
2. Communicate effectively
3. Learn and grow

Before we jump in, we’ll do some brief author intros:

[Felix] I'm a PM with technical and business education who has solved problems in various spaces, including Business Applications, Data Analytics & AI, and Cloud Services. My ten years of product development experience includes software engineering, product management, and startup launch.

[Terell] I'm a business design leader specializing in application design, product development, visionary thinking, and empathetic emotional intelligence. My 10 years of cross-functional team experience has allowed me to work as a Developer, Product Manager, and Designer for some fantastic companies ranging from startup to large enterprise.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a sudden shift to remote work and made effective collaboration more critical. We hope that by the end of this article and the discussions that follow, the principles we share can help teams improve collaboration between Design and Product Management. 

1.  Build relationships

Trick question: between Design and Product Management, who owns the user experience? 

If you said Product Management, you’re wrong. If you said Design, you’re also wrong. Both disciplines are responsible for delivering great user experiences. Both Disciplines are taught that the user’s voice is what matters most.

Both disciplines feel a sense of ownership over the user experience, and this overlap is what makes the relationship between designers and PMs contentious at times and adversarial at worst. 

It’s been proven that stronger personal relationships on teams lead to higher levels of productivity. Specifically, for Design and Product Management, a strong relationship makes it easier to navigate the overlapping ownership of user experience.

To get started, we have two tips: get to know who you’re working with and establish a co-ownership model.

Tip 1: Get to know who you’re working with

The disciplines are not a monolith, and the type of PM or Designer you're working with – 1) their background, 2) their strengths and weaknesses, and 3) their preferences – impacts how to best collaborate.

Sharing backgrounds can help identify blind spots

This article highlights how background defines types of PMs and that there’s no exhaustive list. Similarly, to get a sense of the types of designers that exist, take a look at the various titles within the discipline:

Now, let’s explore how a discussion on backgrounds might play out.

[Felix] My blend of software development, MBA education, and tech co-founder experience means that I maintain a strategic business focus and bias for shipping over perfecting when developing products.

[Terell] My Arts education, UX background, Front-end Development, and Product Management experience makes me a Product Design leader who understands the full product life cycle and communicates effectively with product managers and engineering teams.

[Felix] Now, imagine if we didn't have this discussion and our shared development experience led to a confirmation bias for short development timelines. If this bias makes us push for a more aggressive timeline than the Engineering lead recommends, we may ship a feature that doesn’t scale properly, leaving the team with significant tech debt.

[Terell] Discussing backgrounds might help us anticipate this blind spot, allowing us to defer to Engineering Partners - or in other cases UX, Content Design, or User Research - when necessary to ensure the success of a project.

Sharing strengths and weaknesses fosters mutual support

[Terell] For some designers, sharing ideas with dev teams is a weakness. My best PM peers encourage these designers to share their thoughts and back them up when questions are asked. This support empowers teams to speak up without prompt and helps the PM with consensus leadership.

[Felix] Personally, I have little UX and HCI training. So I value working with a designer who bridges that gap by sharing their expertise and teaching me design frameworks like the Double Diamond.

PMs and designers that leverage their collective strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses, build a relationship that benefits the company and end-users. 

Understanding preferences provides context to actions

[Felix] I like to create an “ugly PM mock” in PowerPoint to communicate my thoughts to Design before we partner to create customer-facing designs and UX requirements.

[Terell] Without understanding Felix’s preference for creating his mock, a designer might assume that the UX finalized without any regard for their knowledge of design principles like screen hierarchy, fidelity, psychology, or patterns (sometimes this happens! ?????♂?). If I know Felix’s mock is not meant for end-users, then the “ugly PM mock” doesn’t feel so harmful and I can use it as a lo-fi wireframe as I’m designing what we want feedback from participants on. 

Teammates that know their partner's background, strengths and weaknesses, and preferences establish a strong foundation for effective collaboration and shared ownership of the user experience. 

Tip 2: Establish a co-ownership model

The overlapping desire to delight users - PMs through prioritizing the most critical problems and designers through crafting end-to-end experiences - often leads to disagreements between Design and Product Management.

A co-ownership model addresses the overlap by ensuring that each team member contributes to delivering value. Marty Cagan’s note, Product Teams vs. Feature Teams, outlines the importance of a co-ownership model in what he calls “empowered product teams”.

[Terell] As teams shift to a more agile approach - partnering to write user stories, create prototypes, and gather feedback - versus handing off work from PM to a designer to engineers, co-ownership builds trust and helps each discipline know when to lead and when to learn.

Co-ownership builds trust and helps each discipline know when to lead and when to learn.

[Felix] And while that trust is essential to building relationships between Design and Product Management, there will inevitably be disagreements and that's where the second principle comes into play. 

2.  Communicate effectively

[Terell] I recently polled designers about their best and worst experiences with PMs and honestly, therapy is in order to recover from various past wounds. What’s interesting, is that although both disciplines are aware of the mantra, “we are not our user”, some of the worst arguments seemed to center around personal opinions.

[Felix] To avoid this trap, product teams can explore frameworks like “strong opinions, weakly held” and communicate effectively to clarify assumptions. Additionally, effective communication means being able to express frustration constructively. 

[Terell] Imagine a last-minute business constraint forcing a product team to pivot, and a designer to re-scope the UX down to 10% of the original vision. The designer is likely experiencing a sense of loss, that their previous work will be thrown away. My advice is to view past iterations as a library that can be used in the future and effectively bring others along by communicating the importance of what’s being scoped out so you can advocate for its position on the backlog.

The work done to build relationships is useless if disagreements can spiral into shouting matches or passive aggression. Here are two tips for communicating effectively.

Tip 1: Learn the art of asking questions for clarity

When designers and PMs ask questions effectively, the best ideas form from the team's collective expertise.

[Terell] In one of my best PM relationships we built a habit of asking, "What does success look like?" to move from discovery into the definition phase and clarify project scope. The scope is essential because if a designer knows that they're building a matchbox vs. building a house, there will be less energy in the wrong direction, and the designer will produce the most beautiful matchbox ever ??.

[Felix] Asking questions is also a great way to deliver constructive criticism because it starts a dialogue. Imagine a PM disagrees with the layout of a page and says, “I don’t think the button belongs here”. It’s more effective to start with the question, “What other options have you considered?” 

Asking questions to create clarity helps designers and PMs establish a shared vision for the product.

Tip 2: Manage conflict promptly

When conflict moves from healthy debate to an adversarial relationship with passive aggression or shouting matches, it's best to take action promptly.  

[Felix] Managing conflict is a topic worthy of its own article, so we won't dive deep into specific strategies – know that everyone’s style is different.

[Terell] We’d be remiss to not address the unique challenges minorities (e.g., BIPOC) face with conflict management. Some Designers avoid conflict for the fear of being labeled as the “angry black man/woman”. Today's times are genuinely a learning era for all of us, and you have to find the balance that works for you and your co-workers. Here are some suggestions for you:

• Over-communicate – share goals, blockers, and timelines transparently and often
• Always assume good intent – when frustrated, pause and ask for clarity
• Work as partners – take opportunities to argue each other’s point of view 
• Use active listening techniques and address assumptions  

Conflict can quickly turn into a toxic work environment where no one is motivated to improve. Managing conflict promptly fosters continuous improvement, which leads to our last principle.

3. Learn and grow

Just as product teams reflect to prepare for the next iteration, PMs and designers should establish a process that improves collaboration with each release. 

[Felix] After launching my first feature, I remember the mix of relief that we shipped it yet anxiety about whether adoption would go as planned. I found comfort in the fact that shipping enabled us to get additional user feedback we could use to improve. 

If we consider Design and Product Management collaboration as a product - one that creates value for users and business - it’s clear that continuous improvement is essential to success. Below are our tips to learn and grow in collaboration.

Tip 1: Have regular cross-functional reviews

We’ve seen collaborative efforts weakened when a designer gets their first look at functioning code at the same time as the customer.

[Felix] By including designers in reviews throughout development, PMs help designers understand technical tradeoffs and contribute their expertise so that critical UX cuts can be avoided when possible.

[Terell] Similarly, designers should encourage their PM partners to participate in design sprints rather than handing off polished designs. ?? I know, too many cooks in the kitchen can hurt a project early on; however, early exposure helps PMs appreciate the design process that delivers quality UX and user delight.  

Tip 2: Embrace a growth mindset with post and premortems

Teams should also partner to reflect on what went well and what could be improved.

[Felix] The value of these reflections is drastically increased when used to host a premortem. A premortem helps the team identify ways to mitigate the biggest risks to a project before it starts. Here’s a great article on the value of premortems.

[Terell] Additionally, be sure to discuss elements of the working relationship that were effective and those that could be improved. Address things like working style, meeting style, and collaboration tool effectiveness.

Post and premortems wrap up a project and prepare you to continue on the path to better collaboration.

We know that the relationship between Design and Product Management can feel like a sparring match. We hope that these three principles help your teams navigate the relationship in a way that fosters mutual respect, a shared vision, and continuous improvement.

Thanks for reading and let’s continue the conversation! Leave your thoughts in the comments.