Product manager’s guide to working with designers
Recently, while browsing my social media, I came across a post made by one of my designer friends complaining about their disappointing experience working with a “bad” product manager. The product manager was described as someone arrogant and stubborn, claiming to be the know-all and not valuing the designer’s work.
While reading this, some questions came into my mind — would I be perceived as a product manager similar to that, and how to avoid it? With these questions in mind, I chatted with a couple of my designer friends about their ideal product manager co-workers and reflected on my own experience working with designers. In this article, I will try to summarize what I’ve learned and share with you how to work with designers and build a healthy relationship with them as a product manager.
Clarify and align your goals
Although working on the same project, product managers and designers often have different goals. It’s important to have goals aligned before working on the project. You should be clear about what the goal of the project is, what your own goal is, and what your designer’s goal is. Explain the goals and think about how you might help your designer achieve their goal while working on the project.
Involve designers early in the process & provide context
The earlier you involve your designer in the process and the more useful context you provide them, the better their work will be. Do not just throw a sketch or wireframe to your designer and have them refine it without providing any background or context. Designers will need to know the context and goal to decide how they will approach the design. You should also discuss the checkpoints and timeline with them to make sure that your plans and time would work out.
Agree on priorities
As a product manager, one of your jobs is to make priorities clear. You should discuss the priorities of the features with your designers and discuss the tradeoffs between functionality and aesthetics. This is when an objective prioritization model like RICE may help. By evaluating the impacts and costs of designs and features, you should agree on what’s important and what’s not. (For more on prioritization, you can read my other post: Ruthless prioritization for product managers)
Trust them and value their work
As a product manager, you should have good taste in design and know the basics of UX, interaction, and UI design. But you should not try to impose design decisions on your designers. Designers are there because they’re the experts in design. You should trust their abilities — provide context and inspiration and let them do the work.
You should also value their work. Behind a design proposal, they have probably tried many different versions and directions and picked the one for a reason. Even when you think a design might not work, you should not just dismiss their work. Instead, ask about their thought process and research for a more context-rich and meaningful discussion.
Understand their process & methodology
To build more empathy with your designers, you should learn and understand the basics of their process and methodology. Read about the design thinking process or attend workshops by designers at your company. When you know how they approach their work, it will be easier for you to understand their perspectives and why they’re doing what they do. It can also help you align your product management process with their design process.
Communicate the right way
Sometimes, even when both you and your designers are well-intentioned, what you say and the way you say it might trigger an unproductive argument, which often leads to passive aggression like “let’s test and see” or a dictatorship like “we’ll just do this”. I find it useful when you calm down,
acknowledge what the other person said, reiterate the goal, explain the context, and clarify what you said in another way.
Ask for their input
Besides pixels, interactions, and UX flows, your designers can also provide great insights that might help you shape your product direction and roadmap. For designers to grow, they will also tap into the business aspects of the product, which you may think is your turf. Don’t be too protective of your own ideas. Ask for their input often to encourage more communication and fresh perspectives.
Conclusion
To avoid being perceived as bad co-workers, product managers should keep their egos small and practice the skills to lead without authority. Your designer teammates are your friends — have empathy for them, share what you have, align your goals, and work together.
