Improving the rifts between designers and project or product managers.

Last month my friend Brett Harned and I recorded a session of his podcast Time Limit. I heart this guy a ton, and I miss working with him daily. Brett and I recorded a limited session program called Sprints & Milestones. So, it felt good to get back behind the microphone to record this conversation.

This show is one of the better conversations that I’ve recorded in a while. You could call it a consolidation of what I’ve learned in the last five years of leading all kinds of design initiatives and range of scale at IBM, USAA, and InVision.

Our discussion centered around defining the practice of design and how it could/should interact with project/product management. More interesting, we get into building stronger teams, cross-functional collaboration, and over-all communication skills. It is my experience that poor communication is at the heart of just about every problem — design related or otherwise. And I try to provide helpful ideas on how to overcome this problem at work.

We also get into my thoughts on how project managers can help their designers be more productive and get better outcomes from their communication with whole teams and executives. These ideas didn’t just come to me in a vacuum, they are from lessons learned the hard way.