Design Better

Latest Episodes:

Jina Anne: How design systems affect company culture Aug 18, 2020

Show notes

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/jina-anne

To celebrate the new InVision DSM, we're sharing one of our favorite episodes in conversation with Design Systems Advocate, Jina Anne.

If you’re engaged in any sort of community surrounding Design Systems, whether it’s the Design Systems Slack, or the Clarity Conference, then you have likely benefited from Jina Anne’s work. A self-styled Design Systems Advocate, Jina has been passionate about creating events, content and resources that bring together communities of people who care about design systems and how they impact product design. In this bonus episode of the Design Better Podcast, we chat with Jina about how she got into Design Systems, what she has learned from building these communities, and how being a hybrid designer-developer influences her understanding of Design Systems.

Takeaways:

How having a Design System affects company culture.
What to consider when deciding to go public with your Design System, or keeping it private.
How Design Systems can be effectively maintained.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jahan Mantin and Boyuan Gao: Designing for diversity Jun 11, 2020

Show notes

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/designing-for-diversity

In today’s episode, we talk with Boyuan Gao and Jahan Mantin—the founders of Project Inkblot—who have built a practical framework that can help everyone design for diversity, and can also be a guide for challenging conversations.

We discuss how they see design as an opportunity to bridge the divide and bring people into the conversation about designing products and services that address everyone’s needs, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or religion. We also talk to them about their definition of intent vs. impact, and how to close the loop on making sure your impact is what you intended.

We hope you can use some of their ideas as a way to open the door to difficult conversations, and better understand your colleagues and customers.

Takeaways:

Understanding why the impact of a product can vary greatly from its intent.
How design can act as an invitation to participate in difficult conversations.
Learn about Project Inkblot’s D4D framework to start building more equitable products, services, and content.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marty Cagan: Understanding product management and Agile Jun 02, 2020

Show notes

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/marty-cagan

Are you on a product team or a feature team? After you listen to our interview with Marty Cagan, legendary product management guru, author, and partner at Silicon Valley Product Group, you’ll know just where you stand, and how to become a product team leader if you aren’t already one. We also discuss why product management is misunderstood, the dual track agile process, discovery sprints, and the four types of prototypes that Marty has classified, including user, feasibility, live data, and hybrid prototypes. Takeaways:

How dual track agile can help to validate ideas in the fastest, cheapest way possible
The four risks for every product launch
Why good product teams all have the same qualities

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Naveen Gavini: Uniting design and engineering at Pinterest May 19, 2020

Show notes

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/podcast

We’ve spoken to a lot of design leaders over the course of the Design Better Podcast, but this episode is the first chance we’ve had to speak with someone who has made the move from being an engineering leader to a design leader. Naveen Gavini, Head of Design and User Experience at Pinterest, spent time as an engineering manager and then as head of product engineering before taking on his current role, and he brings a unique perspective on leading design teams with him from his journey.

Naveen shares how they “knit” different disciplines together at Pinterest, and we explore what he’s learned from scaling a team in hypergrowth. We also ask about the strategic advantage that co-founder Evan Sharp’s design background has brought to the company from day one.

Takeaways:

How product magic can happen when the boundaries blur between designers and engineers.
Why scaling a team in hypergrowth is a lot like making soup.
How design ops serves as the connective tissue at Pinterest.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stephen Deasy: How designers and engineers can work together better May 12, 2020

Show notes

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/stephen-deasy

“Designers are about possibilities. Engineers are about probabilities.” This quote, from Stephen Deasy, Head of Cloud Engineering at Atlassian, is just one example of how concisely he can describe the relationship between designers and engineers. Our interview with him was our first chance to learn from a leader on the engineering side, and he shared a wealth of knowledge that will help designers work more effectively with their engineering counterparts. Stephen gave us insights about running regular retrospectives and health monitors with your team, and “plays” like Roles and Responsibilities. He also spoke to the mindset and process shift that occurs when teams scale from 15, to 50, to 150 people. Stephen also relayed some great insights on design and agile. Takeaways:

How to look across a company to get a pulse on the health of teams
Understanding the mindset shift as teams scale
What it looks like when teams are efficient and productive in an agile environment

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joshua Seiden: Agile, Lean UX, and measuring your work May 05, 2020

Show notes

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/joshua-seiden

Love it or hate it, the agile approach to software development seems to be here to stay. Often, it’s hard to get good design practice to fit within an Agile framework, so our next guest, Joshua Seiden—co-author of Lean UX and Outcomes Over Output—may be particularly helpful to those of you who are struggling.

We chat with Joshua about how to fit user research into a sprint, and how he advocates for setting outcomes to guide the work of your team. We also talk about how design teams should think about measuring their work.

You’ll hear:

Why it’s important to set goals as outcomes, and not focus on output.
How design leaders are uniquely well-equipped to lead the conversation about measuring impact, because of their close relationship with the customer.
What mistakes designers make when working in an agile environment, and why going faster isn’t always better.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve Rader: NASA's approach to problem-solving and leading people Apr 28, 2020

Show notes

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/steve-rader

There’s a lot of talk in the tech world about moonshots, and what it takes to build a team capable of achieving them. We thought it might be helpful to speak with someone at an organization that has achieved actual moonshots, and so we were thrilled to get a chance to speak with Steve Rader, who is Deputy Director for the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation at NASA. We chat with Steve about how he communicates across teams where expertise and vernacular might be very different, and the importance of having teams that are diverse on an array of different levels, from personal background to expertise. We also learn how vision gets communicated by leadership at NASA, and the lessons he’s learned in his career about leading people. You’ll hear:

How to counteract fear of change in an organization by setting the right vision.
How an innovative solution for potato chip manufacturers (delicious!) was brought about by crowdsourcing input from a diverse set of skilled people.
Why it’s important to define the problem before jumping to a solution, to lead people effectively.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ryan Rumsey: Designers need to understand the language of business Apr 21, 2020

Show notes

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/business-thinking

We’ve just published a new book on DesignBetter.com called Business Thinking for Designers by Ryan Rumsey, formerly of Apple, USAA, EA, and Nestlé. It’s a challenging time out there, and we know many of you are facing uncertainty in your work, whether you’re in an industry that’s been heavily hit by the current crisis, or even if you’re lucky enough to be with a company that is navigating the current storm more or less intact. Now more than ever, designers need to be able to demonstrate an understanding of the business they work within, and show a return on investment for the work that they do.

This is why we’ve released this book now, and in this bonus episode with author Ryan Rumsey you’ll learn:

Why an analytical approach to storytelling is crucial to conveying your vision
How to prepare for negotiations after you pitch to stakeholders
Ways business thinking can help individual contributors in addition to managers

In the new book Business Thinking for Designers, you’ll get to know how to speak design in the language of business, learn essential strategies to effectively communicate with your business partners, and tools, tips, and frameworks that you can put right to work.

If you’re eager to download the book now, for free, just head over to https://www.designbetter.co/business-thinking-for-designers.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Remote Work for Design Teams: Lessons in leadership, collaboration, and culture Apr 07, 2020

Show notes

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/remoteworkbook

We’ve just published a new book on DesignBetter.com called Remote Work for Design Teams, to help you make a graceful transition from the office to a remote work environment. In this bonus episode, we speak with the authors of the book (all from InVision): Abby Sinnott, Managing Editor, Greg Storey, Senior Director of Executive Programs, and Ben Goldman, Director of InVision Films.

We chat with Abby, Greg and Ben about their own remote collaboration and teamwork while writing this book, which the team turned around in record time. We also review some tips for leaders during this crisis, and discuss why being productive at work shouldn’t necessarily be top priority for everyone on the team.

If your team needs a little helping hand during these challenging times, you can head over to designbetter.com/remotework, and download the book for free.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

The non-obvious advantages of being a distributed team when creating this book
How remote work lends itself to both divergent and convergent modes of creativity
Why remote collaboration can build trust through vulnerability

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Banfield and Alison Rand: Remote design sprints and design reviews Mar 31, 2020

Show notes

Show notes: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/richard-banfield-alison-rand

In this bonus episode, we’re once more focused on remote teams, and more specifically on best practices for facilitating remote design sprints, building trust between teams in a remote environment, and running effective critiques and design reviews remotely.

In the first half of the episode, we chat with Richard Banfield, VP of Design Transformation at InVision, and author of the book Enterprise Design Sprints, who gives us practical guidance on how to run a remote design sprint effectively. In the second half, Alison Rand, our Senior Director of Design Operations, will reveal the inner workings of how our own design teams perform design reviews remotely, and make sure that work is visible across teams.

You’ll learn:

How to facilitate a remote design sprints and run effective design reviews
The virtuous cycle that you need to put in place to build trust with your remote teams
Why preparation is the most critical part of running a design sprint remotely
How our veteran distributed team at InVision runs remote design reviews

To discover more remote work resources from InVision, check out www.invisionapp.com/remote.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices