When the volume of design projects steadily grows while your team's capacity remains constant, traditional design processes fall apart. You find yourself agonizing over which projects to favor and which to neglect, which corners to cut, and which precious few fundamentals to defend.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Using stories from real teams, I'll explore how overworked designers have successfully broken free from the daily grind, reinvented themselves as design facilitators and coaches, and taught their companies to practice better design at all levels.
Attendees will leave with a new way of looking at their roles within their companies, a set of collaborative design techniques and methods to explore, and a renewed belief that they can help their companies deliver good design for all projects.
More with Less: Make Better Products by Making Companies Better
1. MORE WITH LESS
Making better products
by making companies better
IA Summit 2012
Will Sansbury
@willsansbury
w@willsansbury.com
#MoreWithLess
2. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
Too much work, too little time
WORK YOU
NEED TO DO
CHANCES OF
SUCCESS
WORK YOU PIT OF
CAN DO DESPAIR
3. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
Natural response is to lighten
the design process
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mashleymorgan/3862015468/
4. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
Kill the churn
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brantley/5173052778/
5. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
❝The bigger risk for
most startups is
building something
nobody wants.❞
Ash Maurya in
Running Lean:
Iterate from Plan A
to a Plan That Works
7. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
WHO: Red flags
Scope ballooned as edge cases were discovered
Features were justified by anecdotes from a
single customer
❝Yeah, I can imagine somebody wanting that
some day...❞
❝Personas? I think Marketing did some.❞
8. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
WHO: Solution
Ad-hoc persona workshop
Value alignment over accuracy
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Clarity of WHAT
http://www.flickr.com/photos/khawkins04/5303966478/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/atbaker/2947641919/
10. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
WHAT: Red flags
Project leads couldn’t agree on priorities
Requirements were poorly articulated,
with too much information implied or omitted
Team was easily bogged down
in debates about design
What we built didn’t match what we designed
and didn’t meet project objectives
11. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
WHAT: Solution
Product principles
A set of explicit agreements to guide design
and implementation trade-offs
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WHY: Red flags
Estimate was much larger than anticipated
Semantic arguments about requirement
details were frequent
Requirements were interpreted
extremely literally
Team’s user-centric focus atrophied
Team lacked heart, drive, passion
14. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
WHY: Solutions
Product or release charter
Get goals agreed to, written down,
and consistently visible to the team
❝We’ll know we’re successful when...❞
15. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
When a team
understands
WHO, WHAT, and WHY,
they will create value
in less time.
16. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
When it comes
to strategy,
how can you
move from
consumer to
collaborator?
17. #MoreWithLess Will Sansbury
Thank you!
Will Sansbury
@willsansbury
w@willsansbury.com