UX vs Strong personalities — #1 The all-knowing PO
As a UX practitioner, you will once in awhile encounter a PO, stakeholder, project manager, or domain expert that has worked for a long time and knows almost everything there is to know and already has an idea about what to do and what it should look like. When you find yourself with a strong personality like that, there is a risk that you will contribute little or nothing at all, resulting in inferior solutions. In this article I will share my experience dealing with this.
Working in projects, as a consultant or an employee, internally or as an external agency, there will most likely be someone that knows the business and the users. Most of the time, it’s people ready to share and expand their knowledge, open for discussions and reasoning. But sometimes people get personally involved and obsessed with their own knowledge, and are not open to take in other views or opinions.
In order for you to contribute in a situation like this you will need to have the means to argue and discuss. You must be able to question and to challenge the knowledge and decisions made by the PO. Otherwise, you’ll be swept away with very little to contribute and the result will be based on the PO’s knowledge and ideas. Without having your own knowledge of the users and business there is no way you can make the PO consider other ideas.
As a UX:er, you always argue from the user’s point of view which means that the first thing to do is a thorough user analysis. This will be seen as absolutely pointless by the PO, as he/she already knows everything. You will have to motivate, argue, beg or use force to get the time to do your analysis. If you fail, your impact as a UX:er will also fail. This is the most important and major battle to make. Without proper UX research you will be at a disadvantage throughout the project. You will not be able to argue for the users and therefore you will lose your ammunition for good design.
You might think you can do the analysis as you go along, but by the time you reach a reasonable level of knowledge a lot of important decisions will already have been made and sometimes implemented which will reduce the possibility of getting it changed. The project and the PO will have gotten up to speed and it will be hard to change tracks.
Instead of doing user research, the PO might suggest you just ask him/her — it’s easier and faster. This is a good idea in an initial phase as you learn about the business and users in order to formulate your own hypotheses and questions before meeting the users. Only relying on the PO will put you in a dependence situation and he/she might be interested why you ask a certain question at a certain moment and might bias the answer. However, you can initially extract as much information as possible and use that as a starting point for further analysis.
It’s imperative that you make it clear that the existing knowledge is only a starting point and not the complete truth. The existing knowledge can be biased, obsolete or incomplete. Or just not true. It is your job as an UX:er to find out the truth, compile and spread it, and use that as ground for decisions on a strategic as well as on detailed level.
If you feel you don’t get trustworthy information from the PO, still collect and compile it. You’ll be seen as arrogant and elitist if you don’t listen to people, even though you feel it’s a waste of time. You don’t have to be as thorough as normal but you still need to do it. When it comes to the analysis, just start from scratch.
During your research, show the PO that you don’t have an agenda other than mapping users and insights. Make the PO join you as guide on your first field trips, let the PO show his/her knowledge but be observant when reality differs and start a discussion about it. Ideally a conversation between the PO and a real user will show differences and can be the starting point of realization for the PO that his/her knowledge isn’t complete or up to date.
The PO might see you as a threat, someone who’s trying to oust the PO in knowledge and control. You will have to show that you’re not a threat and actually there to support the PO in making decisions to reach his/her goals. You will have to start building trust from the first moment you meet the PO. This can be made in different ways — show interest in the success of the product; listen to the PO’s dreams and visions and have respect for the PO’s knowledge and experience. The PO has goals to reach and when he/she realizes that you can help achieving that, you’ll be the PO’s hero.
Through-out the rest of the project, you will have to make sure the PO is not allowed to take over the design or fall back into old habits. Spread the knowledge of the users and use democratic design methods like Design studio to ensure all team members’ ideas are heard and motivated based on user needs. With everybody contributing and with trustworthy knowledge of the users, you can reach far.
Without knowledge of business and users all projects are hard to work in for an UX:er. Especially so in projects with someone that already knows everything, even what the end-result will function and look like. If you find yourself in a situation like this, you have some decisions to make. Know this, if you just tag along, you might be in for an unfulfilling time, so either take the fight or look for another project where your knowledge and contribution is appreciated.
