
ot and give articulated feedba…first time around, but allows you to easily come back to brush up on specific topics down the line. Wealthfront’s VP of Design, Kate Aronowitz, notes, “It’s less about teaching someone to design, and more about the language of how it works. Understanding these principles will allow you to better spot what’s working and what’s not and give articulated feedback.” I can’t really argue with that.
Plan for measurement and iteration: This may be the most important point of all. Lead the team in coming up with a plan for seeing where the solution is working and where it needs further iteration. If the team agreed upon known tradeoffs up-front, ensure that there’s a plan for addressing any known gaps instead of leaving them hanging. It’s also worth conducting a “post-mortem” or review after the project ends and metrics of success …
Drive discussions around tradeoffs: Assuming you will not be able to achieve everything you want to achieve in a given timeline, there will be tradeoffs to consider. Lead discussions with the team around these tradeoffs: “if we focused on [x], we wouldn’t be able to fully solve [y] this release. Alternatively, if we put more time into [y] and deferred [x] to the next release, we would more directly meet the top user needs and business goals.” Document these tradeoffs so that the team agrees upon them and to help plan for future phases.