How to start a relationship between a product manager and a designer?
This is the first article of a series of 3 on the topic of how we in Pipedrive start, build and grow partnerships between product designers and product managers.
At Pipedrive, we have a unique set-up when it comes to product designers and product managers. They form a tight one-to-one partnership to create solutions for engineers to build. In this article, we look into a situation where new professional relationships need to be nurtured into partnerships and how to establish these faster while overcoming the usual risks.
In the beginning, it's all about establishing the connection
Whenever you start a new relationship, there will always be an awkward period where both parties are trying to understand if the connection is there or not, do you click or not. It is the same in personal and professional relationships, only in professional you can’t just walk away when it doesn’t work — you’ve got to make it work.
It shouldn't be that hard to connect, right?
Most of the time, you’ll go for it. What is the worst that could happen, right? You both dive right in and start working your asses off. Because you are expected to function together and to start delivering as fast as possible, in theory, it should be easy to accomplish. Just follow processes and trust each other to cover the responsibilities you both expect to own and fulfill. The Product Manager will put together the problem scope and the Designer will get the input, ask questions and start creating the solution. The rest of the stuff will work itself out automatically, right?
In reality, it’s just not that easy. There are just too many things processes will never cover; at times, blind expectation and trust can turn toxic. For example, when one side decides not to invite the other to a meeting without first discussing or even explaining the decision, it can undermine the whole relationship
How do you prevent such an outcome? How do you:
- Make work-related relationships function efficiently
- Remove the awkward phase in the beginning
- Do it in the shortest time possible
- Prevent time-wasting and future toxicity?
How did it happen to us?
In Pipedrive Product Development, this became a crucial problem during a fast growth phase where a lot of new hires (product managers and designers) were expected to start working together as partners. We do have an intensive and extensive onboarding process, but this will just make you prepared for the work you are supposed to do and give insight into what others are expected to do. How you work together with your new partner remains for both of you to figure out.
After a couple of months, it became evident that a lot of the new partnerships were struggling, work efficiency was lagging and emotions started to take over. To understand what the frustrations and blockers were we conducted a workshop. The main findings revolved mainly around not understanding each other’s expectations and ways of working together. As it turned out, in most of the cases, the expected rituals, routines, responsibilities, and methods didn’t align, and the more they worked as a tandem, the bigger the frustration became.
The “Dream Team” ritual did the trick
The solution came after a couple of brainstorming sessions and was created by our designers themselves. It was a workshop based on IDEO’s “Craft Team Agreements” exercise, part of their “Cultivating Creative Collaboration” course. In a way, it was good proof that Pipedrive’s designers’ personal growth and training opportunities were put to good use and resulted in creating the solution they needed to improve work relationships with partner PMs:
From now on, every time a new PM and PD pairing is formed, they will have the “Dream Team” ritual. It consists of a 90-minute Whiteboard (Miro) exercise, where they “face reality and each other”.
Professional relationships are easier to build if you do them professionally
In conclusion, expecting that things will work out eventually between people is a risky bet, and if the organization is growing fast, you will not want to take that bet and instead solve it by:
- Making a Dream Team whiteboard (use our template or create your own)
- Face reality and each other (do the exercise)
- Build a relationship (make mutual conclusions and create your rituals)
Of course, this only establishes the relationship and lays a foundation for the partnership. If you want to learn how to build this partnership further and grow it into a level of …
… you can read the second article in this series: “How to nurture your PM-designer partnership with collaboration contracts?”
