Excellent points Todd. Usually what we end up doing is a stripped down version of a sane design process because of x number of reasons, from client timelines, budgets to internal expectations of design.

Surprisingly, as a product owner my greatest struggle has been with print / graphic designers with minimal understanding of interface design or human computer interaction. We are going through an internal education program to explain that UI is two way communication between an interface and a human on the other end.

Even with a great Design & Product Strategy answering the why and for whom, designers get bogged down with font selection, pixel perfect lines and alignments that takes weeks of reviews and still isn’t good enough because it doesn’t look great on a 60 inch meeting room TV screen.

It’s slowly turning around to a sweet balance iterative and well thought out design.