Breaking down silos in design conversations

Before we start, a little bit about myself for context.

I’ve been in product and service design since 1997. Back then, we were called product managers.

I’ve designed content management systems (circa 1999), communications & productivity suites (circa 2003), launched a telco and built entire experience design frameworks and systems for core and value-added mobile telecommunications services in the UAE (circa 2006–2019), and then online services and apps that run the gamut from national learning & development platforms to luxury airline startups.

Over the years, one constant bugbear I’ve observed and experienced in and with corporate environments has been the struggle getting cross-functional teams to co-create and collaborate.

How productive and frictionless have your design workshops been in a dynamic like this?

If you’re often faced with pushbacks and siloed thinking when trying to workshop or present design solutions, read on.

We’re the designers. We’re the “creatives”

And everyone else is finance, product, procurement, legal, regulatory, technology, network, customer care, operations, sales, marketing, and so on.

They’re “the business”.

And therein lies the problem.

It’s turned into an “us vs them”.

And that needs to change if we want to deliver stuff faster that works better.

Design sprints should be more like a scrum — not AGILE scrum, more like real-life rugby scrums.

A scrummage, commonly known simply as a scrum, is a method of restarting play in rugby football that involves players packing closely together with their heads down and attempting to gain possession of the ball.

There’s only one goal in a scrum — to gain possession of the ball.

See? It’s simple and clear. It doesn’t say how, or who needs to do it. Just GET THE BALL. Figure it out.

Here are 3 tips that have worked well for me, if you’re not doing it already

1. Start with a clear goal when running a design scrum

I always start my workshops by defining the problem or the goal by starting with the phrase “How do we…”

When I run design scrums, I usually have our session goals up on the wall. Bonus points if you have an empathy map up for easy reference!

For example, instead of getting everyone into the room to “improve the checkout flow”, try to reframe that statement around the outcomes we want — “how we do we make checkout and payment easier for customers so they can do it in 2 steps?”.

I write this down at the top of our board, or in a large font on FigJam or Miro, and it reminds everyone in the room why we’re here in the first place.

And don’t be shy to update/refine these goals as you and your teams brainstorm for answers!

2. Treat everyone as a creator/designer — because they are

If we want to build a culture of design, collaboration, and co-creation in our workplaces, we need to start trusting others in the room.

Yeah, that’s right — the ones who aren’t “creatives” — and recognize that they ARE creators in their own right.

A team like this should be cross-functional. Accept disorganization, and ask lots of “what-if”s

They create workflows, policies, they bring insight into why some things are the way they are, how things look and work on the front-lines.

Start by leaving titles/roles at the door, so everyone brings only their experience and skills into the scrum. Erase those boxes!

As a designer, my focus is on solving the problem with the least friction, not trying to force people into my “HOW” to get a problem solved. And certainly not to use them to “validate” assumptions and designs.

This gets everyone out of “gatekeeper” mindsets (passive) into one where they look forward to making something cool/better/useful (active) and be recognized for it

When you can do this, you’ll start seeing more solutions, and less friction.

Sure, there will often be “car crashes” in the first couple of sessions, and that’s why my 3rd point where we get to do the work we do best….

3. Make design scrums something that everyone looks forward to

There’s no fixed playbook for this, and that’s probably the most fun part of our jobs.

But there are 5 simple things to keep in mind, a page I’ve taken out of the Scrum playbook

• commitment
• courage
• focus
• openness, and
• respect

All WE need to do is to keep everyone on the same page.

Trust the process. Trust your people.

This is unfamiliar territory to many who aren’t called designers, and like pickup basketball, it’s more fun and productive when we play the same game, with the same rules — teach them to play, and you’ll grow from a team to a league.

Don’t just play the match. Grow the game!