What I Learned from My First Partner Pitch at Lucid Software
Let’s go back to June 6th, it’s my first week as a UX Design Intern at Lucid Software. I spot two meeting invites that aren’t part of the onboarding training. One is with Caro Dekkers, my reliable product manager from the Scrum team, to prepare for a partner review and brainstorming session and the other is for the actual partner review.
I’m so excited to dive into my first project. However, after the initial partner meeting, we quickly learned that our partner has constraints that don’t quite fit with our proposals. If we can’t find a balance, we might need to reconsider our approach to this project. I certainly don’t want my first project to hit a roadblock! So, I took the initiative: I reached out to Rob Witt, my manager, to ask how I can be more helpful and better prepared for our next partner call.
I’m lucky to be working with an outstanding team that gives me massive support. We run through rounds of brainstorming sessions to review feasible use cases, narrowing down the options. Everything moves quickly and efficiently. Then, I’m told that I will be the one to present our ideas during the next partner pitch. It’s only my second week on the team.
For a moment, I think to myself in a panic, “What am I going to do?” I want to ensure that both my team and our users back me up. First, I send the proposal to the team to align our goals and opinions. Then, working closely with Lauren Kett, our amazing UX Researcher, we send out internal and external surveys to gather feedback. This gives our partner a sense of how our solution will help their users and Lucid’s users get more value by cooperating together.
The big day arrives. It feels like the most intense 30 minutes in my first 30 days at Lucid. Blake Bohacek, a Director of Product Management, leaves a lasting impression on me with his short yet powerful speech. It perfectly balances what is possible and what is of interest for both sides. With such an engaging introduction, I presented the user flows and design proposals smoothly. Eventually, we find the sweet spot: our partner is very eager to start diving into this collaboration!
This effort leads to valuable insights and potential ways to strengthen our partnerships. Through this process, I learned firsthand what one of Lucid’s core values really means: teamwork over ego.
👍 Here are 4 things I learned from my experience:
Take ownership:
- From this experience, I realized how efficient we can be when showing ownership: we quickly move the process forward as we all focus on one goal. When I take charge of gathering and presenting user flows, it ensures we are aligned and can pivot effectively.
- When you take ownership, you’re not just responsible for the output; you become a driving force of the outcome.
Backing up design decisions with business needs:
- With the help of the team, we successfully narrowed the direction and targeted the most feasible ideas. By considering the partner’s constraints, we managed to balance creativity with practicality.
- Designers often fall into a trap: we love to be creative and show empathy to users even if it might not be feasible. The truth is, we are all serving the business. This means we should consider strategic partnership value, business value, and user value. That’s how you make your design usable, accessible, feasible, and profitable.
Speak up about the most important design decisions:
- During the pitch, no matter how many creative ideas we had, we only showed the ones worth bringing attention to get feedback on.
- Storytelling is a UX designer’s best friend. Grab every opportunity to practice the skill of helping more people buy in. It’s essential to craft a compelling narrative around the design choices, focusing on the impact and benefits. This helps stakeholders understand the value of your work and makes your presentations more persuasive.
Reach out and build connections:
- Meetings with cross-functional teams provide unexpected perspectives on our use cases. For example, when brainstorming with the Lucid Teams team, we got new insights into the potential future benefits of integrating the partner’s product into Lucid.
- Don’t hesitate to seek feedback and engage with colleagues outside your immediate team! Keep your goals in mind, but exposing yourself to critique and new ideas is important.
For the next steps, we are planning to validate user needs and hypotheses before finalizing the solution.
The journey has just begun, and I’m excited to continue learning and growing in this role. It’s an exciting time at Lucid, and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes us!
Got any questions or feedback? Feel free to reach out — I’d love to hear from you!
The opinions and positions expressed are my own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Lucid.
