Advocating for Designers as a PM

I transitioned from designer to product manager for a few reasons — none of them because I didn’t love design. I felt like being a PM would let me advocate for design’s seat at the table, and help designers gain appropriate business context.

One thing I’ve learned during this transition: without deep empathy for your teammates, even good intent can be met with resistance. PMs and designers can feel at odds over research methodologies, prioritization results, or timelines. I’ve noticed a couple of skills that help PMs navigate these design-product tensions, and create advocacy instead of opposition — here are two ways you can advocate for design in your day to day work:

Know when to add structure

In early-stage product development, one of the most common designer-PM tensions I see is the desire for structure. For example, when conducting user research, designers tend to be more comfortable with ambiguity and with sifting through open-ended, qualitative information looking for patterns. PMs often want to establish a framework upfront and look for the answers to specific, targeted questions.

Neither of these approaches is exclusively right, but it’s important to give your design colleagues time and space to explore. It’s great to have learning agendas and structured thinking about product research, but user insights are often derived from questions that we asked ad-hoc or shared anecdotes that struck an emotional chord. Focusing too much on a pre-determined learning agenda or framework could leave insights on the table, and leave designers feeling excluded from the conversation.

Structure (whether that’s a learning agenda, a prioritization framework, or a set of deadlines) is important for managing timelines and cost, which PMs are generally responsible for. Successful teams use these constraints to their advantage, to create momentum. Structure helps set goal posts that get the team moving — but flexibility in reaching those goal posts helps designers show their strengths, and shows your trust in their process.

Set timelines that accommodate craft work

Designers, like engineers, are craftspeople: they need time and mental space to be creative and to produce high quality work. As you set ambitious team timelines, consider what the design priority is in this moment: is it OK to rush paper wireframes, because they’ll only be used in a handful of user testing sessions? Would it be helpful to allot an extra three days for the first set of real mockups, while designers are still gathering inspiration for the final product look and feel?

Timelines often go wrong when there isn’t a clear design-product conversation about what craft work will be used for. A few questions I try to answer are:

• What questions will the work be used to answer? (Have we agreed that this is the right design tool to be using here?)
• Will the design work be shared internally or externally? (Is this an important moment for the designer to highlight their skills and their craft?)
• For how long, and for what purpose will the work be shared? (Is this a sketch that’s only important today, or will we rely on this work in future conversations?)

PMs sometimes optimize for short timelines, leaving their teams feeling rushed — an upfront conversation about the purpose and scope of work can do a lot to mitigate that.

When thinking of timelines, also consider that you are responsible for the holistic process of delivering product. Junior PMs often create a timeline, and then work single-mindedly to push their team back toward that timeline as roadblocks come up. I’ve observed senior PMs look at delays with a little more nuance:

• If the current task is behind schedule — is there value in continuing down this route, or should we reduce the scope? Can we modify other upcoming tasks or the schedule itself to get ourselves back on track?
• Explore ways to help your designers: bring in other designers, reduce the task scope, or split up the task to make it more manageable.
• Take ownership — with the inevitable schedule challenges, figure out ways to make the project work and align stakeholders with the expected outcomes. That flexibility is the kind of timeline management that your team needs.

As product managers, we have no direct or explicit authority in our teams. We have to co-lead in a respectful and collaboration-oriented way. Thinking of designers as partners and people you want to advocate for is a great first step in that direction.

How do you advocate for designers or engineers on your team? We’d love to help share your experiences with other early-career and aspiring PMs — send us your ideas at pathtoproduct@gmail.com.