PMs are not the boss of me

Finding problem-alignment as a designer

Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash

It’s a tale as old as time. PM (Product Manager) writes a ticket. The ticket goes something like this:

The assumption being that a designer will “do X.”

If you’re getting tickets like this (or worse, tickets with mockups or sketches) — you’re PM is jumping past the problem-alignment stage. This means that you’re not getting a chance to provide input at an extremely vital stage.

Sometimes a ticket will read:

Again, the designer is given the task of “doing Y.”

Make it stop

If this is NOT the culture at your organization, and problem-alignment is respected — you can stop reading.

If you have gotten tickets like this — I have some tips.

And worst of all, if design is treated like a service for product and engineering to utilize, bookmark this article.