This playbook is a result of over 10 years of designing products across many industries, different users, devices, and locations around the world.

Why a Process is Important

A process brings order when everything around you seems chaotic and meaningless. A process allows you and everyone else involved to suspend disbelief in the pursuit of truth.

The importance of having a process cannot be overstated.

A dependable process is more valuable than trendy techniques, domain knowledge, big words, charismatic salesmanship, and technical ability.

4 Things you’ll need:

First, you’ll need a reliable process based on industry standards.

Second, you’ll need to be able to articulate why others on your team should trust it.

Third, you’ll need the courage to execute the process consistently.

Fourth, once you know the process well enough, you can start to use your wisdom to improve it and modify it to meet your needs based on your unique temperament and personality.

My Background

I started designing in Silicon Valley circa 2012 when mobile/responsive design was still pretty rare to see implemented well.

I quickly got a couple of mobile projects on my portfolio and it kept me busy for the next 6 years working at companies like Cisco and Pivotal Labs.

I was heavily influenced by the Design Sprint book and later on ended up meeting Daniel Burka, one of the key individuals who helped develop the process at GV. This book shaped my design process in a deep way and still influences my approach today.

My Process

• My process starts with 3-5 Stakeholder Interviews - Script

  <aside> 💡 TL:DR Using a scripted interview template you’ll talk to the people you’ll be working with and reporting to in order to understand what motivates them and what success will look like at the end of the project.

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  • You can learn a ton from these interviews. Here are some key outcomes:
    • Get an understanding of how aligned the key stakeholders are. If they are misaligned in any notable way this should be highlighted in your presentation of insights
    • Get an understanding of what each of the stakeholder’s KPIs and OKRs are as well as what the organization’s key metrics are as an outcome of the project
      • Also, find out their favorite alcoholic drink or restaurant
    • Get an understanding of who the point people are on the project
      • Product Owner
      • Tech Lead
      • Other Designers or at least access to any work done prior to your arrival
    • Get an understanding of the underlying politics and how to get stuff done

• Next, I do 3-5 User Interviews/Contextual Analysis - Script

By this point, we should ideally have a good understanding of the following:

• A solid understanding of who the representative or archetypal user is
• The digital or analog tool/s they are currently using to get the job done, and the challenges they encounter while doing it
• What the company’s unique value proposition is in the market, why they exist, and what their unique design-shaped challenges are, and who their closest competitor is