Summary
Product managers and designers have something in common. We are all in the coherence business. We need to make sense of things long enough to make progress. We express this in different ways, which can often cause conflict and misunderstanding, but the underlying need remains the same. In this talk John Cutler will explore what alignment really means in the context of complex unpredictable work, where we are constantly dancing between different levels of abstraction, frames, and perspectives.
Key Insights
-
•
The pursuit of alignment can lead to overwhelming complexity.
-
•
Design leaders now face a challenging environment with increased uncertainty and reduced organizational support.
-
•
Attempts to define terms and achieve agreement on goals may be counterproductive.
-
•
A shift from being a glue person to becoming a catalyst for collaboration is necessary.
-
•
Enabling constraints can guide effective decision-making without stifling creativity.
-
•
Storytelling can foster understanding and engagement among teams more effectively than strict alignment.
-
•
Recognizing that simplicity in communication does not always yield beneficial outcomes is crucial.
-
•
The pressure on design leaders to present information simplistically can lead to meaningful discussions being overlooked.
-
•
Ambiguity can be a positive force in fostering innovation and adaptability within teams.
-
•
Personal journeys and reflections can inform and inspire more flexible design thinking.
Notable Quotes
"The information architects among you will relate to this problem."
"I've been noticing something out there among my fellow community members, is that it's heavy out there."
"There's a tension right now that I'm sensing out there in the community."
"I think we're at the limit of executive information processing."
"I realized that if you remove all the signal, if we were to print this picture and then try to go back to that house, we would never be able to."
"What's that one thing that's gonna crack open this conversation?"
"It's much more valuable for us to tell stories or create narrative structures that teams can find their own meaning in."
"Our work is complex. There's lots of lines going into each other and that's the reality of our work."
"We need to hold some things constant, otherwise your brain will explode."
"The goal here is to how to do it in ways that are also friendly to yourself and friendly to your teams."
More Videos
"Design can be so powerful that it influences decision-making."
John MaedaMaking Sense of Enterprise UX
June 9, 2016
"It’s essential to approach thinking styles without prior demographic assumptions."
Indi YoungThinking styles: Mend hidden cracks in your market
January 8, 2025
"Measuring the wrong success indicators can stifle progress and growth."
Chris ChapoData Science and Design: A Tale of Two Tribes
May 13, 2015
"We're mining our practices to track impact over time."
Elizabeth ChurchillExploring Cadence: You, Your Team, and Your Enterprise
June 8, 2017
"Collectives are communities of practice individuals that have an interest in a particular topic."
Rusha SopariwalaRemote, Together: Craft and Collaboration Across Disciplines, Borders, Time Zones, and a Design Org of 170+
June 9, 2022
"Design is like rocket fuel to anything we attach ourselves to, especially technology."
George AyeThat Quiet Little Voice: When Design and Ethics Collide
November 16, 2022
"Our mental, physical, and emotional bandwidth is like a battery that fluctuates between being fully charged and completely depleted."
Ariba JahanTeam Resiliency Through a Pandemic
January 8, 2024
"Design thinking is a set of behaviors, not just a toolbox of methods."
Julie Gitlin Esther RaiceDesign as an Agent of Digital Transformation at JPMC
June 9, 2021
"We can decide how to improve the trust of our users based on the way we are transparent with them."
Matteo GrattonCan Data and Ethics Live Together?
October 1, 2021
