Managing Designers vs Managing Product Managers

Last week, Andy Budd (@andybudd), the founder of UK design consultancy Clearleft, tweeted, "PMs are hungry for 'impact'. Designers are desperate to 'do it right.' These things aren’t necessarily the same. This is why it’s much harder to manage designers than Product Managers."

Darren Sorrels (@Darrenbydesign) added, "The perfection enemy is strong in the design camp, but the 'shoot first, think later' is the opposing force I've seen in the PM space."

Sush Kelly (@maxray) chimed in with a painfully honest observation about his experience.

Isn’t that just because designers are not as aware or interested in the time/cost part of a feature or project, where as the PM is solely focused on it? I’m my experience Designers could work endlessly on something if allowed! 😂

— Sush Kelly (@maxray) January 12, 2023

One commenter shared a clip of Yuhki Yamashita, Chief Product Officer at Figma, talking about just this. Watch the clip.

One of the neatest things about @yuhkiyam’s background is that he was a design leader at Uber before he became Chief Product Officer at Figma.

Here’s him sharing who is harder to manage, designers or PMs.

Hint: designers 👀 pic.twitter.com/dkOVxKxEZH

— Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan) January 10, 2023

Here's the deal: Design programs and bootcamps teach best practices and process. Students are encouraged to advocate for both of those things.

Building a user-centric culture requires compromise

But real world design work is full of compromise. Often, nobody in an organization understands design best practices and process as well as designers. We aim to move the organization toward more user-centered decision-making, but progress is incremental.

Too often, designers betray our own mission by creating the impression that user-centered decision-making is rigid and inflexible. This is a huge turn-off for product leaders who are looking for the most efficient way to make a business impact.

An important lesson for design managers

If you manage designers, one of the best lessons you can give them is that there's not "one right way" to get things done in design. We should always be learning, but the process doesn't have to be perfectly by-the-book each time. Designers are more successful if they are flexible.

Having a plan is good, but know that a wrench will be thrown into it. At Slide UX, we include Resourcefulness and Adaptability in our values. Designers make a greater impact when we work WITH the organization and focus on building strong relationships.

When it comes to design, "the right way" is elusive, ever-changing, and ever-lengthening. We should aim for excellence, but the dogmatic pursuit of perfection will drive us mad.