Is not design.. it’s communication!
How can your project work if nobody understands your choices and where you want to go? Our role as designers is to bring everyone to identify the right problems and find the right solutions. Good collaboration is not possible without good communication.
It’s all about knowing people..
- Firstly, know who you’re talking to. Understand your stakeholders by engaging in discussions.
- Listen carefully and ask questions. You should care because you will be working together.
- One reason why communication fails is that people hear what they want to hear. Always be explicit.
Language, attitude, matter..
- Say “Thank you” whenever you can.
- Use “and” instead of “but”
- Do not say “I don’t like it” but rather question “why did you make that choice” or “have you thought about this option”.
Over Communicate
- Improving your communication skills is not something that will happen overnight.
- You can set a weekly reminder on the message platforms you use, to send a short recap to your stakeholders.
- Not everybody will read those, but you can point them out if the same questions keep coming up.
Good communication is hard!
Remember, if you work in a silo and don’t communicate well enough, you won’t be able to influence the product strategy.
Thanks for reading :)