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- [00:00]
Host
I've interviewed a bunch of staff designers over the past year, and one thing is very clear. If you want to make strategic impact as a designer, then you have to get to a place of altitude that allows you to see the bigger picture.
- [00:15]
Kat Small
That's where you can start to build the influence that you're looking for. And then, yeah, the scale just increases and increases as you see more of the system. It just makes sense that you should work on this really big, meaty problem because you just know all the right people already. You already have the right context, and that's how it happens.
- [00:32]
Host
That's Kat Small, who's been a longtime designer at companies like Etsy, SoundCloud and Asana. You're going to hear from her a few times during this episode because we're going to do a deep dive into how you can increase your altitude and make more of a strategic impact in your role. And the best place to start is investing in your relationship with your pm.
- [00:51]
Kat Small
One of the things I always ask people is how often are you talking with your PM one to one. I find that a lot of people only really have conversations within groups, which is fine, maybe, but I found that when I actually scheduled one to ones with my PM once a week, that was a time where we could start to have more strategic conversations and I could just learn more about them and their challenges.
- [01:17]
Host
Mia Bloom also stressed the importance of this PM relationship.
- [01:21]
Mia Bloom
I got better at that by asking really good questions and becoming good friends with my PMs. Frankly, you know, that gave me the context, the conversations, the support system that allow me to ask the right questions at the right time to understand what's important to the business right now and why.
- [01:39]
Host
You might not have that type of relationship with product people at your company. And that's okay. But maybe the next conversation with your PM starts with you saying something like, hey, I really want to grow my understanding of business strategy. Would it be okay if I asked you questions here and there to better understand the why behind what you're doing? And I bet they say yes.
- [02:00]
Mia Bloom
Most of the PMs I worked with were very willing to share that knowledge because ultimately that was going to serve them too, to have a designer on their team that could actually speak business objectives.
- [02:09]
Host
Over time, you can start to deepen that collaboration. Maybe at first you just hold five minutes at the end of your one on one or weekly sync to ask some questions to your pm. But another great tactic you can work toward is asking your PM if you can co present ideas or initiatives to the rest of the team.
- [02:27]
Mia Bloom
One other thing I saw on my team is some of my design leads would actually asked their PMs to co present. And that meant that a lot of conversations had to take place before to make sure that they were aligned on the why and the how and the language was aligned with the business. So that's a great way to practice and elevate design inside of the company.
- [02:48]
Host
Now, co presenting is great, but eventually I think the most valuable thing you can do is to sit in on certain strategy or planning conversations. This is a tactic that multiple designers have brought up on Dive Club.
- [03:00]
Kat Small
You can also kind of start to see through those conversations, like, where does this person spend their time? And is there an opportunity for me to ask, oh, can I just be a fly on the wall for this particular meeting that you mentioned that you go to every week?
- [03:13]
Host
Femke hit on this same idea when she was talking about her time at Uber and Wealthsimple.
- [03:18]
Femke
My first recommendation is to try to get into those earlier conversations. I'm sure they're happening. You're just not being invited. So instead of waiting around to ask for the invite, invite yourself, right? Get yourself into those conversations as much as you can and let your PM know that you want to be a part of that stage of the process. It could just be that the PM thinks you're too busy or you're not interested, or maybe they don't see where you could have value and so you need to let them know and tell them, yes, I want to be there. Here's where I think I can have input. Here's the value I think I can bring to these conversations. And then get yourself invited.
- [03:55]
Host
Being a part of these early planning and strategic discussions is one of the best ways that you can increase your altitude at the company.
- [04:02]
Kat Small
From there, you can start to see a little bit more of, like, how the business works. It's really scary, but I think that the more that you proactively reach out to people and people start to see you as, you know, an ally and an asset in some way, they're going to start to lean on you, they're going to start to trust you more, and then that's where you can start to build the influence that you're looking for.
- [04:24]
Host
Now you might be sitting here thinking, well, what is the value that I bring to these conversations? And I'm glad you asked. Here's Kat again.
- [04:31]
Kat Small
Designers can actually be really great resources for reducing risk, which is huge for a product manager because their whole job is terrifying. Like, the whole job is Just guessing basically, and then like pushing people towards something that you think is right. So if you can start to angle yourself as somebody who can help a PM make good decisions that are informed, where you can then say, hey, I noticed X, Y, Z, maybe I can just illustrate a couple of examples of the decision you're trying to make is something that I've done.
- [05:05]
Host
For example, one of the easiest ways to add value is just to offer help with PRDs. On one hand, it's foolproof way to insert yourself a bit earlier into the product strategy process. But also most PMs are drowning in docs and gladly will take the help. Here's Soren Iverson sharing a bit about his time at Cash App.
- [05:23]
Soren Iverson
I've never had a PM be upset by trying to take work off their plate, right? So you can insert yourself into the process of product requirements, document creation, product strategy, and really there's a product designer that is part of what you should be doing.
- [05:38]
Host
When you do this kind of work, not only are you being helpful, but you're also absorbing crucial context to the business.
- [05:44]
Mia Bloom
That gave me more confidence to frame my ideas through that lens and to test it with them. Hey, what if we do this? And how would that impact the business? That practice is what set me up to be able to talk about the business at a higher level.
- [05:58]
Host
As you build that context and deepen the relationship with your pm, you're gaining an ally, someone that you can partner with on more exploratory future facing work. Here's Kathy Zhang talking about her time at GitHub.
- [06:11]
Kathy Zhang
You build that relationship with that person and offer yourself as a tool and resource to paint that future and show like, hey, you know, I'm underutilized. This is what I would be able to do if we partnered and paired or if there was space.
- [06:24]
Host
Real quick message and then we can jump back into it. One of my favorite parts of the recent episode with Smith and Diction was hearing about Mike's experience generating brand imagery using Visual Electric.
- [06:35]
Soren Iverson
I was already in Visual Electric because it looks like Figma, it feels like Figma, it operates like Figma. And that to me, I was just like, I was comfortable. I felt like I was like, I can move around in here with confidence.
- [06:45]
Host
I think that's exactly why I love the product so much too. And sure, it's the most photorealistic image generator out there, but it's also so clearly built specifically for designers and every single part of the UX is elite. So this is a reminder that you can get your first month for free using the code Dive Club. Just head to Dive Club Electric to get started. Look, I'm not a motion designer, but I'm working on a new product right now, and I've been using Jitter for everything, and it's honestly a cheat code. I've been creating Lottie files, micro animation showreels for Twitter, and I didn't want to use After Effects because it would have taken me all day to figure that stuff out. But there's no steep learning curve with Jitter. The whole product is super intuitive. They even have incredible community templates that I've been using to jumpstart my project. So even though I wouldn't consider myself a motion designer, I feel like Jitter gives me superpowers, which is why I can't recommend this product enough. If you had to Dive Doc Club slash Jitter, you can spin up something stunning in a matter of minutes. Okay, now, on to the episode. Now, if you want to move upstream into a more strategic role at your company, then you're going to have to be proactive. You're going to have to do things beyond the problems that are explicitly handed to you to solve.
- [08:04]
Kathy Zhang
There isn't a ready space for you to be doing that work in your work time. Like, I don't know, I spent a lot of my personal hours doing that kind of work because I was interested and passionate about it. I would spend evenings, like, jamming on a design vision thing that I understood may or may never happen. If I didn't do it, then it's definitely true that it will never happen.
- [08:24]
Host
This is why the process of increasing your altitude is so important. Because it's from this vantage point that you can start to propose ideas and visualize potential futures while you're still doing.
- [08:35]
Soren Iverson
Work on whatever your quarterly objectives are or the sprint that you're currently working on. You need to do that work and you need to do it well. But then I think also really using PM as a thought partner and then showing them, here's what our product could look like in a year or two years or half a year, I think showing people that you're thinking strategically about what the product can look like in the future and mapping that back to how it will help the business and how it will help the customer, I think will go a long way in being able to kind of insert your influence with a product partner.
- [09:13]
Host
The best way to increase your influence at a company is to go all in on an idea like this, to get it out into the world, rally support and ride it all the way to production. And who knows, maybe that's a topic for a future conversation. But hopefully this episode sparked some ideas for how you can increase your own altitude. I will see you next week.