Product Managers – Manage Your Product Design Process with These Simple Steps

The product design process requires complex interpersonal skills. The Triolla team presents some tips for effectively managing the process.

What are the best practices for creating and maintaining a positive and efficient organizational culture? How can you complete and advance your daily tasks without unnecessary conflicts with colleagues? How do you successfully manage ongoing workflows while overcoming disagreements? If you’re a product manager working closely with UX/UI designers, these are undoubtedly some of the questions you often ask yourself.

Building an exceptional product is a meticulous process that demands teamwork, collaboration, and multidisciplinary synergy. As product managers, you’ll need to navigate the workflow and face many challenges to achieve your goals.

As many professionals in product management note, healthy personal relationships with colleagues—especially the design team—are absolutely essential. In this article, Triolla’s experts share their insights on best practices for collaborating with product design managers. This article offers key recommendations for building a healthy and sustainable organizational culture.

We’re Partners!
Treat designers as an organic part of the team and involve them in the core process as early as possible. Consider your UX designers as partners, not just workers. A team-oriented mindset will advance your shared goals and help you lead as product managers from the very first steps.

Invite designers to participate at the start of mapping the customer journey and in decision-making processes. Treat their professional insights and recommendations with respect and seriousness. The earlier your designers are involved, the fewer failures and frustrations your team will experience.

Make them feel relevant and valued. Encourage them to share their vision, opinions, and concerns openly as part of the development process. Then, integrate designers efficiently and systematically into the workflow to ensure motivation, a deep connection to the product, and a mutual desire to succeed.

Communicate
Open, personal, and positive communication is a key ingredient for success. Emphasize open, transparent, and direct conversations with colleagues. Invest time in building genuine friendships and mutual understanding. Learn the perspective, terminology, language, and thought process of the designers. Always maintain a proactive and initiative-driven approach. Strive to resolve any conflict or disagreement as early as possible and never allow it to escalate. Adopt a compromise-seeking approach while keeping the main milestones that define success in mind.

Although this may sound obvious, it’s not. A lack of constructive and positive communication will disrupt any workflow and can lead to unnecessary tension and conflict within your team. Therefore, it may be wise to take a more humble approach and leave your ego aside. Maintain these core elements throughout the process, and we’re confident you’ll achieve all your goals.

Leadership
Your team members and partners look up to you—don’t let them down. As product managers, you are directly responsible for the success (or failure) of the product, project, or customer experience. This doesn’t mean the burden is yours alone, but you must establish a results-oriented mindset within the team to ensure smooth, efficient, and consistent progress.

Clearly define goals and expectations. Set responsibilities and timelines.
Create connection and synergy within your multidisciplinary team by setting clear goals and milestones. Make sure the objectives and outcomes you define are measurable and achievable. Mark team milestones for success, and avoid micromanagement at all costs.

Treat your colleagues as valued professionals, and you’ll earn their respect and cooperation. This approach will reduce the natural tension that arises when working on complex projects.

When Reality Knocks
Don’t let emotions get in the way of your success. Your relationship with product designers is no different from any other relationship. Disagreements are a vital part of any workflow, and the right way is to harness your colleagues to achieve the best outcome.
As product managers, you must adopt a compromise-oriented, middle-ground approach. Stay focused on the goal while balancing creativity, risk, budget, and more.
Even during disagreements with your team, maintain a professional and objective atmosphere—never let things become personal. Keep your thinking rational and professional, and don’t let emotions interfere.

Avoid These Mistakes
Here are our top three commandments for product managers—copy and paste these!

• Micromanagement is a “creativity killer”—your designers need creativity and an open mind. Trust them and let them do their job.
• Set a clear path to success—you can’t maintain motivation and team commitment if there’s only a partial understanding of the project. Make sure everyone has a clear picture.
• Don’t neglect interpersonal relationships—we can’t stress this enough! The interpersonal connections formed within your team will determine the success or failure of the mission.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re definitely on the right track. You’re aware of the complexity and power of the product manager’s role and its challenges. These were some guiding principles from our Triolla experts, and we highly recommend you follow their advice.