I’ve never worked somewhere where there wasn’t at least some tension somewhere between product design and product management. It’s almost an inevitable dysfunction to fix in every product org in 2024.

—VP of Product at a venture-backed startup

It’s a harsh truth.

Tension is always dancing around the edges of the PM-designer relationship. Just visit Reddit to find PMs complaining about designers and vice versa.

But, over my 15+ years in product, I noticed something: the best PMs and product leaders flip that tension into cohesion.

It’s a tightrope balancing act. You need to:

• Inspire your design partner, but not step on their toes
• Unblock them with other teams, but also keep the business in mind
• Make them look good to others, but also push them to get better in their craft

It’s not easy. In fact, I’ll admit: I’ve made my own share of mistakes.

For instance: I had a less-than-ideal relationship with my design leader counterpart for a few quarters at thredUP. Yes, she and I got along—quite well, in fact. But, the collective work of our teams wasn’t hitting the mark:

• Our designs weren’t driving forward the business
• PM and designer practices were inconsistent at best
• Some of the PMs and designers literally disliked each other

As a result, squads missed their OKRs, and the quality of our products was uneven.

So, we took a hard look at what each team was working on. We clearly defined areas of responsibility. We worked even harder on the PM-designer relationships in the org. And, we were able to ship a series of features that helped thredUP raise Series E.

My experience fixing the PM-design relationship to fix the organization helped me realize:

1. The downside of a bad PM-design relationship is both of you are quickly exited from the company.
2. The upside is the company’s growth trajectory is forever changed.

This post will offer you some actionable tips to avoid the former and drive the latter.

I call bullshit that PMs and product designers can’t work cohesively to change the trajectory of the company. I’ve seen 2-3 individuals do it several times throughout my career. These rare relationships are usually career rocket launchers when they happen, too.

—Staff Designer at series E startup

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Today’s Post

Words: 8,215 | Est. Reading Time: 3.7 Mins

I’ve interviewed 15 people—4 VPs of Design, 3 VPs of Product, 3 Designers, 3 PMs, and 2 UXRs—to get you the best advice to level up your relationship with design:

1. Design-PM 101:
   • How the relationship has changed over time
   • The different types of designers you’ll encounter
   • What designers don’t like about modern-day PMs
2. The PM’s guide to excellence:
   • The ideal PM skills and collaboration points as a designer
   • Advanced PM skills to set you apart as the ‘best PM’
   • How to pair with design as a product leader
3. The art of managing the org for productive product work:
   • Creating the right aperture for planning processes
   • Responding to wireframes and early solutioning
   • Creating a culture of purposeful discovery

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1-Minute Summary

If you only have a few minutes, here’s a short summary of the key takeaways:

1. The PM-designer relationship is critical, but often filled with tension. The best PMs and designers work together to flip that tension into cohesion.
2. Designers vary widely in their skills, preferences, and expectations. PMs must adapt their approach to their specific designer—and culture of their business.
3. PMs should involve designers early, provide business context, advocate for the design team, and focus on leading when it comes to defining and prioritizing problems, rather than solutions.
4. Product leaders should treat their org like a product – continuously improving processes to empower design and collaborating closely with their design leadership counterpart.

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1. Design-PM 101

1.1 How the relationship has changed over time

Since I began as a PM, a lot has changed in the relationship between PMs and designers.

In empowered companies—about 25%—the roles have merged a good deal:

1. Designers are taking an active role in driving the metrics and QA
2. PMs are commenting in Figma files and brainstorming technical solutions
3. Engineers are taking an active role in defining the problem and have consistent design involvement

These are the environments Marty Cagan is always talking about.

In empowered teams like ours, the PM and product designer relationship has like 25% overlap. We see each other, and our tech lead, in multiple meetings a day.

—PM at Meta

But that’s just the empowered end of the PM world. For about 50% of companies, nothing has changed at all. In fact, in feature factories around the world:

• Execs still hand PMs wireframes
• Those PMs then ask designers to build them
• Generative research resources are scant, and both PMs and designers are left disempowered

It’s the siloed model from the past that refuses to fade away.

Then, there’s everyone in the middle (~25%). Neither feature factory, nor empowered, but equally confused about the line between design and PM.

So, all roads lead to: Designers and PMs not agreeing on who owns what.

The data makes it clear as day:

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Hence—today’s piece.

1.2 The variety of designers

In my experience, the biggest problems arise when either designers expect to be UI designers, but they need to be product designers, or PMs expect their designers to be product designers, but they are UI designers.

—VP of Product at a mid-cap public company

Not every designer is the same. And the roles tend to be really blur between different types of designers.

But, at the high level, here’s what you can expect from designers of different titles:

• UI designers: these designers specialize in making the user interface work well and look good
• UX designers: these designers specialize in designing a great experience for users
• Content designers: these specialized designers are copywriters who think about the entire user, business, and technical landscape
• Product designers: these generalist designers are expected to be able to cover all of UI, UX, and content, as well as research (when UXRs or content designers aren’t taking those parts)
• User researchers: sometimes their own department, and often only found in orgs that do product ‘well’, these folks specialize in doing generative and evaluative research

Notes:

1. Most UX designers in 2024 are partial product designers, but still are called UX designers. So, it’s important, even if someone has the title UX design, to see if they actually do consider more parts of product design, like business needs and user research.
2. There’s also sub-segment of product designers who do not want to do any generative research (they consider it a skill-set they don’t have; they focus on evaluative research).

Even if a designer does not have one of these particular titles, it’s important to figure out what that person considers themselves and what the organization expects that person to be.

The job description really matters much more than the title. But once you figure it out, this completely frames how they expect you to involve them in different PM processes.

1.3 What designers don’t like about modern-day PMs

The first step to improving your relationship with design is better empathizing with them. So, let’s step into their shoes.

One of the most popular design creators who serves as a face of the modern day designer’s complaints—whose posts were mentioned to me by several designers—is Hang Xu.

He’s been a staff designer at a variety of companies, and here’s how he explains what designers are looking for from PMs:

Let’s breakdown these 5 levels of PM stakeholder competence:

1. Very Low Competence PMThis is when you just don’t know much about UX, and you lean on the designer. They don’t mind this, because at least your confidence matches your skill.
2. Low Competence PMThis is the worst. It’s when PMs feel like they can mock up hi-fi wireframes in Figma. It’s pre-determining the solution before any research has been done.
3. Mid Competence PMThis is when PMs still are more confident than competent. They build good roadmaps and specs, but they don’t leave enough time for user research.
4. High Competence PMThis is when confidence finally falls below confidence. They are constantly asking how design and research can get more involved.
5. Very High Competence PMThis is the final level, where all readers of this piece should aspire to be. You want to have less confidence than competence, and always be planning in time for appropriate design exploration and user research.

As one designer shared with me about why it works this way:

Asking designers to deliver work without research, testing, and iteration is like asking for a cake without the key ingredients. You’ll end up with a half-baked, unappetizing product that no one wants to consume.

90% of a designer’s job is the crucial process you’re trying to skip. Neglecting it leads to shallow, poorly-conceived designs that will ultimately sink your product.

—Staff Product Designer at Series E startup

The overarching theme is that designers want an equal seat at the table.

They don’t want to be an afterthought or pixel-pusher, but rather a key partner in shaping the product vision and experience alongside the PM.

Now let’s move on to the tactical skills and steps to being that Very High Competence PM (section 2), and The Art of Managing the Org (section 3).