How PMs can work effectively with designers

In this talk Yuhki Yamshita (CPO Figma) talks about “How PMs can work effectively with designers”, with several tactical tips.

For building trust, the way we communicate matters greatly. PMs, designers, and engineers usually operate from different perspectives, and being able to communicate across these perspectives is crucial. For example, while a PM may push to release something as long as the metrics are good, a designer typically wants to understand why the metric is good in the first place, and making room for and highlighting these nuances helps build trust.

For giving useful feedback, this often relates to providing feedback on a design, and here I like the tip to zoom out instead of zooming in. It is easy to jump straight to minor details or edge cases without considering the main considerations for the design. The picture illustrates these points, from low-level details to a higher level.

For the last part, while a design is a solution, often the most value is achieved by better defining and understanding the problem and aligning on it. Doing this properly makes it easier for the designer to take a more articulated approach to exploring the solution space, where different approaches and tests can be more deliberate from the start, as visualized in the picture below.