The Product Triad: Great designers help their teammates do their best work

How can I help my co-workers do their best work?

Last week, I was in a meeting where some of the engineers and I were listening to a research share out from the UX researcher we were working with. At the end of the conversation, one of my teammates asked a question about documentation and UX writing. My other teammate responded saying that he could provide more insight from other teams or resources to help him address his question. Thinking about how this research related to my project, I didn’t think about how the question my teammates asked related directly to work or how I could help him do his work more effectively.

Great designers get involved in conversations, even forcing themselves, instead of just thinking about how they can do their work.

Often times we focus so much on our own work that we don’t think about others and the resources or steps they need to take to ensure success on their end. At the core of product development, designers need to rely on engineers and pm. They rely on us and each other as well. That seems straightforward, but what we often forget is that people can’t design in isolation.

How everyone can work together?

At Google, to encourage teamwork, we emphasize the product triad. This triad consists of UX, PM and eng, and the reason why we emphasize this triad is because it is essentially what leads to the development of a product (done well when everyone works together). One way I work together with PM and eng is that I have weekly 1:1s or group meetings with them. This allows me to understand the core functions of how a product will work in relation to design. Questions I might ask is how it’s built in the backend, the product strategy and then question the decisions made in order to make sure I fully understand the tech/business objectives to define workflows that can work with the backend and meet the core goal of the product with design.

All parts of the triad influence and work with each other. Without one or the other, it’s hard to develop a solid product.