Summary
Join conference curator Christian Crumlish, the conference speakers, and guest commentators for a lively panel discussion reviewing highlights, sharing notable takeaways, and diving deeper into questions inspired by the afternoon’s presentations.
Key Insights
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Shielding teams too much can stunt their growth; some adversity builds product muscles.
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Being the single filter for all executive requests often leads to burnout and inefficiency.
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Situational factors like company size and team maturity define how much information and context to share.
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Storytelling is a foundational UX and product skill for aligning teams and stakeholders.
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Adapting the level of detail and format of strategy communication is critical for different audiences.
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Risk management requires repeatedly surfacing fears and anxieties to identify what truly matters.
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Translating risks into financial impact is an effective way to engage executives.
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Including cross-functional teams in risk conversations builds shared security and better decisions.
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Having one designer for many PMs is a red flag and leadership failure in staffing design.
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Product and design leaders must decide which battles to fight: evangelize design or focus on delivering product.
Notable Quotes
"When everybody's fully agreeing on things, that tends to make me nervous because it can be groupthink."
"If you put yourself between the C-suite and the product team, you assign yourself a job you have no time for."
"Sometimes you need to slow things down and hit the brakes to prevent rushed, emotion-driven decisions."
"In a startup, I share long-term fringe ideas to help engineers and designers avoid boxing themselves in."
"Storytelling is not process-oriented but is relevant for each team in terms they understand."
"Proto strategy means crafting your strategy from eight pages down to one sentence to adapt communication."
"Have you asked what scares us or keeps us up at night to surface real risks to focus on?"
"A development team of six costs a million bucks a year, so research costs are an investment in avoiding waste."
"One designer to twelve PMs is dead on arrival; that's either design isn't valued or you're massively understaffed."
"You’re not just convincing people of the product’s value but the benefit it brings to them personally."
Or choose a question:
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