Askwhy: UX Research, Product Management, Design & Careers

The hottest Substack posts of Askwhy: UX Research, Product Management, Design & Careers

And their main takeaways

Understanding business strategy helps drive alignment and focus, ensuring products contribute to company goals and avoiding feature creep.
Knowing consumer trends, markets, and competitive landscape aids in developing relevant products and making informed decisions to stay competitive.
Engaging with business strategy leads to better decision-making through frameworks like second-order thinking and inversion, fostering alignment within the organization.

Avoid unnecessary research by understanding when it's not appropriate, like for problem-solving issues instead of validation.
Prevent overcommitting by scoping projects well, building in time buffers, and looking at historical data to manage workload effectively.
Enhance visibility for your UX research work by selecting the right method for your audience, sharing updates in product meetings, and knowing your stakeholders.

Reflect on your past year's work to make positive changes for the next year.
Question assumptions and diversify feedback strategies to improve work efficiency.
Focus on improving work visibility, embracing openness, and empowering others to delegate tasks effectively.

Your 1:1 with your manager is crucial for building trust and working on your relationship.
Set clear goals for your 1:1 meetings, including understanding priorities, receiving feedback, and discussing career development.
Organize your agenda, prepare in advance, and follow up effectively to make the most out of your 1:1 meetings.

Great engineers deeply understand tradeoffs and communicate well with others, not just master technical skills.
Invest in talking with mentors and peers for high ROI in learning and growth.
Effective collaboration involves continuous back and forth between engineering, product, and design, not following a linear pipeline.

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Take charge of your career growth by driving it yourself
Treat professional development like a project with time allocation and accountability
Utilize different forms of development - experience, exposure, and education

Kick-off meetings set the tone for a project and involve aligning stakeholders on the problem and solution.
Key attendees in a kick-off meeting include sponsors, engineering teams, designers, and cross-functional teams.
Ideal preparation for a kick-off meeting involves ensuring key stakeholders are aligned beforehand and sharing necessary context.