Boxes And Arrows : The Design Behind the Design

Article Idea:

Taking Command: how to be an IA/design leader

suggested by Uday Gajendar on 2007/01/06

Leadership is incredibly hard work, demanding time, patience, energy, people-skills, confidence, and little bit of faith in the unpredictable/fluid/dynamic nature of software projects (really product development overall). But there are some basic but vital tasks a designer/IA can perform to help convey a leadership posture. They don’t have to be grandiose measures like forging a new strategy (althought that’s nice too). For example, the following is a small list:
- setting clear, committed deadlines
- asking critical questons about assumptions and dependencies
- setting expectations early (and managing them along the way)
- and building consensus via rapid iteration/feedback loops and prototypes, while itemizing/prioritizing emerging issues

In these small ways, a designer/IA can emerge as a valued leader within the overall UCD process…