Prioritization is on my mind

My present role at work has required to step up the number of interactions with different people tremendously. In order to do my job correctly, it requires me to collaborate with other designers and other teams, thus providing me with more opportunities for unsolicited feedback. As an introvert, this has been incredibly hard to deal with, and simultaneously been my biggest area of growth. The increased interaction is definitely more time intensive than I had imagined, and as a result I have fewer hours in the day for actual execution. This isn’t actually bad, because every conversation usually provides me with new and valuable information needed to connect all the dots, and get to a more informed solution faster. The fewer hours then, are spent more efficiently.

The sheer number of these interactions has provided me with better insight to gauge inter-team dependencies and roadmaps, which has in turn allowed me to better sequence design tasks to accommodate additional feedback from meetings that are still to take place. The key for me has been to remain flexible, since every data point and every piece of feedback has the ability to influence this sequence of priorities.

Because priorities can change so frequently, it is not possible for different functions (Product Design, Product Management, User Research and Engineering) to be efficient without collaboration. This enables inclusion, more involved discussions, and an equal voice for all individuals. These benefits alone have made the time investment for the additional interaction worth it, with continuous prioritization leading the way forward.