If you have the truck with the speaker (and can be a designated driver) I’ll gladly preach.

I think the key here is to remember that bridging these gaps is two ways. You have to understand how the left-brain mind works just like you expect them to understand how the right-brain mind operates. Which is challenging as hell.

My first thought is to not wait for the beast to rear its head. Develop a relationship upstream. Before the stressful moment even happens. You’re a creative mind, so use your empathetic skills to appreciate where the beast is coming from. What keeps them up at night? What are the pressures they’re dealing with? What kinds of bullshit is dumped on them by *their* boss?

Dealing with it in the heat of the moment will likely prove fruitless. Work on it upstream. They’ll best understand that it’s in the business’ best interest to leverage their designer’s talent when they aren’t under pressure.

There are so many great points here, and to have it come from “the other side” instead of a designer’s rant is really affirming.

I am wondering what you think (as someone from the “other side”) a designer should do when the micro-management beast rears its ugly head. Of course, you should talk to someone about it productively. But, it is particularly difficult when there are very few creatives, let alone maybe one, to get the trust you need to make great design.

Don’t they know that it is also in the designer’s interest to have business be a great success?

Thank you!

For example, we have strict 2 week cycles, and must demonstrate our progress at these points to stakeholders. Feedback from these go towards our “what’s next?” meeting where we assess the previous 2 weeks, the feedback and the current state of play on the project as a whole and decide what to spend the next two weeks doing. IT might be new tangents, new prototypes or concepts, refining existing stuff, throwing stuff away, etc.

This should allow the talents to shine through – the regular check up should inspire trust and hopefully lead the manager way from a daily meddle and allow the team to flourish.

We’ll see how it works out!

I don’t necessarily think numbers 2 and 3 contradict each other, although I see your point. As I hear it: how can I say that a manager needs to be open to the idea that a designer can have the ability to understand things beyond design while at the same time suggesting that a manager can’t understand design? That’s fair.

The post is directed at managers. I wanted to make it clear that they shouldn’t meddle in design and they need to trust the talents of the people they hire. Micro-managing design is like micro-managing anything else, a point lost on many managers in my experience.

Thanks for offering your programmer’s perspective. And for the tip to help “translate” between the disciplines.

Disclaimer: I’m a software engineer by profession. But to label me as someone who should avoid design because that’s “not what programmers should do” is limiting. Especially as the third point says not to assume that designers don’t understand business. Perhaps what you mean is that a programmer might want to be open to a designer’s vision and understand their own limitations in design skill. Or simply that User Interfaces built by someone without design experience can be less effective. But to suggest that a programmer should steer clear simply because they can program is incorrect. If that were true then the independent games market would be non-existent.

A better tip for programmers and designers hoping to better support the creative process is to for them to read up on the other discipline. Get a bit of knowledge, then understand and get to know the people you’re working with. Knowing them as people and knowing their profession makes it a lot easier to translate between the disciplines when communicating. It can give much greater understanding and enhance collaboration when the designer understands why they can’t have reflections and the developer understands why a lot of tabs is not an accessible feature.