What is Business Acumen?

Business acumen is about designing with purpose—focusing not just on how something looks, but why it exists and how it drives impact. It’s the ability to find the overlap between user needs, business goals, and technical constraints to create solutions that solve for all three. Business acumen is about asking the right questions: What user problems are we solving? What business metrics do we want to impact and how does it connect to the business’s bottom line? What’s the simplest, most effective way to achieve the goal? Great product designers don’t just push pixels—they think like strategists, problem-solvers, and builders.

Aspects of Business Acumen

Ways to improve in this skill

  1. Learn how your company makes money
    1. Understand the business model, key revenue streams, and success metrics for your product. Once you know this you can ensure your designs and product solutions ladder to the company bottom line.
    2. Resources:
      1. https://www.uxpin.com/studio/blog/product-thinking/
      2. https://uxplanet.org/product-thinking-101-1d71a0784f60
      3. https://uxplanet.org/product-thinking-a-comprehensive-guide-to-product-design-process-with-a-product-thinking-mindset-7cfaa6a569d7
  2. Study other products/case studies and how they balanced user and business problems
    1. Resources:
      1. https://growth.design/case-studies
  3. Learn how to reframe problems
    1. Often PRDs and leadership request come framed as business problems or even as solutions. Try reframing them as people problems.
    2. Resources:
      1. https://voltagecontrol.com/articles/problem-framing-in-design-thinking-best-practices/
  4. Challenge feature requests
    1. Next time your PM says a new feature is needed, start with a handful of questions:
      1. What is the user problem this feature solves?
      2. Who is it for?
      3. How will we measure success?
  5. Ruthlessly prioritize down to an MVP
    1. When designing a new product or feature, first try stripping it down to the simplest solution that solves the problem or provides value to ship something as soon as possible.
  6. Put on your growth design hat
    1. Put together a list of product growth ideas to move your team closer to its business goal
    2. References:
      1. https://adobe.design/stories/leading-design/the-emergence-of-the-growth-designer
      2. https://review.firstround.com/defining-growth-design-the-guide-to-the-role-most-startups-are-missing/
      3. https://www.designerfund.com/blog/how-to-unlock-product-success-through-growth-design/
  7. Try writing a PRD
    1. On your next project, ask the PM if you can write the PRD. It will require you to think deeply about the problem, work closely with end to understand technical constraints, with with data science to think through success metrics, present to leadership and get buy-in, etc.