What is Collaboration?

Collaboration is about making the work better by bringing in the right perspectives at the right time. Great designers don’t design in isolation; they co-create with PMs, engineers, researchers, and other designers to shape better solutions. It’s about knowing when to push for design excellence, when to compromise, and how to communicate decisions clearly so everyone is aligned. The best collaboration happens when trust, transparency, and shared ownership are in place—when design isn’t just handing off files, but actively shaping the product alongside cross-functional partners.

Aspects of Intentionality

Ways to improve in this skill

  1. Create clear frameworks for sharing your design work
    1. To clearly communicate your design thinking and rationale, try sharing your design work in this format: Problem → Insights → Design Solution → Expected Impact
    2. Try this: Before your next critique, prepare a one-minute summary using this format.
  2. Drive clear alignment before starting design
    1. It’s too easy to just jump into Figma and begin designing. It’s harder to take a step back and create clear alignment with your cross-functional counterparts. Ensure everyone is aligned on the people problems, potential solutions, success metrics, etc.
  3. Keep stakeholders updated on progress
    1. Extreme transparency will prevent so many problems with buy-in, alignment, etc.
    2. Try this: Make a weekly post or status update to all key stakeholders outlining progress on design work, rationale, links, next steps, etc.
  4. Document everything
    1. As you go document product decisions, design rationale, etc. Evangelize this documentation with partner teams and stakeholders. It will save you time continuously explaining decisions and will also create goodwill with your partner teams due to the extreme transparency.
  5. Run design sprints
    1. On a somewhat regular basis, run design sprints where you bring in partner teams and cross-functional partners. Use them to expedite immediate projects or deadlines or to take a step back and develop a north star or vision for the product. Either way, bringing partners along and allowing them to be a part of the design process will create better design outcomes and alignment.
    2. Resources:
      1. https://www.gv.com/sprint/
      2. https://www.thesprintbook.com/the-design-sprint