How to bridge the gap (and work effectively) at siloed organizations
The #1 problem designers face? Seeming like a bad blind date
“It’s like my team and another team are doing the same project. They’re in different siloes, and not speaking to each other.” A designer told me, echoing a common organizational issue.
Siloed organizations, where each department seems to be living on its’ own island, are not new. It’s been a problem for decades, and doesn’t seem like it’s going away.
While it’s not great to work in these environments, as these places often butcher your designs, you don’t have to wait for changes to come from higher up to make a difference.
There are still steps you can take, even as an Individual Designer, to bridge company silos.
The first step? Ensuring that it’s not a bad blind date.
You might know what you can bring to the table, but others don’t
You might as well be a stranger to departments, when your organization is large enough. That’s problematic for the same reason blind dates are: people will have preconceived notions.
Imagine your friend set up a date with a “great guy/gal,” and the only thing you knew was that they were a “street performer”. Unfortunately, many people would make assumptions about the job title, and you’re no different.
One of the bigger problems with design is that a lot of our work goes unnoticed. Nothing we do, except for the visuals, receives recognition or notice from other departments.
As a result, if we’re reaching out, that lack of visibility hurts us. Why? Because you’re working with people who might not otherwise know anything else you do.
If you introduce yourself as a Designer, without any context, they might think, “Why is the visual person talking with me right now?”
Even the words “UX Design” can cause issues.
“I’ve run into cases where UX is almost a taboo. I’ll tell an executive something, but as soon as they hear it’s from UX Design, they shut down.” A Director of UX once told me.
In these cases, you need to do what UX already does: identify the pain point. While it may be beneficial to have friends in other departments, some of your first organizational relationships will likely begin as transactional.
When you’re able to identify how you, as the UX Designer might help? Then you can move on to the next step: making meeting worth their time.
Create a logical tradeoff: what’s the payoff?
One of the good (and bad) things about design is that we’re often driven by curiosity. Users report something unusual, and we want to investigate it further, digging deeper to understand the cause.
While it’s not bad to be curious, you don’t want it to seem like you’re reaching out just because you’re curious. Imagine if someone asked you:
“Hey, do you mind sitting down, scheduling a meeting, re-arranging your calendar, and answering my questions, just to satisfy my curiosity?”
Would you be likely to answer Yes? Probably not.
This is why you must identify the pain point. One of the easiest ways to do this is with a 3-word phrase: “So I can.”
Adding this to your explanations can often make it so that the benefit of these conversations is incredibly explicit.
For example:
“I’m re-designing X, and I heard that you are a great source of historical context around the project. Can I ask you some questions so I can make a better product without repeating past mistakes?”
“I’m trying to design a solution, but I wanted to verify that it will work with our current back-end. Can I ask you some questions so I can ensure my designs won’t cause last-minute implementation problems?”
“I’ve heard that you’re building something similar to our design project, and I wanted to understand what you’re focusing on. Can I ask you some questions so I can avoid duplicating our design efforts and wasting time.”
Etc.
By adopting this format and explicitly outlining how they will benefit from it, you can ensure that they are not coming to the table without clear expectations.
The last thing you need to do to ensure successful outreach is to reduce friction.
Create a low friction ask
Friction is often what separates someone from accepting or rejecting a meeting. Consider these two approaches:
“Hey, I’m interested in what you’re doing over there. Can you set up the meeting for us, find the relevant people, and answer all my random questions for no direct benefit sometime this week?
Vs.
“Hey, I’m working on something that I could use your help with so I can design exactly what the business needs. Can I set up a meeting, ask you a few questions, and provide a summary afterwards?”
Which one of these is easier for a person to respond to, in which one of these is likely to drive action? The second one, by a large margin.
Cal Newport, in his book Deep Work, discusses how back-and-forth email chains, where people attempt to schedule meetings, involve new participants, and find suitable locations, are often one the leading factors that make meetings miserable.
By creating a single e-mail that a person can easily respond to, you don’t just make the process more efficient: you’re making it much easier for them to say yes.
Silos suck, but you can still change things as a IC
Part of why silos suck is that it’s often directly tied to organizational politics.
Perhaps one department is an island because the manager in that department dislikes another, or there’s some history. As a result, closing siloes seems to either require top-down leadership or playing organizational politics.
Except, you don’t need to radically change siloed organizations, as an IC, to work effectively with other departments. All you need to do is learn to reach out and challenge some preconceived notions about yourself.
While it sucks to be stereotyped, especially by job title, by showing that you can help beyond “just visual screens”, and why it’s worth it for other people to talk with you, you cna work more effectively with other departments without requiring massive leadership changes.
You need to reach out without coming across as a blind date.
Kai Wong is a Senior Product Designer and Data and Design newsletter writer. He teaches a course, The Strategic Designer, using data to communicate more effectively and get buy-in for your design recommendations.