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The mental model of working with cross functional teams
Hey there! I believe as a UX designer you are so well acquainted with the term "mental model" which is a critical framing in developing the right design which fits users beliefs on how the system should be operated.
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Mental model within the context of work
How might we develop the right frameworks with fits the mental model of cross functional teams?
To achieve optimal team work and success, work in a way which works for others is an old tale saying. This is proven true especially when collaborating with stakeholders with limited UX and users knowledge.
As a idealistic aspirational UXD new in the industry, I seek to push for the best UX for our users in spite of resistance from other teams
Does this sounds familiar to you? I believe we have been through this journey before whilst navigating the ropes of the corporate world. "I believe this is the best way forward as reference from our research data..." Next step forward, will be to push out designs which I believe fits the users requirements.
In project reality, we work with tight timelines and non-negotiable constraints
What does this means for aspirational UXD who believe in striving for optimal UX deliverables every time? This does not means we will need to compromise on the quality of our work! Rather, as we gain experience as designers, we too adapt to the mental model of how other cross functional teams think and operate their work to deliver compromised solutions which fits the needs of both teams.
Deconstructing team members point of view
Deconstruct team member's point of view by understanding their mental model:
- Task model: The way in which the tasks is conventionally performed
- Process model: Flow of work and task to achieve their deliverable
- Team model: Identifying who's the feature owners
- Competence model: Understanding the level of expertise to perform the task
- Context model: The situational context the team members work with, project timeline bottlenecks etc
A snippet of a conversation exchange with a developer...
Designer A: "Hey this is a solution which the UX team has thought of...(while walking through the prototypes with the developer). This newly constructed user flow has seen an 20% increase in task success rate as validated with our users."
Developer A: "This seems like a great design idea. However, I don't think we are able to implement feature X as it takes an estimated 10 days for delivery."
Designer A: "Thanks for sharing with me your honest concerns and feedback. Can you walk me through the current structure of your front-end layout so I could understand how I could adapt the design change to fit within the existing front-end framework?"
Additionally, I have researched on some online UI library kit which has a UI component close to our desired solution. Can you share with me what could be adapted?
Option B, let's try to now adapt this design on-the-fly while you could provide with me live feedback. Leveraging on the atomic building blocks from the design system, I'm now constructing this in another manner etc..."
Developer A: "Great! Let's solidify idea B as this will be possible for deliverable within the sprint cycle timeline."
Invite cross-functional teams to your discovery process to develop empathy towards users
If time is not a bottleneck for the cross-functional team, we can start cultivating a culture of inviting these teams to usability testing sessions and workshops with users for a first-hand understanding of users' interactions with the product.
Solidify user research with video snippets or screen records for playback to team
Before ending off, let's be productive and create a sense of ownership with cross-functional teams at the head start
The designs deliverable does not need to reach the high-fi stage before it could be shared with cross-functional teams. Creatively integrate UX exposure learning workshops with the other teams to get hands on with the ideation process.
We can create individual atomic components for teams to construct creatively whilst getting insights on what's possible through observations of the process
Adios! Thanks for following through this article continue to check out my reflection space :D
