Bob Baxley: prediction

Transcript context

…I want to go back to something you said about what design is. I think this is really interesting. And so the way you described design to a lot of people, it sounds like that's like product management also and product leadership, setting, strategy, vision, figuring out how everything fits together. I think your experience here, I think Apple is a very different kind of company where design actually leads a lot of this. At a lot of other companies, it doesn't work that way. Any thoughts? And just how you advise companies, think about the split between design and product management that aren't Apple. One of the best lines I ever heard was from my friend Joseph O'Sullivan at dinner one night. He said saying a company is design led does not mean it's designer led. And so what I try to hammer home with people is that when I talk about design as a mindset, I'm talking about it as a mindset. Anybody could have that mindset functioning in any role, any designer could have a product mindset. In fact, I think that's a lot of what the design community is trying to get at now when they say designers should be speaking the language of business. I think what they're saying is designers need to inhabit the product mindset as well. Maybe to some degree even the sales mindset. Look, both functions matter. I look at my counterparts in product and I assume that they're much better connected to the customer, that they understand much better the business realities, and I expect them to drive the roadmap. I may have some points of view on the roadmap. I may offer some critique. I may have my own suggestions and agenda in there. But once they say this is the roadmap, I have to believe that they're right and I don't try to bleed into their space. I very much believe that once you get into a company, your job is to figure out your role and respect the boundaries between the different groups. I'm like, you guys tell us what you need us to do, what the features need to be, when they need to be delivered, what the issues are, and then give us the time and space to come up with a solution to those problems. And then we can work together to decide whether or not our solutions actually solve the problem as you understand it, but I'll stay out of your roadmap and you stay out of my design stop and let's try to get to the promised land together. I assume that the product managers, particularly in enterprise SaaS companies, like my team, ThoughtSpot did data analytics. My team didn't know anything about data analytics. We didn't have any of that insight. We didn't have the bandwidth, the mental horsepower to go out and do that stuff. We had our hands full just trying to figure out the UI. It's one of the points I try to make too, when people are starting to theorize that gen AI can remove teammates and oh, the designers don't need engineers and the PMs don't need the designers and everybody thinks they can throw engineering overboard. And I'm like, stop it. We all need each other and we need each other because we need those different mindsets. One of those mindsets inhabits somebody's head completely. I just don't think you can simultaneously hold multiple mindsets in your head. It's not that one of my PM counterparts couldn't bring a lot to the design table, it's just I need you to play that position. Like in baseball, the second- Like in baseball, the second baseman doesn't cover first. That's not how it works. s couldn't bring a lot to the design table, it's just I need you to play that position. Like in baseball, the second- Like in baseball, the second baseman doesn't cover first. That's not how it works. Everybody's got to spread the field and play their position so we can take care of the whole thing and respect that together we're going to come up with something better than any one of us would've come up with alone and embrace the creative tension, welcome it. We still have to all go out to lunch and love each other and have fun together and keep in mind that we're having fun together, but I like the rub. That's where all the magic happens.…

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