(2024-07-30) Rendle Design Ain't A Democracy

Robin Rendle: Design ain’t a democracy. Democracies are the worst way to build a product. This is the reason why most tech companies are slow and ineffective: managers aren’t really there to make decisions, set a vision, or settle disputes. These sorts of organizations are designed explicitly not to make decisions as there’s no one you can point to in an organization who can say yes or no to an idea. (Product Team Members Report To The Team Leader)

So what happens is tons of back and forth about competing ideas or competing projects instead of building things (building should be hard, decisions should be easy and if that’s not the case then it’s management who’s to blame). And this leads to all sorts of wacko pseudo-scientific ways to prioritize tasks and even whackier ways of measuring the success of a product (NPS, questionnaires, etc. etc.)

What I’ve sort of realized slowly, painfully, over the years is that great design can only thrive with a dictator/director—a single person who can say yes, go, ship ship ship.

Think of any great video game of the last 10 years and each of them has one thing in common: they all have a director who owns every decision.

When it comes to products and software organizations in Silicon Valley, no one really decides anything. Ideas emerge but because no one owns the product, progress is painfully slow.

These companies are designed to be managed, not designed to build great products.

Product teams at tech companies are built like democracies and that means there’s no one to go to, no one to pitch brave ideas to. Instead, the product has to be collectively agreed upon by dozens of people—and in my experience great products can’t emerge from a conversation with two dozen people in it.

Miriam Suzanne replies: We don't need a boss, we need a process. I aim to push back. Everyone can agree that design by committee usually fails. But it’s not because there are multiple people involved, it’s because (most) committees are not made up of skilled collaborators with a shared vision and process.

I’m not saying this theoretically. Not all theaters or bands are collaborative, but many are – and there are long traditions around ‘devised’ or ‘ensemble’ theater in particular. Learning to write plays or act in them does not prepare you to devise with an ensemble, but there are many people who do study, learn, practice, document and teach those skills.

But I suppose Robin is right that even good collaboration generally ain’t a democracy. It’s more involved and messy than voting, or tallying a majority opinion. It requiring deep engagement, and shared ownership of a vision. Let’s call it anarchist, maybe, with an emphasis on mutual aid?

Creative collaboration requires effort, argument, trust, and play. The ability to fight for an idea, and then let it go. To be open, and then decisive. Knowing when to work together, and when to work apart. Cycles of action, reaction, reflection, etc.

Robin responds: When I think of a leader, I don’t think of a boss who tells me what to do. Rather, I think of a single person imbued with the responsibility of helping the team make decisions. The ideal experience of a team is that they all share a vision and process and don’t need anyone telling them what to do. 100%. Fully on board there. Ideally this all emerges organically where folks can work together collaboratively on a single goal, but often that’s not the case! Actually, for me, this is extremely rare.

When I think of a leader, I think about how emergencies work at a hospital: when a code happens and a patient is in a bad state, a single individual takes up the role of leader and instructs others what their role is. Not because they’re the boss, or even the most experienced on the team, but because it’s the most efficient way to focus people on one task without duplicate effort.