97 Things Every UX Practitioner Should Know

Chapter 37. Embrace a Shared Cadence to Avoid Silos

Christy Ennis-Kloote

Complex product and service projects require internal silos to be broken. When everyone is focused on their own piece of the puzzle, they lose the ability to see how all the pieces fit together. Disparate teams lack intimacy gained from shared experiences, shared vision, or trust to fall back on. So when tough times do arise, teams don’t have a practiced cadence or shared instinctual rhythm for effective communication—making difficult problems more difficult.

One multiplatform product my team worked on had five different partners at different companies, all initiated as separate requests from a prestigious customer. The partners worked as separate delivery teams with different cadences focusing on UX and UI design, mobile development, cloud development, and firmware development. Waterfall-esque requirements from the customer, provided to separate teams, made for slow builds and integrations. There was frustration all around at the pace and ability to see progress. This meant teams had assumptions and misses on what the other teams were doing. We believed the customer came with the same maturity in developing digital products as in their historically well-crafted physical products. It turns out, however, that this was their first launch in this space, and even with very competent partners, it was a challenge. ...