10. Interview: Tom Greever, Author of Articulating Design Decisions

Many times, the hardest part of our jobs is not finding the right solution. Too often, the hardest part of our job is selling the right solution to our stakeholders. In Tom Greever’s book, Articulating Design Decisions, he discusses how to do just that and provides some solid tactics on how to get stakeholders on board with your complex, technical decisions.

This week, Derek and Jeremy talk with Tom and explore how these techniques can be used not only by designers but by people in other types of technical roles as well. Whether you’re an architect discussing the benefits of one vendor’s offering over another, a software engineer interested in changing front-end frameworks, or a product manager hoping to change the ingrained processes of a mature team, the tactics laid out in Articulating Design Decisions can be used to help you convince stakeholders to hop on board your gravy train to delivering great software.

Listen through to the end to find out some top-secret details on how O’Reilly chooses their cover animals, whether or not being good at articulating decisions makes you a better lover, and if Tom prefers Star Trek over Star Wars.

Topics:
• 07:50 – Your ability to articulate your solutions might be more important than your ability to design a solution.
• 10:20 – Other technical roles can use the same tactics laid out for designers.
• 12:00 – The way we relate to people on our teams has a direct influence on how they react to our work.
• 12:22 – We need to have empathy for our stakeholders.
• 14:40 – Write user stories for stakeholders.
• 16:45 – Don’t worry about consensus. Get support to move forward.
• 18:30 – Have a clear understanding of who makes decisions on various parts of our work.
• 19:18 – Look for a path to move forward.
• 20:23 – Highlight the risks or consequences of doing something we don’t recommend.
• 22:22 – Have some sort of goal and a way to measure it.
• 25:01 – Have more shared experiences with stakeholders to build relationships.
• 26:55 – The Office can teach us about building relationships.
• 28:38 – Breaking the ice can break the tension.
• 30:02 – TOP SECRET: How O’Reilly chooses animals for their books.
• 32:01 – The meaning of the rose-ringed parakeet: Tom’s Version
• 36:20 – Does being a better articulator of design decisions make you a better lover?
• 37:10 – This or That with Tom
• 42:10 – Where to buy the book

Helpful Links:
• tomgreever.com
• Purchase Articulating Design Decisions on Amazon
• The Office – Chili’s Meeting
• The wild parrots of New Orleans

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