11. Empathy for Everyone

August 5, 2020

This week, our heroes revisit the concept of empathy. Finding empathy is not just for UX designers and your users. Empathy truly is "the secret sauce" to great software development. Empathy is for everyone.

A great man once said, “If empathy for the users is the key to a product’s success, then empathy for your team is the key to getting a great product shipped.”

As UX designers we talk a lot about empathy for the end users- getting in their head, understanding their perspective and reasoning, and creating an experience that exceeds their expectations.

But how often do we attempt to do the same for our own team? For the stakeholder that always disagrees with us, the product manager that’s always asking for things out of the blue, or the developer who always pushes back on that fancy new design?

Understanding our teammate’s perspective and how they see the product, creating a shared understanding and shared experiences fosters better relationships. It allows us to work more closely together with fewer conflicts. It increases overall team health, which allows us to work more collaboratively and ultimately, more efficiently. It just makes work way more pleasant overall.

Topics:
• 01:58 – Jeremy’s words of wisdom
• 03:32 – Daniel’s words of wisdom
• 05:10 – It’s like when you really want pizza
• 05:58 – Be intelligent with your empathy
• 08:30 – How do your decisions impact your team?
• 10:15 – Tom’s words of wisdom
• 11:16 – User stories for your team
• 13:25 – Set expectations for responsibilities
• 14:20 – Respect your teammate’s skills
• 16:10 – Team user stories can help identify Overlaps
• 17:10 – Derek’s words of wisdom
• 20:16 – Sharing empathy with your team creates less chaos
• 22:05 – Recommendations
• 27:03 – An ode to bigbrother82

Helpful Links:
Stakeholders are People Too
Behavior Driven Development
Why Empathy is the Secret Sauce for Good Software Development
The five keys to a successful Google team
Episode 10. Interview: Tom Greever

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