Dive Club 🤿 Catt Small - How to influence and lead as a staff designer
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Jan 17, 2025 Catt Small, a seasoned designer with over 14 years at Etsy, Asana, and SoundCloud, shares invaluable insights on leadership and influence for staff designers. She discusses how to escape the execution trap and emphasizes the importance of executive presence. Catt also provides practical time management tips and encourages designers to promote broader thinking. With fascinating stories about her experiences, especially with the ‘Goals’ project at Asana, listeners gain a fresh perspective on navigating complexity in design and fostering collaboration.
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Brainstorming Without Constraints
- Start with broad, unconstrained brainstorming to explore more possibilities.
- Encourage thinking bigger and pushing past initial constraints, especially in large-scale projects.
Originality Over Industry Standards
- While competitive analysis is important, don't blindly follow industry standards.
- Strive for original solutions, especially when context demands it, and aim to set new standards.
Asana Goal Management Project
- Catt used Figma for wireframing different capabilities of a goal management tool at Asana.
- They conducted customer research to prioritize features based on perceived value, combining internal and external insights.
