Finding Harmony between Design and Product Management | Bruno Bergher (Metabase, ex-Google)

Welcome to Growthmates. This is Kate Syuma, Growth advisor, previously Head of Growth Design at Miro. I’m building Growthmates as a place to connect with inspiring leaders to help you grow yourself and your product. Here you can learn how companies like Dropbox, Adobe, Canva, Loom and many more are building excellent products and growth culture. Get all episodes and a free playbook for Growth teams on our brand-new website — growthamtes.club, and press follow to support us on your favorite platforms. 

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In this episode, I met Bruno Berger — a VP of Design and Product Management who worked in companies like Google, Metabase, and now he’s teaching “Design for PMs” on Reforge. We discuss Bruno's career journey, the integration of design and product management, and best practices for improving collaboration between designers and PMs. We also explored Bruno's strategies for combining design and product management to enhance team collaboration and project success.

By the end of this episode, you can learn how to make your PM and Design collaboration better by adjusting the ways of working, building trust, and how to align faster to make it the most rewarding thinking partnership.

This episode is supported by Appcues — the platform that helps you design, deploy, and test captivating onboarding experiences.

Appcues created the Product Adoption Academy to help you level up your product adoption for free. Check out the template that I created to help companies uncover meaningful improvements. Find an example of Dropbox Onboarding inside and apply it to review any growth flows: appcues.com/growthmates

Key highlights from this episode that you can implement right away 👇

* Generalist Career Journey: Bruno’s transition from product design and engineering to design leadership at Google and his current role at Metabase combining design and product management.

* Integration of Disciplines: The benefits of combining product design with product management and the evolution of design roles over time.

* TOP-3 Collaboration Challenges: Common issues between PMs and designers, such as late involvement of designers, lack of context, and misaligned expectations.

* Best Practices for PMs: Importance of regular communication with designers (set up your Weekly 1:1!), clarifying goals, and providing project context to align expectations.

* Advice for Designers: Develop curiosity about business and technical aspects, engage in strategic conversations, and understand business metrics.

* Leadership Insights: The need for product leaders to understand designer motivations, include design leadership in strategic planning, and bridge the gap between goal-oriented PMs and craft-focused designers.

* Future of Design Discipline: Prediction that future design roles will require well-rounded skill sets with increased integration of business and technical understanding.

Listen now and subscribe on your favorite platforms — Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube(new!).

And one more thing 🎁

To celebrate the first Growthmates anniversary, we prepared a gift to our community — “The Holistic Playbook for Growth Teams”. It’s a reflection of industry trends, in-depth interviews with our guests, and insights gathered from a hundred companies. You can get this playbook for free on our new website → growthmates.club.

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Where to find Kate Syuma, Growth Advisor (ex-Miro):

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/

* Newsletter: katesyuma.substack.com

Where to find our guest — Bruno Bergher:

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brunobergher/

* "Design for PMs" course on Reforge: https://www.reforge.com/courses/design-for-pms/

What we’ve covered in this episode:

[00:00] Introduction

[00:41] Career Journey

[01:36] Combining Design and Product Management

[03:07] Leadership Transition

[06:41] Teaching at Reforge

[10:17] Collaboration Challenges

[16:46] Best Practices for PMs

[27:00] Advice for Designers

[40:07] Importance of Business Acumen

[54:47 ] Future of Design Discipline

Resources referenced 📕

* Bridging the Gap Between Design and PM - An article that discusses the intersection of design and product management: https://www.reforge.com/blog/product-manager-product-designer-collaboration

* Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Strategy-Bad-Difference-Matters/dp/0307886239

* High Output Management by Andy Grove - Provides insights into making processes efficient and effective: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884

* Wonder by R.J. Palacio – A story about a boy with a genetic condition, offering a perspective on empathy and understanding: https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-R-J-Palacio/dp/0375869026

Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the show on growthmates.club and get free playbook with frameworks and insights. If you find this valuable, please share it with your friends and colleagues, and subscribe to this show on your favourite platforms to get new episodes. Let’s keep growing together!

For sponsorship and other inquiries reach out to hello@growthmates.club

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