As design professionals, we often face the challenge of prioritizing our initiatives on the product roadmap. At Hasura, our design team developed an effective strategy to address this common hurdle.
We implemented a dynamic document called "sand," drawing inspiration from the "rocks, pebbles, sand" prioritization model.
This living document became an invaluable tool during our product team, quarterly, and yearly reviews.
Our "sand" document aggregated insights from multiple sources:
We meticulously documented any front-end, design, or developer experience issues that came up with customers and users.
We tried to position ourselves as developer advocates within the organization.
We leveraged our design team's capacity strategically.
During periods of reduced workload, team members proactively tackled tasks from the "sand" document.
This approach allowed us to complete design components of sprints in advance, enhancing overall team efficiency.
By selecting smaller items, having user feedback to back up our cases, and having our designs completed in advance - it made advocating for picking up items much more effective with the team.
A prime example of this methodology in action was the implementation of our permissions and role emulation feature.
By breaking down this complex functionality into manageable components, we successfully integrated it over several sprint cycles.