What I learned from a year of partnering with my engineer!

1. Carolann Bonner – Ads Growth
Partnership

2. !2
Carolann Bonner
Product Designer
Ads Growth, LWI

3. This is me and Nandini.

4. This is me and Nandini.
Worked together on Guided Course.

5. This is me and Nandini.
Worked together on Guided Course.
What I love about our working
relationship.

6. !6
We sat together.

7. !7
The difference in sitting together:
Fewer meeting blocks. More impromptu conversations that
were fluid and ongoing.
Jokes that can only be appreciated in the context of a
moment!

8. !8
If one of us needed
to think out loud, it
became a
conversation.

9. !9
What made our conversations
successful:
Compartmentalized granular details while we explore and
discuss different possibilities and outcomes.
Focused on outcomes for the user which helped us lean on
each other as thought partners.

10. !10
Maintained the
same level of
context throughout
the project.

11. !11
How we stayed connected:
Spoke regularly about the current design and developed a
joint vision for the future.
If either of us had a thought, an idea, or a concern, we were
pinging each other.
Because having another brain working with you was more
helpful and more enjoyable than doing it in isolation.

12. !12
We invested in our
working relationship
for the sake of the
relationship.

13. !13
The difference of a personal focus:
Thinking out loud in front of another person is
uncomfortable because you're vulnerable. Mutual trust
helped it become natural and fun!
We didn't set a goal to have strong collaboration. We both
wanted to do good work, and we both value relationships. I
think the rest was just a byproduct of those two things.
We share credit for everything.

14. The most important measure of
how well I'm performing is how
well my teammates perform
when we work together.

15. Thank you
Carolann