Don’t F*ck This Up
I’m currently working on one of our companies largest projects to date. For a little contextual background, f*ck ups on construction sites are insanely expensive with financially crippling fines and reputational damages folding companies frequently. Quite literally, lives and livelihoods are at stake here. Construction is also inherently complex with layers of moving parts intertwined in the biggest spaghetti junction I’ve ever come across. Architects, engineers, sponsors, manufacturers, builders, inspectors, transportation companies, all run by everyday people. Matrak is in the midst of this chaos, trying to help by adding value through clarity.
With the most widely used tools on a construction site being pen and paper, project managers have developed specific ways in which they operate. Tried and tested ways. User Experience Design as a field is a foreign concept here. For us to get this right, we have a very real responsibility of delivering true value. People in construction won’t mind telling you how useless a product is if its solution is ineffective. They have deadlines to meet and behemoths to erect. So you can understand if a PM doesn’t really care to be open in sharing a conversation with a “Software” Designer.
Jarred (not his real name) is one such PM, who I had the pleasure of working with on this project. A true skeptic from the very start, Jarred wasn’t much interest in a cool new app that would solve all his problems. “This will never work in construction” were his exact words. Fast-forward 7 months, and despite him being one of our companies most crucial stakeholders/customers and having his own relationship management team, his relationship with me is the strongest in our company. Through our work together we’ve built a relationship on mutual trust, and yes it goes both ways.
As designers of solutions, we have a few vital responsibilities that we must fulfil in order to effectively perform our duties. With Jarred, one of the things I established first were expectations. While I like to describe what I do as wizardry (internally) I would never externalise a false pretence of being able to solve all or any of anyones problems. The truth is, I don’t know what I don’t know, and so especially at the beginning, I find it wiser (and easier) to be honest and straight-up more than anything else. I usually start off by saying “assume I know absolutely nothing about…” and then we get into a conversation about what they do and how, before we look at challenges faced. One of the most important facets of my work is engaging in honest conversations. I’m not trying to sell anything to anyone, I’m there to learn. Which is a perfect segway into my other major responsibility which is understanding fundamental problems. If there’s one thing I enjoy more than problem solving, it’s problem finding. A problem well defined is a problem half solved. And the best way to define a problem is by engaging in conversations with people. Over the months, Jarred gradually softened his shell and became more open to the idea of finding effective solutions to complex problems. We worked through solutions together and over time he learned to trust in the process and it was clear that he started to develop a bit of respect for what I did. I learned to trust Jarred quite early on too in that I knew he would be quite blunt with his honest opinion if he thought something wouldn’t work, but I could also see that he was open minded to ideas with genuine merit, which is quite important to me. I knew I could get honest, genuine feedback from him when I needed it.
From a cold skeptic at the beginning to an awesome partner in the end, my relationship with Jarred has grown to be one of my fondest and most fruitful. I guess we both had similar concerns initially, me f*cking up or wasting his time, which in itself is a f*ck up. In this instance, we were able to build a meaningful (and quite powerful) solution that was super useful to him, while developing a profitable product for the company I work for. That product would go on to become a major driving force behind a $3 Million funding round that our company raised.
