Design & Development - Put your ego aside and make it work

Designer to developer ratio improved by 2.5x in the last 5 years. Companies hire designers, but they fail to foster a culture of collaboration, this leads to frustration, conflicts and sub-optimal products.

Designers and developers offer two points of view on products, missing one would leave us blindsided and make us vulnerable to bad decision making.

When there is collaboration, everyone on the team can focus on what really matters: having fun, serving the users and create value for the business.

After working side by side for several years in different companies and countries, we share our insights on how to foster a culture of collaboration between design and development.

This talk is for designers, developers, product owners and anyone committed to encouraging collaboration. Alberto and Sara will share insights on how to align teams on shared goals, embrace the appropriate rituals, follow best practices and pick the right tools.

Sara Michelazzo and Alberto Forni

Sara Michelazzo

She works as Italy Design Lead at ThoughtWorks where she leads the design strategy for global organisations. Before moving back to Italy she worked in ThoughtWorks London, and in start-ups in Sydney and New York. She is a TEDx speaker and she recently illustrated the O’Reilly Book “Understanding Design Thinking, Lean and Agile”.

Alberto Forni

Alberto Forni works as software engineer at Balsamiq where he works on the core and web team. He is passionate about programming, UI and, generally speaking, he loves everything that has a plug :D