People often believe that building influence happens overnight, but it actually results from a series of cumulative moments. To do this strategically, one must be intentional in approach, starting with identifying key stakeholders and understanding their impact on design decisions and their familiarity with design. A stakeholder map can help categorize them based on design friendliness and influence, with different tactics for each quadrant. Focus on building relationships with those who understand design and have worked with you before, using case studies to influence others. For less familiar stakeholders, prioritize education about design and how you can support their challenges. When engaging stakeholders, understand their challenges and communication preferences to develop tailored strategies. Communicating broadly through channels like Slack, Teams, newsletters, and workshops can also amplify influence. Keep track of moments when your work makes a difference, both for team reflection and reporting to leadership, aligning your efforts with company goals.

Being a Data-driven designer empowers you to identify problems and make informed decisions by leveraging user feedback, analytics, and cross-team insights. Venessa discusses how to become a data-driven designer.

Venessa shows you how to advocate for users in a business setting with a lack of user testing. Covering how to: understand your users, gather metrics, connect data to business goals, and compare/present the data to advocate for design changes.

Nessa’s knowledge bombs are a series of short bite-size bombs of advice that I have learned over my career.

When speaking to other design leaders, the discussion often moves to the value of design. Reflecting on this, I asked myself why are we still having this discussion. In this article, I explore why that is and what designers can do about it.

Being able to timebox design is an essential skill to nail if you are a designer. It is a great way to deliver value fast and to demonstrate how design can be agile. At the heart of timeboxing design are communication and planning; they help to create a shared understanding amongst the team and stakeholders.

Nessa’s knowledge bombs are a series of short bite-size bombs of advice that I have learned over my career.

Being a designer can be challenging, especially in a cross-functional when you are the only designer. All is not lost, designers often have a lot more power than they think, by using data, insights, and collaboration they can persuade even the toughest stakeholders.

Nessa’s knowledge bombs are a series of short bite-size bombs of advice that I have learned over the years.

Nessa’s knowledge bombs are a series of short bite-size bombs of advice that I have learned over the years.

Working in a cross-functional team and collaborating closely with engineers to create great products.

Here are my 5 tips that I have picked up while doing remote sketching sessions over the past year or so.

Progressing your career can be tough especially in the ever-changing world of design, here are 5 tips that I have picked while working in the design industry.