Stop designing in the corner: From UX designer to business collaborator

You and I both know there’s a point in a project where the real decisions happen.

The budget is set, the timeline fixed, and the constraints already agreed, sometimes long before anyone calls us in.

If we arrive at that point, we’re already downstream.

We can still produce good work, but it’s reactive. We’re supplying, not shaping.

In that case, the change we need isn’t a promotion or a change of title.

We need to move our influence upstream, into the rooms where the rules are set and the bets placed.

That’s the difference between being “the designer” and being a partner.

And it’s not something anyone grants us. We have to take it, one deliberate step at a time.

---

📌 What’s Inside

1. Strategy is managing what we don’t know
2. Changing the contract before changing the work
3. Extending our empathy
4. Making our thinking visible
5. Working to two clocks
6. Navigating the politics
7. The pricing page that isn’t about the page
8. Saying no the right way
9. The discipline of deletion
10. What changes first, and what changes last

---

❔Strategy is managing what we don’t know

When we talk about strategy, it’s tempting to picture decks, big visions, and long-term plans.

But in practice, strategy is simply deciding how to deal with the things we can’t yet know.

Every project starts with a mess of assumptions, hopes, and gaps in the data.

If we treat those gaps as background noise, we’re decorating decisions that someone else made.

If we treat them as our raw material, we’re managing the risk that actually matters.

To do that, we have to be willing to hold the uncertainty in our hands, not run from it.

That means being explicit about what’s unknown, choosing which unknowns to tackle first, and sequencing the work so each step retires the right risk in the right order.

We stop asking “what should we design?” and start asking “what’s the fastest, cheapest way to find out if this is worth doing at all?”

📜Changing the contract before changing the work

Most of us have been given briefs that read like delivery contracts: scope, deliverables, deadline.

The deal is, “you make this thing, in this time, to this spec.” I

n that frame, the output is the value.

But when we work as partners, we don’t sign up for an artefact. We sign up for a decision.

We make the scope of the engagement about the choices to be made, the evidence that will guide them, and the cadence at which they’ll happen.

This doesn’t mean we stop producing the interface, the flow, or the prototype. It simply means we reframe what we’re actually delivering.

So, instead of “a redesigned onboarding in six weeks,” it becomes “proof that two specific drop-off points account for most churn, and a tested intervention that either solves it or kills the idea.”

The pixels are still there, but they’re a by-product of having asked the right questions at the right time.

When those first conversations start about what needs to be done and how, don’t just take the request at face value. Look at the trade-offs, the potential business impact, and where the approach could be improved.

Instead of reacting to a handed-down task, pause and say, “Hang on—what if we tested this first, or explored an alternative, so we avoid unnecessary costs?”

🤝Extending our empathy

We’re good at thinking about the user.

But when we step into a partnership role, our empathy has to extend further. To the person paying the bill, and the people running the operation every day.

This can be harder if we’re used to focusing on target audiences and how the UI’s will look.

Here, we need to step back and ask why we’re doing it at all, and what business value it’s meant to deliver.

That means learning the shape of the business: what it costs to acquire a customer, how long it takes to make that money back, which parts of the experience keep them loyal, and which send them packing.

It means knowing the sales cycle and the objections that stall it, the procurement hoops, the operational bottlenecks.

We don’t have to become accountants or salespeople.

But when we can speak in the business language, our work stops being “nice-to-have” and becomes part of the machinery that keeps the business running.

That’s what makes us genuinely valuable partners.

👁️Making our thinking visible

If the only place our strategy lives is in our heads, nobody can use it.

After all, partners don’t keep their thinking private.

They externalise it so others can interrogate and refine it. That might be in the form of a living problem list, where each problem is ranked by value and risk, with the knowns, unknowns, and cheapest next step documented.

It might be a decision log, so we remember not just what we chose but why we chose it, and under what assumptions. Or it might be an opportunity map that shows where the market and our product actually intersect in ways that matter.

Although these might seem like bureaucratic exercises, it’s how we make sure our work isn’t reduced to “show us some designs.”

⏰Working to two clocks

We’ve both seen it happen: a brilliant proof lands just after the budget has been locked, or a feature ships a week after the customer’s decision window closed.

That’s what happens when we only track the product clock with sprints, releases and launches, and ignore the organisation’s clock, with its quarters, budget cycles, and political seasons.

Partners pace the work to both clocks.

We drop proofs before the budget is set, so the decision-makers have evidence in their hands when they can actually say yes.

We align releases with the points in the year when customers are ready to buy, renew, or expand. A design delivered at the wrong moment is just as useless as one that solves the wrong problem.

For that to happen, we need to be more curious about how the business actually runs, its operational lifecycles, the people who keep it moving, and the decisions that shape it.

That means asking the right questions and talking to the right people, even when it feels outside our usual scope, because that’s the only way to rise above the role of just being a designer.

🗳️Navigating the politics

Politics isn’t a dirty word.

It’s just the system by which limited resources get allocated. Don’t avoid it. If we work with it, we build the coalitions that make change possible.

It means giving sales something they can actually use in the field, even if it’s just a line of copy or a toggle in a demo. It means looping in legal with a clear map of data flows before they have to ask etc.

We don’t have to please everyone but if we make it easy for them to back us, they will.

💲The pricing page that isn’t about the page

Let’s take something as simple as “redesign the pricing page.”

If we just go and make it prettier, we’re treating the symptom, not the cause.

As partners, we’d start by asking: what exactly is underperforming? Is it comprehension? Perceived value? The alignment between tiers and use cases?

We’d check ticket data, listen to sales calls, and run copy tests before touching the layout.

By the time we change the page, we know what we’re changing and why. We’re not just making it look better anymore, we’re altering the behaviour that matters.

✋Saying no the right way

We can’t take on everything, and we shouldn’t.

But “I don’t like it” or “It feels wrong” won’t cut it.

We have to say no with criteria others can repeat: it’s not aligned to our goal, it doesn’t reduce risk on the committed path, it would consume resources needed for a higher-leverage bet.

And when we can, we offer a smaller, cheaper way to test the idea instead. That’s how “no” becomes a sign of stewardship, as opposed to obstruction.

🗑️The discipline of deletion

Partnership isn’t just about adding, but it’s also about removing.

Products and organisations often carry dead weight: features nobody uses, processes that solve yesterday’s problems, rituals that burn time.

Sometimes, we have to be the ones to call those out and make the case for removal.

Every deletion frees up capacity and signals that we care about the whole system, not just our own domain.

🔄What changes first, and what changes last

So, the very first change is in our language.

We start talking in terms of bets, proofs, checks, and decision dates.

Then our calendars shift, replacing showcases with shaping sessions that end in meaningful decisions.

Our deliverables evolve from static designs to living records of the organisation’s priorities and choices.

Titles, if they change at all, come last. Do not chase them until you’ve earned them.

The power to shape direction doesn’t wait for permission. It comes from being predictably useful when the stakes are uncertain.

That means no more sitting back and reacting to assigned tasks. You need to take an active role in the product’s entire lifecycle.

The goal here is not to feel more important.

It’s about moving our effort from deliverables people admire to commitments they can keep.

When we do that consistently, especially when we’re the ones sequencing the choices under uncertainty, we stop being “just designers.”

We become co-authors of the plan.

And that’s where we ultimately belong.

---

Subscribe on Substack⬇️

If you’ve found this content valuable, here’s how you can show your support.⬇️❤️

You might also like:

Share this article: