What is design when you barely have time to do it?

"Handling product and design together in my last job was a relentless game. At the point I got laid off, I was juggling five work streams at once. Without a dedicated engineering team and no designer other than myself, I was scoping, researching, analyzing data, designing, writing tickets, running alignment meetings, reviewing builds, and resourcing in relentless two-week cycles... for multiple projects. By this point, I wore the reality-altering (or "reality-checking") hat that saw design merely as one of many tasks to get through."

"Given that I was lucky if I could even spend one working day on a design, it had to be executed as quickly as possible, now often using generative AI tools to mockup screens. To maximize delivery speed, the prerogative was to reuse components as much as possible without introducing anything new unnecessarily. A feature didn't need to be perfect, it just needed to exist and be somewhat functional."

I handled product and design simultaneously under severe resource constraints, juggling five work streams while being the sole designer with no dedicated engineering team. I scoped, researched, analyzed data, designed, wrote tickets, ran alignment meetings, reviewed builds, and managed resourcing within relentless two-week cycles across multiple projects. I could rarely spend more than one working day on a design, so I executed work quickly, often using generative AI to mock up screens and reusing components to maximize speed. Features prioritized existence and basic functionality over perfection, and I now need to pause and refocus on deliberate design.

Read at Medium