Relationships will make or break your team when AI is in the mix

Heathy team relationships are going to be the key to surviving this period of disruption. It feels tough in Product Design right now due in part to the simultaneous facets of change currently underway: roles are being disrupted AND Process is being disrupted AND the product is being disrupted.

In the past, some of that change could reasonably be isolated and dealt with.

For instance, process was shaken up gradually through the emergence of Agile, getting away from linear design processes, and adoption of Design Thinking. These could be pointed to as a knowable thing, a way of working that one could adapt to. But the roles of Designer, Engineer, and Product Manager remained relatively stable just implemented in a different context.

Now, AI-enabled tooling and methodologies give all of us a chance to do a bit of each others' jobs. As a result, the roles are developing into odd directions and a typical design process begins to erode, developing porous boundaries. A product manager can create a working prototype. An engineer develop logic for prioritizing new features. A designer can launch a product to the public. A researcher can mock up a design.

The new abilities are not good or bad. They're just a different way of working. But introducing these new ways of working is challenging. Boundaries get crossed. Turf gets infringed. More importantly: things get confusing and introducing AI into a design process creates magnifies existing problems.

If you have communication problems, they're about to get 10x worse.

Internal turf wars? 10x worse.

Unclear roles and expectations? 10x worse.

Unspoken pecking order between roles? 10x worse.

What I have noticed in high-functioning teams is healthier relationships gives way to high-functioning outcomes. These teams strike a balance in having clarity in job roles, openness to experimentation, trust that someone's experimentation is benevolent. Call it what you will; team dynamics, psychological safety, healthy relationships, forming-storming-norming, and so on... The team has to be especially resilient and flexible. This is the key, the prerequisite for not only introducing new capabilities, but elevating the practice in total.