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He forgot one

In his article "Four Essential Members of a Great Design Team", Michael Roller does a decent job of describing...well, personality types/skill sets that every design team should have. It's a decent article, but I think he forgot one: The Assassin.

Every design team, every TEAM for that matter, needs an Assassin, whose job is it is to seek out holes and problems in the idea, or find those elements that fall into "It would be nice if...", but don't actually do anything for the project as a whole, other than filling out someone's bingo card.

Michael shows an example of this in the article: It's really about five members of a great design team, but the last one, "The Jack of All Trades" is one that even Michael can't decide on. Maybe he's essential, maybe he's not, but if you have one, he's essential. That's almost circular logic, and shows the need for an assassin: "Is Jack essential? No? <Bang>. He's gone."

Basically, the Assassin is someone who understands the power, and value of "No". Steve Jobs would be the best known example of the Assassin. One of his most controversial decisions, upon taking back control of Apple was killing the Newton. Sure, people loved it. Sure, it was cool. But it made no money, and at that time, Apple could not afford an expensive product that needed a ton of money and time to get where it would start to make money. So Steve took it out back, gave it a kind word, and put one through its head.

Now, I'm not talking about being a dick. If the only input a self-styled assassin brings is "That idea sucks", regardless of how they say it, they're not an Assassin, they're a pain in the ass. An Assassin understands the design and the ideas behind it, but pushes to make sure that every single element, every pixel, has a purpose. They understand that designs that aren't properly thought out create an immediate timeline for a redesign to fix things. The Assassin is obsessed with doing things right the first time, because they know that doing it wrong, even for good reasons, just wastes time and money. They can also articulate, sometimes in excruciating detail, why they don't like something, in a way that can help the team make the design work.

The Assassin is going to be the person who asks "How cool is that web site design the tenth time you visit it? How is this going to look on one of these? <waves smartphone> An Assassin is the dork who is testing load times in the real world, not just on a local network. Everything works at GigE speeds. On EDGE? Not so much.

Even more importantly, the Assassin is the person who provides the laugh test. The Assassin is what prevents copy leads full of really dirty double entendre. The Assassin is what should have prevented "Add & Remove Programs" from morphing into "Programs and Features", because the Assassin knows that name changes which remove clarity and purpose just so they can be different need to be shot in the head. Remorselessly.

The "real world" version of the Assassin is that last friend between you and the "Twilight" tattoo.

Basically, the Assassin is the way you prevent getting a dose of "Make My Logo Bigger Cream"

If your team doesn't have an Assassin, your results probably show it.

Categories: Other

Posted by John C. Welch at 11:13 | Permalink

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In his article \"Four Essential Members of a Great Design Team\", Michael Roller does a decent job of describing...well, personality types/skill sets that every design team should have. It's a decent article, but I think he forgot one: The Assassin.\n\nEvery design team, every TEAM for that matter, needs an Assassin, whose job is it is to seek out holes and problems in the idea, or find those elements that fall into \"It would be nice if...\", but don't actually do anything for the project as a whole, other than filling out someone's bingo card. \n\nMichael shows an example of this in the article: It's really about five members of a great design team, but the last one, \"The Jack of All Trades\" is one that even Michael can't decide on. Maybe he's essential, maybe he's not, but if you have one, he's essential. That's almost circular logic, and shows the need for an assassin: \"Is Jack essential? No? <Bang>. He's gone.\"\n\nBasically, the Assassin is someone who understands the power, and value of \"No\". Steve Jobs would be the best known example of the Assassin. One of his most controversial decisions, upon taking back control of Apple was killing the Newton. Sure, people loved it. Sure, it was cool. But it made no money, and at that time, Apple could not afford an expensive product that needed a ton of money and time to get where it would start to make money. So Steve took it out back, gave it a kind word, and put one through its head. \n\nNow, I'm not talking about being a dick. If the only input a self-styled assassin brings is \"That idea sucks\", regardless of how they say it, they're not an Assassin, they're a pain in the ass. An Assassin understands the design and the ideas behind it, but pushes to make sure that every single element, every pixel, has a purpose. They understand that designs that aren't properly thought out create an immediate timeline for a redesign to fix things. The Assassin is obsessed with doing things right the first time, because they know that doing it wrong, even for good reasons, just wastes time and money. They can also articulate, sometimes in excruciating detail, why they don't like something, in a way that can help the team make the design work.\n\nThe Assassin is going to be the person who asks \"How cool is that web site design the tenth time you visit it? How is this going to look on one of these? <waves smartphone> An Assassin is the dork who is testing load times in the real world, not just on a local network. Everything works at GigE speeds. On EDGE? Not so much.\n\nEven more importantly, the Assassin is the person who provides the laugh test. The Assassin is what prevents copy leads full of really dirty double entendre. The Assassin is what should have prevented \"Add & Remove Programs\" from morphing into \"Programs and Features\", because the Assassin knows that name changes which remove clarity and purpose just so they can be different need to be shot in the head. Remorselessly.\n\nThe \"real world\" version of the Assassin is that last friend between you and the \"Twilight\" tattoo. \n\nBasically, the Assassin is the way you prevent getting a dose of \"Make My Logo Bigger Cream\"\n\nIf your team doesn't have an Assassin, your results probably show it.