Many of us have seen projects become difficult or even fail when team members don’t think about each other. Sometimes it’s because we disagree, but more often it’s less intentional: Writers can't anticipate how their choices impact the designers—because they don’t really know the designers. Developers don’t realize how the CMS affects authors—because they don’t really know the authors. We forget how our shiny modal interfaces can annoy or even anger our audiences, because we’re not close enough to them to understand their needs.

Personas and style guides and content templates are valuable artifacts, but no amount of documentation can replace authentic human connection. We may know this intellectually, but we don’t always remember to do relationships. With a little effort and intention, we can transform our teams and our work.

In this session, we’ll learn how to:

• Get better at considering viewpoints outside of our own.
• Foster authentic connections and relationships between and among our teams.
• Shape our projects to encourage genuine care for our colleagues and our users.