Welcome, Adam Staffa fans!
Yup, this is the site he talked about in his amazing Align(Ed) presentation.
Hello early birds
Welcome to the developing home of Align Before Design.
Over the next days and weeks, I will be adding:
A free eBook called Tantrums & Tornadoes, which compares misaligned executives and stakeholders to warring mythical gods
A series of free webinars on the Align Before Design process (aka “Executive Alignment in Five Conversations”)
Opportunities to be an early reader of my upcoming book
For now:
Tune in to my Corporate Underpants podcast
And sign up below for notifications.
Sign up to be notified
I’ll let you know when there are new Align Before Design tools, content, and opportunities.
It’s time for digital and product people to become expert aligners.
The fastest way to stall your career is to ‘stay out of politics.’ Instead, you should learn what life is really like for key decision-makers. Once you understand their world, you can help them get (and stick!) to the clarity and focus you need to launch products people love.
The big idea.
What you’ll learn
How to run a simple alignment workshop that exposes hidden agendas and surfaces real goals
How to turn vague leadership requests into actionable decisions and research hypotheses
How to use Alignment Personas to lead conversations without stepping on landmines
How to keep your product—and your career—moving forward, even in messy orgs
Why mastering people dynamics is now your biggest edge in an AI-automated world
Who YOU are.
You are in a digital, product or design-related field
You are mid-to-senior in your career and want to keep moving up
You’re someone who tries new techniques
You are extremely practical and somewhat allergic to a bunch of theoretical crap (and can tolerate occasional expletives)
You agree it’s important to learn how to ‘manage up,’ align executives or senior stakeholders, and stop saying ‘this is above my pay grade.’
Some Context.
Intro to Executive Alignment for UX and Product Leaders (and the Align Before Design workshop)
Tamara “that persona person who wrote the Persona Lifecycle books” context
More articles and videos about Executive Alignment / Alignment Personas / Align Before Design
What the Align Before Design course and book will cover.
Why all the fuss about executive and stakeholder alignment?
What’s the Align Before Design workshop?
Can I run my own Align Before Design workshop? If so, how?
What are alignment personas? How do they fit into the Align Before Design workshop?
Why is there still so much debate about personas in general?
How are alignment personas different than other kinds of personas?
Why do data-driven persona efforts often fail?
Why are stakeholder assumptions so much more powerful than data, and what can I do about it?
Why is it important to learn how to ‘manage up’ as you become more senior in product, UX, research, and other roles?
How are executive teams like the Greek gods?
Why do I have to worry about tornadoes if I’m a product person?