Why Product People Should Sketch
Why Product People Should Sketch — Sketching As a Product Person is a skill I highly recommend to my mentees. Why? Any method of communicating the problem you are trying to solve and thoughts to start the ideation process with stakeholders can be very valuable.
I initially learned this lesson at a set of meetings at Frog Design some years ago. As we were Journey Mapping some of the use cases and personas of our primary HCM users, I was so impressed that the leader of the sessions was able to very artistically sketch the real world examples (i.e. hiring an employee, etc). It brought the conversation and ideation to a whole new level. It also gave the leader more professionalism in my mind.
In addition to helping communicate, sketching as a product person is a skill that gets the attention of both your designers and your developer partners. They will be impressed that you speak their language and can let them inside your visual mind.
What do you need to learn this skill. It’s pretty simple — pencil, eraser, paper. If you desire more formal training there are some great Youtube videos and I recommend “How to Sketch” by Liron Yanconsky.
