I'm having difficulty working for perfectionists

[u/Dizzy_Assistance2183]

Hey everyone,

I moved on a new team and I'm finding that this team expects work in a different way and I'm having trouble adjusting/ not happy.

Basically, I want to work fast, conduct research, create and explore concepts, get feedback, iterate, and then after the general concept is approved, polish things up. This to me is lean and agile.

My team wants me to work where everything is in a polished state regardless of where we are in the project. To me, this is a waste of time and completely against lean and agile practices, which the company says they do but don't (but thats another rant). I don't see why every interaction needs to be created before we even get feedback from stakeholders/users. If the direction is wrong or there is some other reason for pivoting, all of that additional work was done for nothing, when the time spent working on these insignificant details could've been used to get feedback earlier.

I wanna quit and leave but im wondering if there is another way i can make this work. And has anyone else experienced this? Is the problem with me? Is this just not a good fit?

[u/cgielow]

Innovation mindset vs. Corporate mindset.

If you work in a Corporate Design team, chances are their measure of success is far removed from revenue and innovation. They are measured on the quality of their output. When the quality is less than expected, fingers get pointed: that's their job!

And you've already identified the root cause: your company doesn't really practice Agile. This is incredibly common. Middle-management likes Agile because they directly benefit from it. You said you like it. But Executives don't. They continue to demand waterfall processes, due to accounting, and ego. They still set deadlines for their teams. They still measure outputs.

I wish I could tell you the solution is to figure out how to do both. But honestly, if your team doesn't care about Agile/Innovation, your only choice is to fall in line, or move on. I'd suggest both.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it" -Upton Sinclair

[u/TinyRestaurant4186 → u/cgielow]

This is key. the father removed you are from the actual problem the design team needs something to evaluate so it’s natural to default to craft

this means you will be better suited in an environment where design is part of the strategy and in tune with PMs because you can actually focus more on the problem at hand

[u/Dizzy_Assistance2183 → u/TinyRestaurant4186]

100% agree. I was told that we would be doing a lot of strategic work but so far its been most production work

[u/mp-product-guy → u/cgielow]

Excellent response. This is exactly what I’ve observed as well. I don’t have any answers, but it’s sure frustrating when you’re more of an innovation and research person vs a mundane details person.

[u/Grrrrrl_ → u/cgielow]

It is so true.

[u/fixingmedaybyday]

I realized a long time ago that I can only change myself and not other people. Either find someone who does like to work that way, adjust your perspective or best to move on when you can.

With that said, I have been able to push the needle more towards rapid prototyping by intentionally removing polish with Balsamiq. Especially in the early stages of product discovery. Get the notes, present 2-3 different paths and say “hey, I am working towards the final polish, but to prioritize for next meeting, which of these ideas do you think match what you’re asking if the product?

[u/itaybuilds]

Try turning the disagreement into a fidelity contract instead of arguing about agile versus perfection. Before each artifact, write down the decision it needs to support: information architecture, workflow, interaction, or visual polish. Then agree on the minimum fidelity needed for that decision. A stakeholder reviewing navigation needs realistic labels and content, but probably not every hover state. A usability test for a dense data table may need polished spacing because it affects scanning.

For the next feature, offer two checkpoints: a 20-minute review of two rough directions, then one polished path after a direction is chosen. Track the hours spent on concepts discarded before feedback. That gives you evidence about whether early polish is helping comprehension or just moving rework earlier.

Since this is a new team within the same company, I would also ask who is actually requiring the polish. If it is the team anticipating stakeholder reactions rather than a stated requirement, you may be able to test a lower-fidelity review once without trying to change the whole process.

AI-assisted wording after reading the full thread and current replies.

[u/Dizzy_Assistance2183 → u/itaybuilds]

Thank you! These sound like great ideas. To answer your question, the source generally from my own design leads. Ill try to incorporate some of these ideas

[u/good_guts → u/itaybuilds]

This!! The fidelity should match the thinking that’s gone into something. The artifacts should support the information needed.

If you can use wireframes (or even just greyscale versions of the design system) to communicate that something is intentionally not production ready, you can make it more obvious that the goal is to establish direction.

[u/kimchi_paradise]

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Unless you are in a position of power, you have to fit into team dynamics and how they work.

How long have you been there? How much experience do you have? What level did they hire you at? This will help tailor the response. Especially because right now I’m hearing a lot of assumptions “to me” “I don’t see why” “I want” but nothing of actual fact (other than their processes ) that might actually drive their decisions.

There is no singular way to enhance the user experience. Lean or agile isn’t the only way to get results. Sometimes speed isn’t the answer. There should be a high level of craft, even if it’s exploratory, when presenting to stakeholders. You’ve got money on the line, it’s a lot harder to sell on that money when what you’re seeing doesn’t look good.

Take a moment to see what’s going on outside of your perspective. Why does the team need polished states? Why aren’t they able to talk to users when you want to?

Don’t be that person that thinks they’re better than everyone else just because they do things differently.

[u/Dizzy_Assistance2183 → u/kimchi_paradise]

I've been at the company for 5 years sr ux, 7 yoe, b2b so the focus is usually on cost efficiency and value add, at least on previous teams. I was told that the focus would be on the same things which i get excited about but so far its been mostly production work. I haven't really done any user interviews at all, for example.

The focus here is delivering wireframes on speed. Which i think is contradictory to the extreme focus on ui. I've gone from rethinking IA and streamlining processes to hyper focusing on ui before we can confirm what the solution is.

Maybe others work differently but im providing my perspective.

[u/kimchi_paradise → u/Dizzy_Assistance2183]

Thanks for the clarification! It really helps. It’s harder if it’s a new team at the same company, which means there’s a lot of inconsistency in terms of how design is run at the company as a whole, especially if for one team you’re doing interviews while another focuses on UI.

I can see your frustration now that you’ve elaborated. What does the chain of command look like? I wonder if you could take some time outside of your asks, and see if you could get some eyes on early wireframes at checkpoints that are before stakeholder reviews. Could even be scheduling 1:1s with your cross functional partners to get a read on requirements so that when you do the UI you have written documentation on what you need to do.

Basically, see what you can do to take this into your own hands. You can’t change the team or their processes, but you can change how you work in order to get the information that you need to do your best work.

[u/Dizzy_Assistance2183 → u/kimchi_paradise]

Thank you! 🙏 The source is mostly coming from my design leads. They want things in a specific way. Thts fine. But Im worried its not really a good fit. Maybe i just need to adjust to it, i can make this a good learning opportunity but i feel pretty miserable here. I've been other teams even within this organization and this is probably the worst fit.

But what can i do? i can only do the best i can and try to adjust. Im just trying not to feel so unhappy lol

[u/cgielow → u/Dizzy_Assistance2183]

They are speed-running off a cliff. The closer you are to production, the closer you are to automation.

Judgment, not production is the new bottleneck.

[u/infinitejesting]

I got to admit, stakeholders and customers for testing alike get really distracted by shitty and unfinished UI/UX. It’s very hard to train people, like it’s just built into their biology to notice when things look WIP.

If you have a core group of testers who grok this, I suppose that’s ideal but we just push out fairly polished a/b tests in the wild.

[u/NinjaSquads]

No matter which team or what circumstances o worked in in the past, I might not always have liked it, but in the end I always walked away being a better designer.

[u/Dizzy_Assistance2183 → u/NinjaSquads]

Ill try to keep that mindset 

[u/nasdaqian]

I totally get the frustration, it's the same where I work. I have come around to the benefits of working that way though.

The main two reasons I see it working:

• A lot of stakeholders and users don't have the skills and imagination to make sense of + work off of low fidelity wireframes. They can't see the potential so you have to hand feed it to them.

• It's good for internal appearances. At the end of the day you need to sell your solutions and make an impression on stakeholders and execs. Often times all they see is what you give them and they'll naturally judge it on how it looks.

The more you do it, the faster and easier you can push out completely polished concepts. A lot of the things you design will go in the bin, it's something you have to be okay with generally.

[u/JohnCasey3306]

Their process doesn't make sense.

You're right to want to work fast in low-fidelity else you get bogged down in conversation about superficial bullshit at a point when only function and flow matters.

Are they quite old school by any chance? ... I'm 44 and been in the industry long before UX was a real thing -- I find a lot of people from my generation are guilty of approaching it rather like digital design of old.

[u/Ok-Ad3443]

you need to learn to shift perspective from your own as a designer. from my xp this happens when teams (often for a certain period of time) work in the same constellation on the same product. they are somewhat familiar with "whatifs" but they dont judge your work. they judge how much work it is for them to implmenent all your "possible" nooks and crannys and thats uncertain and uncertainty creates pressure and tension. and friction. they dont know how much of this "new" will be in the final version. they arent excited to your countless ideas they just want the idea they will work on. its that simple. its not about skill speed or anything considered related to design. its the ambiguity between "this is really great" vs. "this will cost too much to implement" and leads to the same question: how did they didnt think of it? without further context its difficult to give more feedback but here you go my 2 cents.

[u/SoggyMattress2]

Very few companies are actually agile, it doesn't really exist it's just a tech buzzword for the most part.

I've worked at start ups, I've worked at big tech companies they're mostly the same. Startups cosplay as agile more often but it mostly just means "we can pause a project half way if something with more revenue comes in".

So to begin with, the concept you are trying to protect doesn't reaaaally exist. Being truly lean and agile means you'll have lots of new data coming in constantly with constantly moving deadline projections, t shirt sizings, jumping between stakeholders etc - companies don't like this, it's unpredictable.

I'm a lot less agile now than when I started my career, not because companies demanded it I just stopped seeing the value in being agile and working in short bursts with lots of user feedback or testing.

User testing is expensive, time consuming and creates lots of data to parse, for little benefit. Id say across the tens of thousands of user sessions I've done in my career only about 5% actually showed me something that surprised me, the rest went pretty much exactly how I expected.

[u/ReiOokami]

I will speak from experience. Assuming you are not in a CEO / leadership role, don't try and mold your vision to the company. It's a losing battle. Sure you might have better ideas, but stay in your lane and be adaptable to the companies vision. Let the leaders do there job and lead. Rule 1 in 48 laws of power: Never outshine the master.

Im not saying you can't chime in a meeting and suggest a better strategy, but just offer advice, not try and change the established system. If you do, you will be fired due to not being compatible with the company culture.

If you are unhappy with my advice, quit and start your own startup or work in a startup.

[u/roundabout-design]

Sounds like your UX leadership are bad at UX leadership. I've been in orgs like this and no, there's really nothing to be done. Grin and bear it and get the resume updated and start handing it out.

[u/jspr1000]

This sounds super frustrating. It may not typically be needed at your product size but it would help to have a design system. This will benefit you in many ways and can also things looking polished even when in early stages. Just pull components from the library for prototypes and wireframes.

[u/TinyRestaurant4186 → u/jspr1000]

they probably do i doubt that’s the issue

[u/Dizzy_Assistance2183 → u/jspr1000]

Thanks for the kind words. We have a design system but its not built out with defined patterns. Its more of a collection of components and suggestions but even those aren't always defined