Many companies organize their workflow around projects and departments. Especially in large companies, work often moves from one place to another, often gets stuck between emails and Slack messages, and often “fine tunes” on its never-ending journey between design and engineering teams.
This inevitably brings up the question of the design handover: that magical moment when designers finish their work and developer can take over. More importantly, this is where designers must stop work, and move on to other work – unless the scope changes or adjustments creep in.
The “No Handover” Method
Last week I came across a interesting article on the gene transfer method, in which Shamsi Brinn shows an alternative to typical design handoffs. Shandi shows a fluid model where product and engineering teams work iteratively on the product all the time, with functional prototyping the central method of collaborating.
With the process, the working prototype is the living species of the project and a shared language for the team. No translation is needed anymore because everyone is working on the same prototype. The problem space and the solution space are explored by designers and engineers in collaborationand the entire workflow is organized around the product, rather than the company’s internal structure.