First off, thanks for putting me in the hot seat, @EricZ. Excited to dig into this, it’s a good one..
Engineers tend to work from a more organized, rational set of objectives. @caoimghgin and I had a great back-and-forth on this in our discussion on decision-making with an engineering mindset.
Designers, on the other hand, often operate in a much fuzzier space. That ambiguity can quickly become a problem when teams are trying to align, prioritize, and make decisions. Those differences are baked in from the start, and they naturally create tension.
The common ground for each is that they want to build and make things for people. That agreement can be solidified by actually showing how users are experiencing problems. Show the problems. Reproduce the problems.
That’s a great starting place to start the conversation.