The Hidden Costs of Big Design Up Front (And How to Avoid Them)

Even when people say they are working in an Agile environment, there is often a big design phase, and for good reason - a single new requirement can result in a complete redesign of the solution.

When teams are being tracked on time and cost, expensive redesigns need to be avoided. But locking in a design with a Big Design Up Front (BDUF) also leads to a lot of issues. And it is not as if projects are mostly on-time and on-budget anyway even with a BDUF.

The biggest drawbacks are that it locks in assumptions about how users will behave and the fear of change requests leads to over-specification and over-engineering. All of these lead to bloated and ineffective products that fail to deliver the expected value.

But skipping design completely also has challenges (I'll dig into this more next week). If you want to dive deeper on this topic check out my article below.

This Week’s Updates

Enabling the Team

How AI Can Help Managers Think Through Problems by Elisa Farri & Gabriele Rosani
Co-thinking with GenAI is when managers follow a four-step framework: Assign AI a role, define the setting, outline the dialogue, and create structured prompts. This helps engaging actively, challenging AI’s outputs, and involving teams to enhance collaboration.

Why You Should Get Buy-in Throughout A Project by Wes Kao
Even if you mentioned a risk might happen, your manager might act surprised when it actually happens. This is why you must reinforce expectations at the beginning, middle, and end.

Product Direction

Why Don't Our Leaders Care About How We Work? by John Cutler
The disconnect between leadership and actionable change, urges leaders to prioritize meaningful engagement over superficial strategies.

The Feedback Fragmentation Tax by Brian Balfour
Fragmented feedback systems lead to inefficiencies and how consolidating feedback channels can improve decision-making and product outcomes.

Continuous Research

Why I Stay An IC by Trevor Calabro
Trevor chooses to remain an IC rather than pursuing management roles. He gets personal satisfaction and strategic value of focusing on expertise and direct impact, as well as the pros and cons of IC versus management tracks.

The Research Repository Paradox by Thomas Stokes
There are challenges and contradictions associated with maintaining a research repository. Repositories can hinder progress when not properly managed and strategies can make them effective tools for continuous research.

Continuous Design

Machines To Minds: Human-centered Design In A Technology-driven Era by Katie Schmidt
Designers should prioritize user needs and experiences, ensuring that technological advancements align with human values and enhance user satisfaction. Integrating empathy into the design process is crucial for creating intuitive and effective AI systems.

The Fastest Gun In UX: Why Your Team Is Telling The Wrong Story by Pavel Samsonov
"Fastest Gun" mentality, prioritizes speed over quality, potentially leading teams to tell the wrong story in their designs. Thorough research and thoughtful design processes create effective user experiences.

Continuous Development

The Hidden Costs Of Big Design Up Front (and How To Avoid Them) by Rory Madden
BDUF promises certainty but it doesn’t even deliver on that. Given the amount of assumptions required change requests inevitably appear anyway. Our goal of efficiency is replaced by increased holding, maintenance and opportunity costs.

How Engineering Teams Use AI by Luca Rossi
Engineering teams are increasingly integrating AI tools into their workflows to automate tasks, enhance productivity, and improve decision-making, redefining how development processes are executed.

Less Than One Week Untill UXDX USA 2025 Kicks Off!
3 Talks you don’t want to miss and 2 new entries…

UXDX USA 2025 is officially sold out, but you can still grab an online pass! Here are some of the most anticipated sessions in New York:

• Capital One’s Chief Design Officer, Daniela Jorge, on aligning design with business transformation

• Uber’s VP of Design, Joann Wu, on driving impact through customer-centric strategy

• Airtable’s Head of Engineering, Jimmy Hillis, on building AI-powered workflows

We’re also thrilled to announce two new sessions:

• Ash Brown from Bloomberg at UXDX USA 2025, on evolving with user-centered design practices in a complex environment.

• Niall O'Kelly from Adidas at UXDX EMEA 2025, on navigating complexity with intent in fast-moving teams.

These talks will offer valuable insights and actionable strategies for tackling challenges in both large enterprises and high-impact teams.

FREE COMMUNITY EVENTS 

Check out more upcoming community events 

Video of the Week
The Innovation Paradox OR
How to Keep Things Simple with Emerging Technologies

This week’s video features Omar Khan, Head of Design at Sky, as he dives into the challenges of keeping things simple while working with emerging technologies. In this talk, Omar will share the design process behind Sky’s pioneering camera-enabled watch-together experience, providing valuable insights into managing consumer expectations and creating a seamless user experience.

Omar will explore the fine line between incorporating sophisticated features and maintaining a straightforward, user-friendly design. Balance cutting-edge technology with simplicity in your own product development by watching this talk. Don’t miss out on these key strategies for innovation without complexity.👇

The Results of Last Week’s Poll

The question: How does your organization structure design and development work?

Last week’s poll results make it clear that organizations take different approaches to structuring design and development teams. The majority (44%) have cross-functional teams with specialized roles, balancing collaboration and expertise.

Interestingly, 34% of organizations keep design and development teams separate, while 9% bridge the gap with liaison roles. Only 13% feature fully integrated product teams with shared responsibilities. A comment also highlighted the success of fully integrated teams in their previous company, where small product teams prototyped, tested, and shipped final versions, showing the potential of this approach for seamless collaboration..

If you're looking to refine your team's structure and collaboration, explore strategies for better integration in our Continuous Design course!

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