So when I heard this, I had to ask: why?
Turns out, the designer was buried in meetings, research, interview, legal calls, alignment sessions, more meetings… everything except actual design.
I’ve always made it a habit to stay ahead of dev — but for that project, I committed to being at least one quarter ahead.
And yes — it took effort. But with a solid design system, flexible local components, and focus, it was totally doable.
I still did discovery, stakeholder work, peer reviews, and even the occasional side quest — but only after the team had clear, actionable designs to build from.
Design shouldn’t slow teams down.
It should set the pace.