In my early years as a designer, I was constantly frustrated. I worked at an agency, separated from the development team, and every project felt like a survival test. The designs I poured so much effort into ended up being dismantled by developers. Deadlines were never met, and requirements were only partially fulfilled. I felt like I was in a perpetual battle with developers—while I only wanted the best for the product, they seemed to be sabotaging me.
When I joined Runroom, I experienced a radical shift: a work culture centered on collaboration and feedback. I still vividly remember my first design review with the team. Jordi, a back-end developer, looked at my work and pointed out accessibility issues while suggesting some improvements. Instinctively, I got defensive—what could a developer know about design? However, after reflecting on his feedback, I realized he was right. Thanks to his critique, we built a better product.
This way of working, focused on collaboration, continuous improvement, and shared value, helped me understand that many of the "myths" about design are simply barriers we impose on ourselves.
Myth 1: Agile ≠ Creativity
Reality: Agile 🚀 Creativity
Let’s start with the first belief: that Agile stifles creativity. How can we create something innovative when we’re constantly rushing, delivering in sprints, and adapting to rapid changes? The Marshmallow Challenge is a perfect example of how the Agile mindset can actually fuel creativity.
In this experiment, different groups—architects, college students, kindergarteners, lawyers, and CEOs—are tasked with building the tallest possible tower using spaghetti, tape, and a marshmallow. After the architects, the children consistently build the tallest towers. Why? Because while the adults focus on planning, the children simply try, adjust, and try again. It’s a constant process of experimentation that allows them to quickly discover what works and what doesn’t.
That is, in essence, the Agile mindset: doing, testing, and adjusting based on what we learn. Agile isn’t a rigid set of rules; it’s a philosophy. Rather than stifling creativity, Agile enhances it, allowing us to adapt, experiment, and improve with every iteration.
⭐️ Agile boosts creativity by enabling us to learn at every step. It’s not an obstacle but a pathway to better solutions.
Myth 2: Dev ≠ Design
Reality: Dev 👩❤️👨 Design
Let’s move on to the second myth, one that often causes friction: the idea that design and development are like oil and water. To illustrate this, let’s talk about football. Imagine a striker who only cares about scoring goals, even if their team loses 4-5, as long as they’ve scored five goals. Meanwhile, the goalkeeper prefers a 0-0 draw just to avoid conceding goals, even if it means the team doesn’t win. If each player focuses solely on their own objectives, the team will never succeed.
The same thing happens between design and development. Too often, we work as though success depends only on our individual contributions, creating friction and limitations in the process. At Runroom, we break this myth by fostering constant collaboration. This way, developers take an interest in accessibility and usability, while designers focus on performance and technical architecture.
⭐️ Design and development not only can coexist—they must. By working together as a team with the same goal, we create stronger, better products.
Myth 3: Discovery → Delivery
Reality: Discovery 🔗 Delivery
One of the most common myths is that discovery is a separate, initial phase that must be completed before moving on to the delivery stage. The reality is that discovery is not a preliminary step that can be “finished” and left behind—it’s an essential and ongoing part of the product creation process.
Let’s remember the infamous case of Amazon’s Fire Phone. A product launched after exhaustive research, but it failed because its assumptions didn’t address the real needs of users. What’s the lesson? No matter how rigorous the initial analysis, no plan survives first contact with the user. This is where discovery plays a crucial role as a living component of the process, working alongside delivery to adjust and validate in real time.
At Runroom, we embrace a Lean approach where discovery and delivery go hand in hand. We work in short, repetitive cycles that allow us to make small deliveries, gather user feedback, and refine our understanding of the problem with each iteration. This process not only ensures we’re on the right track, but also enables us to quickly adapt the course when user needs or the context shift.
Instead of relying on an initial plan that can quickly become outdated, we make discovery a continuous process. It’s our compass for staying focused on the user, validating each step, and allowing us to make precise adjustments that add real value to the product.
⭐ Discovery isn’t a phase to be “completed” before designing; it’s the engine that drives and fuels the design process. The key is to integrate it into every step of development to create stronger products that are better aligned with the real needs of users.
From Myths to Practice
Jordi, the back-end developer who years ago criticized my design and taught me the value of collaboration across roles, is now the CTO of Runroom. He still critiques my designs, but now I value his feedback instead of fearing it. At Runroom, this mindset of collaboration, adaptability, and product focus is not an exception or a "different way of working"—it’s the foundation that guides all of our projects.
For us, working in Agile is not just about applying Scrum or Kanban. It’s a mindset that prioritizes people and their interactions over processes, values a functional product over exhaustive documentation, fosters collaboration rather than negotiation, and allows us to adapt to change rather than cling to a rigid plan.
Each project is an opportunity to apply these values and see how they enhance both the process and the final product.
Working this way not only improves design or development; it also transforms the relationships within the team. It pushes us to challenge one another, to learn, and to grow together.