Péter Balázs Polgár

9am26 Newsletter - Reflections on Design Leadership

9am26 is my newsletter on all things product design leadership: design and research practice, managing people and teams, finding our places in tech product orgs, scaling and maturity, describing best practices and new ways of being a design leader from great companies and design teams. Why am I writing this again?

2026

  1. e50 Consistency is spelling, coherence is voice
  2. e49 The power of stepping back

2025

  1. e48 Combating groupthink
  2. e47 Discovery is more than user research

2024

  1. e46 Personas are meant to be used, not just created
  2. e45 Better presentations with the pyramid principle
  3. e44 Nonviolent communication for designers
  4. e43 The team's common rituals build the team
  5. e42 Facilitating participatory design
  6. e41 Articulating the design team's value
  7. e40 Prototypes model experiences

2023

  1. e39 2023 Retrospect
  2. e38 Maturity models help formulate what good looks like
  3. e37 Nurturing designer and researcher careers
  4. e36 Design team structures - defining how we work
  5. e35 Develop your leadership style
  6. e34 Wartime - peacetime design leadership
  7. e33 Activating insights for the design process
  8. e32 Rigor is essential in user research
  9. e31 Why writing matters for designers
  10. e30 Raising the team's empathy
  11. e29 Managing designers and managing researchers
  12. e28 Desire paths - following the users' tracks
  13. e27 Onboarding designers
  14. e26 Product trios for designers
  15. e25 Writing useful hypotheses
  16. e24 Problem space, solution space
  17. e23 Celebrating successes is a team effort
  18. e22 UX strategy - the design team's guide to success
  19. e21 1-on-1s - strengthening the team with coaching
  20. e20 Designing meaningful products with AI
  21. e19 Design audits - improving collaboration, quality, and alignment
  22. e18 Sustainability for product design teams
  23. e17 Career ladders chart a path for the team's growth
  24. e16 Getting deeper with well-formed user interview questions
  25. e15 Pair design leads to better design collaboration
  26. e14 Building great design teams with a purposeful hiring process
  27. e12 Articulating design decisions makes design work transparent
  28. e11 Design intent clarifies what a design aims to achieve
  29. e10 Design principles set the foundation for good design
  30. e09 What is good design
  31. e08 Writing experience stories for better portfolios

2022

  1. e07 Player-coach leaders
  2. e06 Delight is great UX
  3. e05 Teams of T-shaped designers
  4. e04 Writing great job ads
  5. e03 Structuring research notes
  6. e02 Brag doc - Keeping track of wins
  7. e01 Design critique - a core practice for design teams
  8. Welcome to 9am26