I've been exploring the option to work in smaller organizations instead of larger ones because I want less bullshit and more autonomy. That's not just me swearing, it's a very precise statement.

Too Much Bullshit

I divide work tasks into three broad categories:

1. Product. Designing, creating, running, supporting, and maintaining a product that does a job that customers need done.
2. Support. Work necessary to support the business that makes the product: accounting, marketing and sales, supply management, etc.
3. Bullshit. If it's not in #1 or #2, then it's just bullshit. It can take many forms: useless paperwork, building bridges to unqualified gatekeepers, compensating for poor performers, you name it.

My goal is to spend as much time as possible on product, as little time as necessary on support, and exactly zero time on bullshit.

This is where large corporate jobs often fall down. There are stories about new hires that wait for days or weeks to get access to the system they need to perform their job. New processes tend to accrete in a large organization; every problem generates a new form, gate, meeting, or approver. People can impose huge burdens to gather and report data on others with a single sentence email. Designers I worked with used to calculate that they often spent less than two hours per day on product, a few hours a week on support, and the great majority of their time on bullshit.

Not Enough Autonomy

Decision-making in large organizations is often dysfunctional. Few executives understand delegation. They retain approval on minutia often without understanding the effort (i.e., cost) involved in gaining approval from someone without any time or domain knowledge.

Organizational structure will always place a large number of constraints on a product designer. The product has to perform the customer's job but also it must be profitable, be saleable through a channel, meet regulatory approval, etc. But those constraints can be met with low or high friction processes.

Low friction would be to educate and delegate responsibility to meet all these factors to the lead product designer. For example, a Privacy Compliance office could send a representative to describe privacy requirements and to help the product designer understand compliance issues. These emissaries would act as advisors and contributors. This method leaves the product designer in the driver's seat, even though other groups help to set the road.

Sadly what often happens is for each group to impose a gate on the product design process. Each group wants a veto. Each group wants to be brought up to speed on the whole product in order to evaluate it. Instead of advisors guiding the lead designer, you get a committee of people who are only empowered to say "no". This method places the constraints above the product design process itself.

The Full Picture

If your focus is on helping customers, then you will want to focus on product. Too often corporate jobs are less than 10% product, and even then you're navigating a gauntlet of managers who are only allowed to stop development. These are not organizations with a product culture.

These jobs may pay for 40 hours per week, but you feel like you've done 4 hours of good work, and spend the other 36 getting permission to do it. So to be productive, I suggest finding organizations with less bullshit and more autonomy. That's what I'm doing.