Collaboration Workshop at UX Camp

At the AutoScout24 UX Camp 2025 in Berlin, a 2.5 day design and research team offsite, I had the pleasure of running a workshop on “The Three C’s: Connection, Communication, and Collaboration”.

As designers, our work doesn’t just live in Figma, it lives in the spaces between designers, researchers, product managers, and engineers. My goal with the workshop was to shine a light on these different personas, to strengthen our connections, and to make collaboration smoother.

Over the course of an hour, I led the team through a fun exercise based on five role-playing situations.

Beginning with Connection (“The Role Swap”), the teams split into groups of 5, each member had to role-play as a cross-functional member and explain:

  1. How do you measure success in your role?

  2. What is your biggest frustration?

  3. What is most important to you on every project?

  4. What do you wish designers understood?

The second exercise was around Communication (“Translate the Brief”). In each group, different members went around and described the problem and potential solution from their role-playing briefs:

  • Round 1 (5 min) — PM explains the problem. Designer must ask clarifying questions. Others listen silently.

  • Round 2 (5 min) — Designer explains proposed solution. Engineer asks feasibility. PM listens silently.

  • Round 3 (5 min) — Engineer summarizes back both perspectives and proposes a next step.

And lastly, it was time to bring it together inside Collaboration (“The 20-Minute Sprint”). Each group had to design a solution to their brief and present a 2-minute pitch including:

  • Problem

  • Solution

  • Trade-off

  • How you collaborated

The workshop resulted in light-hearted, inspired discussions around the meaning of connection and collaboration with our product and engineering peers. One theme that stood out was the “I had no idea!” reaction when each member described how they measure success in their roles and their biggest frustrations. This highlighted the need for everyone in the room to spend time with their teams and build connections early based on empathy and understanding. This first pillar can then carve the way to better communication, better collaboration, and better outcomes.

Below are the slides and activity sheets for the workshop.

And a few snaps from our talented photographer!