Start with the hardest problem

I came across Dan Mall's excellent Figma Config 23 conference talks Your next component where he outlines the best practices for getting an organisation to adopt a design system. In his talk he argues that that the best way to start a project is to start by tackling the hardest problem.

As he puts it:

"When you're the new inmate in the block, you pick a fight with the biggest guy in the yard... that's how you earn respect".

Contrary to the common practice of starting small and building up - e.g. in the case of a Design System that would be starting with a button component - Dan suggests looking for the most complex, nastiest, most intimidating component and solving that first.

He quotes this great tweet from Waseem Dahr which really resonates with me: