Summary:  Designers' top struggles aren't about design skills. They're about alignment, influence, and navigating org complexity — the work no one taught them to do. Every time we teach our course Product and UX: Building Partnerships for Better Outcomes , we ask students the same question at the start of class: what's your number one problem right now? Last year we collected about 150 answers. After mapping them, the results were remarkably consistent across a few major themes. Roughly half of the feedback pointed to the same category of challenge: alignment. Not design quality. Not research methods. Alignment — getting people on the same page and shaping what actually gets built. Designers Are Doing the Connective-Tissue Work, and No One Taught Them How Role Confusion and Invisible Value The Medium-Priority Pile Is Worth Your Attention Too Designers Are Doing the Connective-Tissue Work, and No One Taught Them How The single most common theme was about facilitating alignment between people .…