While you could, in theory, come up with a product in a vacuum and unleash it onto the world with great fanfare, human-centered design brings people into the equation from the very beginning.

Human-centered design is a mindset, explains innovation consultant Ben Jonash. A person, not the person's problem, sits at the center of the team's decision-making process. The result is a product that could have immense power. 

Teams using human-centered design make connections with real customers, and they stay in touch with those people throughout the process, writes transformational coach Francesca Elisia. The ties they build are strong, and the products made have the potential to impact the lives of others.

As project manager, it's your job to keep your team on track, on budget and on deadline. Here's how to maintain control at each stage of the human-centered design process.

Empathize: Where the Good Ideas Come From

How well do you know your current customers? What do you know about your future customers? Your team will answer these questions at the beginning of your project. Arguably, this is the most important part of the work, and your role as a manager is crucial.

"In the early phases of a design-thinking process, employees working on a project need to set aside their preconceptions about the product or service they are offering. Leaders can help them do this by endorsing the process, which uses information about customers to evoke empathy in employees and get them to question how their actions affect customers," write Christian Bason and Robert D. Austin at Harvard Business Review.

Discussions should steer clear of judgment, stereotyping and name-calling. Customers can be frustrating, but your team's job here is to connect with potential buyers, not fight with them.

"When organizations adopt human-centered design techniques, they create a platform for raising up families’ voices and perspectives. This platform creates an 'us with them' mentality rather than an 'us versus them' stance," according to the Global Family Research Project.

Your team may have plenty of anecdotal evidence to draw on as they determine what potential customers might like. But as a manager, you need access to data that can steer meaningful discussions.

Stefan Link, cofounder of tech and AI startup Pyoneer, recommends gathering data from customer research, sales, marketing and customer service. "This enables teams an instant view of customer problems and needs, to be equipped with required information to come up with better products that deliver real customer value," he writes.

Define: What Core Problem Should We Solve?

At the end of the empathy stage, your team has a clear picture of current and ideal customers. Now, it's time to pivot to the project. Distill all of those wants and needs into one thing you can build and sell. To make this work, you'll need data.

"People are pretty good problem solvers. I have faith in our species to solve problems, but I don't always have faith in organizations to define problems the right way," says Jaspal Sandhu, Ph.D., cofounder of the social innovation design consultancy Gobee Group.

Ensure your team has access to all of the data you gathered during the empathy stage. If the words, stats and numbers don't spark ideas, try something new.

Design thinking strategist Dana Mitroff Silvers recommends bringing videos, audio recordings and photographs to meetings. "When you allow your visitors’ voices to be heard, it is no longer about you trying to convince your institution of something; the first-hand stories speak for themselves, and are far more powerful than an abstracted report," she explains.

Examine: Brainstorm Creative Solutions

A glimmer of an idea begins to emerge, and your team is ready to spring into action. This is the moment when your job as a project manager gets a bit more complicated. You must slow down the rush to build a product with brainstorming sessions.

Brainstorming helps your team to validate ideas, and they build stronger connections as a team.

"When people brainstorm, they not only share ideas but they learn from each other, troubleshoot better, and become more tolerant. Participants tend to seek additional opportunities for sharing, as well as for personal and professional growth," says business and tech writer Moira Alexander, founder of PMWorld 360 Magazine.

Encourage your team to examine the product idea from every angle, and keep good notes your team can read as the discussion unfolds.

"Good facilitation requires good listening skills, very sharp group awareness, and the ability to help people express their ideas. The facilitator should run the whiteboard, writing down ideas as people come up with them, preventing people from interrupting each other, and giving the floor to quieter people who wouldn’t ordinarily find a way to contribute on their own," writes Scott Berkun, author of “How Design Makes the World.”

Ensure that the team feels responsible for every good idea that comes up during the discussion. Dave Thomsen, product design manager at Facebook, suggests using language like "our idea," rather than "my idea" to model this sharing behavior.

Prototyping: Testing Those Good Ideas

Your team understands your customer, has an idea for a solution, and has validated that idea through customer-centered brainstorming. It's time to build a prototype, even if you're not sure the product is 100 percent ready for sale.

"The great thing about using prototypes at such an early stage of the design process is that if our assumptions related to our personas are incorrect, we can easily tweak our designs accordingly without too much blood," writes Emily Grace Adiseshiah at prototyping tool JustInMind.

Your prototype should be a tangible piece of product your customers can test. As a project manager, you'll supervise their introduction to the model.

"Human-centered design does not use surveys but rather gives users a prototype of the new product and asks them to interact with it. The product manager watches them use things, including usability testing and funnel testing (observing how a user interacts with a multi-step application or other process, when people start giving up)," says Steve Kelman, professor of public management at Harvard University.

Watching these tests can be frustrating, and it can be tempting to argue with customers who don’t understand or agree with your vision. It's a good time to remember that empathy sits at the heart of human-centered design.

Joshua Hurtado, associate creative director at strategic creative agency Purple Rock Scissors, writes about a difficult interaction with a client that didn't agree with the company's proposed plan. The two sides came together, listened to each other and tried to understand. Then they designed and tested both versions. 

"We were wrong,” Hurtado reports. “Their navigation performed better for their end users. If we did not practice empathy, we would have strained the relationship with the client and closed ourselves off from learning something new."

Guide your teams through these difficult moments, and you could emerge with a much stronger product.

Feedback: Are We On Track?

A human-centered design project is never complete. Your clients will always have feedback to share, and your team should always respond. Invariably, some feedback will be negative. "Product creators assume that people who will use a product they created are like them. Let’s say it once again: You are not the user!" writes software developer Nick Babich.

Discuss feedback with your team, and look for ways to make improvements based on those customer concerns. If possible, seek out ways to incorporate research into the iteration process.

"Get early agreement on how research will be involved and keep track of your learnings. Try to be very clear about the value of research and persistence to make your case," says Anna Iurchenko, product and interaction designer at Google.

Support Your Team

Human-centered design projects can be invigorating for some designers and customer service pros. But your team will look to you for leadership at every phase of the project.

Consider creating a handbook that guides your team through the goal of your product. Hannah Fox, project director at Derby Museums in the UK, created a manual like this at the beginning of a human-centered design project. "It has given them something to help with the often scary process of talking to and working with visitors and communities. It gives staff a framework," she says.

Even with a manual, your team will need your time and communication skills to stay on track. Use your talks to get feedback on the process, so you can improve the next project before it begins.

Solutions consultant Sam Vaghefi recommends that you go and see: "Regularly walk around, talk to your teams, ask them what’s working and where they’re struggling. Bring those learnings back to your management meetings and share with your colleagues. Patterns that yield good outcomes should be amplified. Those that are causing problems should be remedied."