Your team must release regulatory-compliance features to legacy applications in six weeks. In a standup, a developer reports a key feature is blocked until the assigned designer completes a task, creating a major risk to the release date. What should you do?

The best approach is to meet directly with the designer. This fosters collaboration and empowers the individual closest to the problem to contribute to the solution. By understanding their current workload and challenges, you can jointly explore options like re-prioritizing their tasks, offering assistance, or finding a temporary workaround. This direct engagement is often the quickest and most effective way to unblock work. Asking the software engineer to proceed without the feature is unacceptable, as it compromises regulatory compliance. Requesting an additional designer from the design team manager might be a later step, but first, you should understand the current designer's capacity and potential solutions. Contacting the design team manager to reprioritize their work is less effective than direct communication with the designer, as it removes the problem-solver from the solution.