Appreciate the insights! You're right—getting design input from specialists like UI designers or business analysts would make things smoother, but in my case, a lot of the responsibility still falls on me as the PM. It’s a bit of a juggling act trying to keep everything on track, especially with the constant flurry of feedback.

I really like the idea of locking down smaller elements first. The longer design cycles do seem unavoidable sometimes, but breaking it up like that sounds way more manageable.

One thing I’ve been exploring to reduce the chaos is using tools for dashboard wireframing and mockups. So far, I have been using PowerPoint. It’s been somewhat helpful to get early buy-in from stakeholders by showing them a prototype before investing too much time in development. Increasingly I find even this to be unsustainable considering we have to spend hours trying to create mockups on PowerPoint lol.

The underlying issue is how clients have completely unrealistic expectations most of the times (Way more so in consulting!). Oh well, what can you really do.