I realized that, if we look back on many of those projects she worked on, it wasn’t as simple as she made it sound. In retrospect, a lot of the projects she got assigned to were initially not glamorous. They didn’t initially call for net new design work, many of them weren’t even that fun to start out on. In fact, I can recall many times she got assigned to projects and teams that were in a slump, and were slogging through the work. I could really only think of one or two examples in years of working together where she was handed something that was a desirable project from the very start. [...] What made those projects glamorous and desirable was her and how she approached the work. There’s that old nugget about making your own luck and that is something she excelled at. She had a unique ability to take really hard or nebulous problems (both design and team-related) and morph them into something amazing that got people excited. Instead of getting discouraged, she’d respond to friction with more energy, more enthusiasm. In so many ways, she was a transformative presence on any team and project.

Because over time, I found that she was someone who could take that hard, unamazing stuff and make it seem effortless and amazing.

he projects weren’t good. They were made good.