Designing Your Career @ amUX Atlanta
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Designing Your Career @ amUX Atlanta
Sep. 12, 2014•0 likes•8,981 views
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Design
Treat your career like a design project. A brief overview of a coaching framework and career design workshop that enables managers and employees alike.
Ian SwinsonFollow
Designing Your Career @ amUX Atlanta
- Ian Swinson VP of UX iswinson@gmail.com Designing Your Career
- Roles Associate Staff Senior Lead Principal Architect Principal Architect Chief Design Officer Manager Senior Manager Director Senior Director Vice President ? This is a big deal! Or...is it? SVP
- What’s the right path?
- Roles Individual Contributor Manager Which one?
- Do I need a path?
- Each 1:1 was different. Some good. Some bad. Consistent coaching was tricky.
- We have a process for UX… Prepare Understand Diverge Decide Prototype Validate …but nothing for career planning
- Time to make 1:1’s consistent Treat career planning like a design project
- The Framework
- Ladder vs Framework
- Ladders are linear Careers are not
- 1. Design 2. Research 3. Knowledge 4. Technical 5. Communication 6. Leadership 7. Culture 8. Innovation Product Skills Personal Skills Team Skills Abilities
- Design
- Ability: Design Impact - You drive the design and direction of your features and products to create happier customers. Interaction - From concepts to whiteboards to wireframing, prototyping and beyond. You craft an elegant product. Visual - You make beautiful products. You create beautiful and compelling deliverables for communicating product vision. Prototyping - You effectively communicate through prototypes at various levels of fidelity. You know when and which method to use. Tools - You’re on top of game for all necessary software tools. This covers prototyping, graphics, coding, mobile, etc. Process - You understand the overall design process and utilize it effectively and appropriately. Research - You can handle formative and/or summative research effectively. You approach every design with a thorough analysis of the problem space. You engage effectively with Product Intel. You perform insightful competitive analyses.
- Research
- Ability: Research Impact - You drive the research and strategic direction of your features and products to create happier customers. Communication - Your message is being clearly conveyed, heard, and respected. Empathy - You ensure team members are on a first name basis with their users. You bring customer data to life. Methods - You demonstrate appropriately strong methodological skills for both qualitative and quantitative skills. Knowledge - You leverage data from channels such as Product Intel, competitive analysis, industry trends, customers, personas, Chatter, etc. You are an expert in your product area. Roadmap - You accurately plan the research for a release. Are they able to adapt their priorities and scope as needs change. Domain - You understand the problem space and needs of the customer.
- Knowledge
- Ability: Knowledge Customer - You know the Personas, company types, sizes, etc. for your product area. You know how your customers use and extend your products and features. Product - You know your product(s) and product lines. Industry/Competitive - You know the overall industry related to your products. Company/Business - You know SFDC overall and how we compete within the industry. Organization Awareness - You understand your supported organization and the broader SFDC eco-system. You know how UX operates and how we fit into the company at large.
- Technical
- Ability: Technical Systems Thinking - You are an architect at heart. You use both sides of your brain to craft beautiful solutions from the feature to the system level. You bring new perspective to problems and to provide leverage and insight for how we might do things differently. HTML - You can code quickly and semantically. CSS - You can control your semantic code effectively with CSS and create pixel-perfect designs. JS/Other - Your prototypes are rich, interactive & feel like a real product. Aura/Apex/Visualforce - You effectively utilize our Platform technologies to create prototypes or completely functional applications. DatStat/Morae/Eye Tracking - You leverage a rich collection of tools to increase design and research effectiveness.
- Communication
- Ability: Communication Daily - You’re transparent with your manager/ux team/scrum team on projects/progress. Presentations - From creating Keynotes, to publishing prototypes and wireframes, to delivering their message...you communicate effectively. Written - From emails to wikis to blogs...you are clear, concise, compelling and convincing writers. Meetings - You run effective and product meetings. You involve the right people at the right time. You clearly communicate action items and decisions. Resourcefulness - You leverage the company and your network to tackle problems. Leveraging Feedback/Reviews - You frequently collect feedback, track it to alter designs, gain insights and build relationships.
- Leadership
- Ability: Leadership Product Leadership - You work effectively with the Dev/PM/QE orgs to drive the creation of kick-ass products. Mentoring - You take time to help co-workers who are developing their skills. Process Leadership - You know the process, how to use it & help your co-workers identify opportunities to improve. Design/Research Leadership - You are effective and supportive at art direction, in design critiques, assessing research, providing heuristic reviews, etc. You are a multiplying factor in the quality of work produced by your teammates and co-workers. Thought Leadership - You are sought out for advice in particular domains or areas of expertise.
- Culture
- Ability: Culture Optimistic - You bring a positive, collaborative and supportive and engaging attitude to their work and the team. You actively support your team members - both professionally and personally. Solution Focused - Problems are just the beginning. You’re driven to find solutions. “How might we...” is on the tip of your tongue all day. You help your co-workers focus on solutions. Crossing Boundaries - You reach out and build relationships beyond their core UX team. You build relationships across clouds and disciplines. Foundation - You participate in Foundation events and actively give back to the community. Customer Outreach - You comport yourself professionally, cordially and enthusiastically when interacting with customers.
- Innovation
- Ability: Innovation Futurist - You think beyond the current scope of your PM’s road map. You can envision a brighter future for our customers. You invent entirely new business opportunities. Technology - You are in touch with the latest gadgets, trends, technology, competitors, frameworks, etc. Patents - You utilize the patent process to protect our intellectual property. Process - You recognize that invention goes far beyond products. You are consistently looking for new ways to practice your craft. Fearless - You are fearless. The present is just a little boring so you spend time dreaming about where we’ll be in the future. You work to make that future a reality.
- The Mini Project Skills Personal Skills Team Skills +2 +1 Current -1 -2 5 =over 3 =at =under 1
- The Mini Project Skills Personal Skills Team Skills +2 +1 Current -1 -2 5 =over 3 =at =under 1
- The Workshop
- Workshop Agenda • Who are you? What’s your brand? • What have you learned? • Where are you now? Where do you want to be? • Planning. Values, Vision and Goals. • Building your network. • Defining your north star.
- Prepare Understand Diverge Decide Prototype Validate Prepare Get the people and things you need. All you need is yourself, your memories, a little self-awareness, and eventually a mentor or two.
- Exercise: Setting your compass
- Brand Your personal brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.
- Prepare Understand Diverge Decide Prototype Validate Understand Dig into the design problem… From past positions what did you most enjoy doing? What did you enjoy least?
- Exercise: Mapping where you’ve been
- Prepare Understand Diverge Decide Prototype Validate Understand Dig into the design problem… What skills do you have? What do you like to do? What opportunities are available?
- Exercise: Where are you now?
- Prepare Understand Diverge Decide Prototype Validate Diverge Rapidly develop as many solutions as possible. Think about what kinds of jobs, roles, skills, classes, projects…you name it…that you’d like to experience or learn.
- Exercise: Defining your north star
- Prepare Understand Diverge Decide Prototype Validate Decide Choose the best ideas and hammer out a user story. Your story! Take all your best ideas and come up with a plan.
- Exercise: Planning your path
- Prepare Understand Diverge Decide Prototype Validate Prototype Build something quick and dirty that can be shown to…your manager. Put together a short-and long-term plan. Think about how you’ll evaluate your plan.
- Tracking and calibrating
- Prepare Understand Diverge Decide Prototype Validate Validate Think about your goals, your history, and your level of satisfaction and challenge - be honest about what’s working and what isn’t.
- Prepare Understand Diverge Decide Prototype Validate Iterate Like every design project…once you’re done it’s time to iterate (or try something new).
- The future is not something that happens to you. The future is something you do. Glen Hiemstra, futurist.com
- Your career is the one project you will exclusively own. Make it a great one!
- Thank You! Ian Swinson VP of UX iswinson@gmail.com @iswinson
Editor's Notes
- Quick intro… A quick review of roles, IC, mgmt and a research project And a recent labor of love in the form of a coaching framework that has become a career & coaching workshop
- A little history and background. Like many tech companies we have a dual track career path. One is for individual contributors, the other for management. After 15 years of being a designer I switched to full-time management. It was a tough decision. But why?
- At the time I thought long and hard about which direction to take my career.
- And while thinking about it I really started to question the need to have such a clear delineation between the roles. Have you ever met two designers, two researchers, two developers, etc. who were a carbon copy of each other in every conceivable and distinguishable way? No.
- Why was I so anxious about the transition? Why is it such a big deal to try one path over another? And, more importantly, is there anything I can do to better prepare myself to handle career decisions more effectively in the future.
- During this time I was managing about 30 people. And one thing that struck me is that 1:1’s can be tricky. Early in the day, full of energy, coffee coursing through your veins - all good. Late in the day, burned out, distracted and tired. Not so good. Some employees have an innate ability to think about the future - all good. Some, while great at cranking out work, can’t think more than a week in the future. Time to facilitate.
- Which is weird - because 1:1’s, while open to any work-related topic, are generally focused either on projects or careers. When it comes to projects - we have a very well-defined process. But when it comes to careers - I’ve seen managers (myself included) ask things like “How’s it going?” We need a career mgmt process that’s as detailed as the UX process and why not use something familiar?
- Okay - treat your career like a design project. How the heck does one do that? The first thing we need is a framework for evaluating success in the work place.
- This is a key concept about careers. Most companies have a career ladder - though you’d be surprised by how many, even large ones, do not. We’ve attempted to use them in the past and they can be useful for assessments when considering someone for promotion - we have not found them useful for coaching and planning.
- But we need enough structure to provide constraints. Without them - just like a design project - you’ll never know when you’re done or tell good from bad.
- As you go from 1 thru 8 the abilities become more necessary for leadership and management. 1 and 2 are the core skills tied to a UX career and then, depending on what you want to do next, employees need to figure out where to focus to move their careers forward.
- Impact, Interaction, Visual, Prototyping, Tools, Process, Research
- Impact, Communication, Empathy, Methods, Knowledge, Roadmap, Domain
- Customer, Product, Industry/Competitive, Company/Business, Organization Awareness
- Systems Thinking, HTML, CSS, JS/Other, Aura/Apex/Visualforce, DatStat/Morae/Eye Tracking
- Daily, Presentations, Written, Meetings, Resourcefulness, Leveraging Feedback/Reviews
- Product Leadership, Mentoring, Process Leadership, Design/Research Leadership, Thought Leadership
- Optimistic, Solution Focused, Crossing Boundaries, Foundation, Customer Outreach
- Futurist, Technology, Patents, Process, Fearless
- I like to draw this quickly on the whiteboard and then talk through it with the employee. The focus is on areas to explore for training or new opportunities. It is not about judging an employee’s performance.
- An example of one assessment. If this person has targeted Communication as an area for growth - great! - you now have a clear idea about where to spend time with coaching and/or training.
- High-level agenda and goals for the workshop
- Well this one’s pretty easy - because it’s just you!
- We start light with a little mad-lib asking simple factual questions about your current job. And, of course, for fun about your spirit animal or what superhero talent you’d want. We also dig into a more serious topic - your brand.
- Well this one’s pretty easy - because it’s just you!
- This one is more challenging. What skills do you have? What do you like to do? What’s valued at your company? And, possibly most importantly, what from your past have you enjoying doing the most?
- This one is more challenging. What skills do you have? What do you like to do? What’s valued at your company? And, possibly most importantly, what from your past have you enjoying doing the most?
- This is where we bring back the framework and go through a detailed assessment about the various abilities we currently possess - and those we’d most like to develop.
- And as managers - it’s your responsibility to instill the same agency in your employees.
- This is where you take all your history
- You can have both a long-term and a short-term plan. Projects, role, opportunities, classes, skills, etc.
- Unless you work alone you probably can’t redefine everything overnight. Work with your manager to put together a progression plan. Managers - this is your oppty to step up and make a difference.
- One of the key ways to prototype is to build new relationships and get support from co-workers. Use their observations and insights to enhance your self-awareness. Ask them for guidance about what’s working and what needs fine tuning.
- This is definitely the most important part. You’ve now redefined how you think about your career, put a framework in place, and introduced a way to both try things out, validate them, and adjust according to success, satisfaction and whether or not it meets your goals. Like any design project - once you’re done with v1, it’s time to move onto v2 to fine tune the ideas.
- This is definitely the most important part. You’ve now redefined how you think about your career, put a framework in place, and introduced a way to both try things out, validate them, and adjust according to success, satisfaction and whether or not it meets your goals. Like any design project - once you’re done with v1, it’s time to move onto v2 to fine tune the ideas.
- And when it comes to design projects - your career is the only one you’ll exclusively own. Make it a great one!