Become a ux_leader
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UX field has reached at a stage where we have to step up now. It's time to be a leader, establish UX within organizations. Build great team & culture to support vision.
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Become a ux_leader
- 1. Become a UX Leader In multiple conversations with candidates, colleagues I have noticed pattern of restricting themselves on design or wireframe only. Our industry is at a stage where we have to stand up, talk to executives, convince client, communicate the value. That’s where I think leadership thinking is needed.
- 2. Leader ≠ Position Leadership is not position. No matter if you are a Manager, CEO, Director; leadership can happen at any role, any position. What is more important that you want people to work on UX effectively, raise the quality bar.
- 3. What is a leader? “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more & become more, You are a Leader.” - John Quincy Adams “A leader...is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” - Nelson Mandela “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” - Tom Peters “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” - Steve Jobs “Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role of heroes.” - Margaret Wheatley “Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.” - John Maxwell
- 4. “Leader inspire, motivate, mentor and empower others to do great work & create more leaders.” If we look at definitions/quotes on previous slide & available on net/books. This is what summary looks like. Lead by example to inspire, once they are inspired towards something & start taking action motivate them, mentor if stuck somewhere, empower them by educating or giving what is needed.
- 5. UX Leader Why UX? Till now companies were technology focused, it is need now to be design focused. No more beautification job, not just picking colors but need to let them know why this color should be used. It’s not about layout anymore, it’s about taking decision what content should be displayed. Don’t just say yes to requirements, put your thoughts forward to convince.
- 6. Nobody is born leader Seriously, nobody. We should learn, improve & practice leadership skills. Keep learning from the problems you are solving on job. Apply those learnings to mentor others. Take ownership of the projects. This is the way to grow leadership.
- 7. Stay hungry Of course visionary Steve Jobs has said this before “Stay hungry, stay foolish”. Keep improving yourself, reinvent yourself. Read books, articles, watch videos. The moment you consider yourself an expert, that’s the moment downward graph will start.
- 8. Talk profit Generally UX guys, designers are not involved in business meetings or conversations with executives. Either we are not interested in talking to them or executives think we know nothing beyond design/beautification. Talk ROI (return on investment) language, explain how UX will help to earn profit. That’s the language any business person will understand & we should be talking about it more.
- 9. Stay calm Shouting at people’s mistake in public will not earn respect to you. Whether it is a blunder from team member or client’s unreasonable demand stay calm. Draw win-win situation with client, talk to team member in private. Guide them to avoid these kind of mistakes in future. This will give sense to team that they can rely on you & you are capable to solve any challenge.
- 10. Be real If you are at higher position you have to be strict or talk in certain way. This is the MYTH. If you become one of the member of team than authority. Culture within the team will be always good. It will create personal bonding, everyone is ready to take challenges together. Team member should not think twice before talking to you. Create that rapport.
- 11. Build Team Image source: http://digest.bps.org.uk/ One person can’t transform organization towards UX, you need solid team for that. Sit with top management, create a vision together. This will give you idea, what kind of people should be hired. Do mix & match; experience & freshers.
- 12. Studious. Creative. Balanced Creative people should work on planning, estimation, data analysis. But we need to consider fact as well, that they are not comfortable with these tasks. Of course they should learn, but can’t ask them to do it every time. It might harm creativity in future. That’s where you need mix & match studious people who are good with problem solving, documentation, planning. This will help others to learn as well.
- 13. What to look for • Passion • Commitment • Eagerness to learn • Attitude • Communication
- 14. Culture Image source: http://digest.bps.org.uk/ Build a creative, collaborative culture. Team should feel free to express their creativity. A lot of time we have to work on multiple projects or single project but alone. As number of designers are less comparing to work. Make sure to have brainstorming with team for problem solving. It can’t happen in silos. Other team members have to invest some time for brainstorm. Encourage collaboration.
- 15. Inspire Image source: http://www.motaen.com/ Practice all things mentioned before. Make it a habit, It will create an example for others & should inspire them. Our motto is to have leadership thinking at any role, inspiration is very important.
- 16. Motivate Image source:http://greenbeanleadership.com Motivate people. Praise them for small success as well & praise publicly. Share team’s success within organization, spread the word. Encourage team to continue good work.
- 17. Mentor Image source: https://about.me/quinkinsey Do not spoon feed or micro manage. Occasionally look at the progress give suggestions for improvement, guide them if stuck somewhere. Encourage them to defend, we don’t want Yes sayers, healthy argument is must.
- 18. Empower Image source:https://www.omnivex.com Empower through education, give them what is needed. Give them freedom to take decisions. Let them talk to client, understand requirement, convince client. People will learn from mistakes, give them chance to do mistakes. You can always pitch in to guide before it gets harmful for project. Few mistakes not going to take organization towards loss. Learning from these mistakes will definitely take organization to success though.
- 19. Director • UX = Way to simplicity, UX leader should make things simple for everyone • Look for all aspects, should be aware of technology possibilities • Certification gives structure, same terminology • Hiring is entirely creative process Lead • UX leaders are needed • Every individual should work as a leader • Don’t restrict self to wireframes only • Take responsibility • Provide value addition • Should be updated • Confident to justify solutions Senior associate • Should have studied lot of things • Explain UX concepts to team • Bring everyone on same page • Develop UX culture UX consultant • Encourage collaboration • Implementation of good UX process • Encourage team to share & brainstorm ideas What others are saying about leader
Editor's Notes
- Why I chose this topic? Amol example Sanjiv example No expert, sharing thoughts, keep it interactive
- Too many people view management as leadership. It's not. Leadership comes from influence, and influence can come from anyone at any level and in any role.” Kurt Uhlir “ It doesn’t matter what your title is. It doesn’t matter if you’re someone’s boss. Or have some incarnation of a manager’s job title. What matters is that you want good UX to happen. You want to raise the bar. You want to push your potential forward, and everyone else’s along with it.
- Ask audience, what they think of a leader. Let’s combine these & create our definition.
- That’s pretty much of it, we will discuss on these points in next slides. Once you inspire someone by example, they start working forward for the dream then motivate them, if they are stuck somewhere mentor them. Empowerment can come by educating, by providing team what they need to solve the problem, giving them decision power.
- Till now companies were technology focused. Now slowly focus is shifting towards design. It is a need of the industry to become a design focused company. To do this we need leaders who can take this forward, who can convince value of design. No more beautification job. We are not there just to pick colors, but to gather information on how & which color. It’s not about layout anymore, it’s about content priority. It’s about taking decision what content should come. A leader should have empathy & problem solving skills, which UX person already has. This makes it bit easier for UX person to be a leader.
- Leadership is learned skill. We should learn, cultivate & practice skills. Keep learning from the projects, problems you are solving. Apply those learnings to mentor others & of course for other projects. Take full ownership of the project, don’t just think about your task. This is the way to grow leadership skills.
- Everyone should be constantly learning. Keep improving yourself, reinvent according to needs. Keep reading books, articles. Sometimes juniors comes up with great thinking process to solve the problems. Do not hesitate learn from them. Tell them that’s the new way to do this thing, I have learned from you. Encourage them. The moment you will think yourself as an expert & stop learning, downward graph will start from that moment itself. Nokia was known as leader in mobile industry. They stopped reinventing, improvising and now struggling to be in market.
- As a UX leaders we need to stand with business executives. They understand RoI language. Explain them how UX is going to help to earn profit. Investing in UX is reducing training cost. If user needs are studied well in advance, less chances of failure of the product. Give this confidence to executives, it is going to help to build credibility with them. Which is important to foster a culture throughout organization. This is where we are lacking most, soft skills & convincing the value.
- Imagine you are in Indian cricket team. Whom you will prefer as a captain, Dhoni or Kohli? Shouting at player on the ground if he misses catch is not going to help. As a player he wanted to catch it as well. If you are shouting in front of all, not able to control your emotions, people will not respect you. You can talk to the person in private about the mistake & guide him to avoid it or to perform better. It will build good rapport, people will trust you. They will give 100% whenever it is required. Like R Ashwin said, “I will jump from top if Dhoni asks me to do so” When we are calm in all situations, it sends out message to people that they can rely on us & we are capable of solving any challenge.
- Usually if you are at higher position, people expect you to talk in certain way. You should be strict, not open. Resources should fill authority or should listen to everything you say. Believe me, I have received these suggestions when I was managing team. What I believe is you should be same as you are. Be candid, team member should not think twice before talking to you. If you become one of them, culture within the team will be always good. It creates personal bonding, everyone is ready to tackle challenges together. Team member once said, “We don’t have to lie with our manager. Be it about deliverables, leave for personal reason.” I think this is one of the best feedback for manager. If you can create trust at this level, you have achieved a lot.
- No UX leader can transform an organization towards UX without amazing team. Create a vision, plan hiring accordingly. For example if your vision is to get your organization HFI UX certified. You will be looking for at least 2 HFI certified candidates. If your organization is at the initial level towards UX, you may have to hire freshers & train them. It depends on stages of your organization & what’s the demand. It’s better to do mix & match. Hire experience people, as well as freshers.
- Studious, Creative & Balanced If creative people has responsibility of project planning, deliverables planning, data analysis; pretty soon they will be bored or will refuse to do this. Where as studious will help you to do that in better way. Of course we want them to get hang of both things but it’s better to have specialty.
- When we hired freshers or people with different domains. We had conversation than typical interview. What improvement can be done in light bill, what they like. One of the candidate said, he likes cars, then we asked him, “Are there any problems in cars which you have faced? observed?” “What can be the solution?” “what can be improved in cars?” This helped to understand if that candidate is observant, thinks about solutions. How he describes problem & communicates the solution. Technical skills, processes, terminology is necessary but soft skills are as important as technical skills. If candidate can’t convince idea to stakeholders, then he/she can’t justify talent.
- Create a creative, collaborative culture. Where people will feel free to do things differently, creatively. It’s not about project only, doing sketches on white boards, decorating desks, lot of things. Pro-bono Everyone should give some of his/her time for other project’s brainstorming. One of the biggest challenge we have is small team & multiple projects. Overtime it’s not possible to have multiple resources on same project. That’s where we decided, ok do your assigned project but UX can’t be done alone, so it’s your responsibility to gather team for some time & do brainstorming. It has helped for having more ideas & also in case of emergency leave another person was aware of the project if needs to be taken over.
- Once you are on the path of leadership & people will start observing every action of yours, every word you speak. When we started UX team, there was no awareness within the company so projects were less. Our motto was, When we don’t have work, we actually have lot of work. Because we needed to create awareness, so we have to keep updating ourself, write blogs, do UX audits, create templates. This line was spoken spontaneously, too my surprise one team member told after 2 years, this is what we spoke 2 years back. From that day onwards, if there is no project work I am spending all my time in updating myself. So basically, your actions, your words will & lead by example to inspire.
- There is difference between inspiration & motivation. Your actions will be considered as inspiration, basically leading by example. Whereas in motivation leader will praise team member. Even if it is small success, do praise & praise publicly. It motivates a person to continue doing great work. Human beings like praise, reward; it is an emotional thing. One of the manager I know did start competition within team. Creative members don’t like to work on planning, estimation, documenting things. So this manager created point system. Team member can earn points by helping others. Taking ownership of estimation, documentation, by being more pro-active. Then manager hanged one whiteboard where everyone on the floor can see. Star members name was written on it with earned points. Team member actually started coming to manager to ask if help is needed in documentation, or in any other way. Team became more proactive.
- Do not spoon feed, occasionally have a look at ongoing project. Suggest improvements & ask them to defend if they are against any suggestion. We don’t want people in team who are just saying Yes, there should be healthy debate. Guide them, don’t dictate.
- Empower others to take decisions. Mentoring, educating team members will help them to take correct decisions. Don’t micro manage. Some leads, managers talk to client, even email communication handled by them. Team gets information from them & delivers. I think everyone should get chance to talk to client, handle it by their way. In case something is going off track, pitch in & guide them. This will give them confidence.