Becoming a Design Leader
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What makes a design leader? During this talk, you'll discover tips on how to become a designer leader. You'll hear the stories of various design leaders and how they lead through flexing their strengths and empowering others.
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Becoming a Design Leader
- 1. Becoming a Design Leader What makes a design leader? Kaycee A. Collins Designer @ Cooper @Kayceeacollins
- 2. Who here considers themselves a design leader?
- 3. What is NOT design leadership?
- 4. What is design leadership?
- 5. "Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of other, toward achievement of a common goal." – Kevin Kruse, Author, speaker, entrepreneur Source: Forbes - “What is leadership?”
- 6. "Leadership should be the humble, authentic expression of your unique personality in pursuit of bettering whatever environment you are in." – Katie Christy, founder, Activate Your Talent Source: Business News Daily - “33 Ways to Define Leadership”
- 8. Source: DMI Design Value Index
- 9. You can be a design leader.
- 10. Design Leadership Authentic Advocacy Unending Craftsmanship Inclusive & Collaborative Fearless Self- reliance High- minded
- 15. High-minded
- 16. Design Leadership Authentic Advocacy Unending Craftsmanship Inclusive & Collaborative Fearless Self- reliance High- minded
- 17. Thank you! Kaycee A Collins Designer @ Cooper Mentor @ Springboard @Kayceeacollins
Editor's Notes
- Introduction & Thank you Hi Everyone, It’s great to be here today. Thank you to SoCal UX and the amazing sponsors for putting this all together. It’s been an extremely fun day for me to speak with and get to know a few of you. All the talks have been amazing and I’m so excited to be here today talking about Design Leadership. To give you an idea of who I am: I’m Kaycee Collins, a designer at Cooper
- Ask: Who in here considers themselves a design leader? All right we have a few hands going up. It’s okay if you don’t yet consider yourself a design leader. Most likely, you are a design leader and don’t even know it. Especially since you are here on this beautiful Saturday. By the end of this talk, I hope you are inspired and motivated to continue your journey as a design leader and that you walk away with a few directional tips on how to move forward as a design leader. But before we dive in…
- Before we talk about what design leadership is, let’s talk about what it’s not. Your seniority, rank, position, and title does not define whether or not you are a good and effective leader. Management = make things/plan. Lead = lead people. You can be (or have) a good manager but not a good leader.
- Now that we laid out what it’s not. Ask: What is design leadership? Take a few ideas from the audience.
- These are all great ways to define design leadership. One of my favorite definitions is from Kevin Kruse. Notice that he has emphasized the social aspects of leadership. That leadership is not only about you as the leader, but includes the success of others. Similar to a successful design, a successful design leader influences and supports others in achieving a common goal. Notice he doesn’t mention personality traits or even titles. Leadership can come from many places within your organization. Maybe? - You do however need to be organizationally savvy, while also being respected and trusted by those you’re influencing.
- Katie Christy Each leader is different and has their own style. In order to build trust with the people around you, you need to be authentic and humbled by your experiences.
- Importance of design leadership: Personally, I think design leadership is more important than ever. Those who came before us have blazed the trails allowing you and I to truly focus and hone the skills necessary to truly create great experiences. We now have a seat at the table and in many companies, the user is the main focus.
- Design seems to be taking off in many companies. DMI has been conducting research around Design conscious companies like Nike, Ford, Apple and many more. They have found that those companies who are putting design at the forefront of their offerings are doing better that the S&P 500 by an astonishing 219%. As companies realize this impact and power of design throughout their organizations, We’ll start to seeing in increase in demand for design leadership (and in many cases we already have). This means we need to be intentional and strategic about how we lead and influence others.
- Throughout my career, I had the pleasure of working with a few true design leaders. Some who were leadership veterans and others who were rising influencers. Over this time I have found four characteristics of these influencers. As a design leader, I work to achieve these characteristics.
- The first is Authentic Advocacy. That is, a true passion for their work, the people they work around, and of course those who benefit from their work whether that be a user or consumer. Story: Gina Bhawalker, currently Director of Customer Experience research at Bank of the West, is an Authentic Advocate in every sense. She also happens to be the first design leader I encountered in my career. As a design leader, she moved mountains to make sure her team could learn, grow, and hone their craft. She’d meet with the right people to set expectations, define success, and influence change when needed so that her team could focus on the right problems. I, along with a few other designers and researchers had been assigned to a project with a PM team that had grand plans for the product, but didn’t necessarily fit with the mental model of the users. Instead of challenging her team to handle the problems, she addressed them head on. Through telling the story of users, their goals, their pains, and their experience, she influenced a major change in the way the product management team thought of and used UX Design and Research. This all stemmed from her authentic advocacy for others. She is a compassionate advocate for the users, but also her team and others around her. Design Leaders are passionate and this is what drives them to accomplish and influence so much change. For Gina, her passion lies with people. She always looks for the good and the reasoning behind behaviors. But best of all, she brings her team along with her. She was not just a manager to me, but a leader who impacted me and the rest of her organization through her passion.
- Design leaders hone their craft! They have developed skills that allow them to support others on their journey to becoming great designs and leaders. They focus on a single craft at a time. They might drive you a little crazy with enthusiasm for their craft whether it be painting, dancing, or designing. But they stay focused on their craft only expanding their toolkit once they feel confident and comfortable with the previous craft. As designers and researchers, it’s important to explore and understand different areas of our work, but before we tackle a new aspect of your work, make sure you have mastered the first. I started out as a UX Research, mastering and honing my skills as a facilitator and informer of design Before expanding into the art and science of UX design. Focusing helped me tackle UX Research and become well versed in different methods and techniques before I jumped into UX Design and eventually strategic work.
- Fearless Self-reliance: Trust yourself, Resourceful Story: I’ve recently worked with a person who has blown me away with her fearless self-reliance. Shahrzad Samadzadeh, Senior Director of Global New Product Development & Design at Visa. Shahrzad is fearlessly self-reliant. She is constantly pulling tools out of her toolkit, mixing and matching to support her team and stakeholders meet their objectives. I had the opportunity to see her work on a recent project where the objective was to communicate and educate the business on the users experience with their products and services. She could have used traditional methods, but she know a PowerPoint presentation wouldn't be enough. Instead she created a game that included role playing and Bodystorming to help the company truly embody their users experiences. They are resourceful and soaking up knowledge. Sharhzad took a risk and tried something new and succeeded. They are educators whether they are aware of it or not. They teach others by practicing good behavior and sharing what they've tried and what they've learned. The big take away here is: Use your resources, mix and match them while focusing on achieving your objectives.
- Design leaders recognize the value of inclusive collaboration. They bring people together from all different backgrounds, roles, and expertise to work together to reach a common goal. But, they just as much a leader as they are a member of the team. Working with others to achieve those common goals. To both internal and external audiences. Bring in folks from all over the organization and in some cases even outside the organization to represent different points of view. As a design leader, you need to understand those you are working with… The PMs, Engineer, Scientists, etc. Design leaders constantly scower the organizations for those who are thinking differently and adding value to to org in different ways. Bring these folks in. At the very least, make sure your working in tandom with product management and engineersing... But look in other places.
- High-minded: North star, Visionary They are our north start They bring us back to our original objectives Story: Alan Cooper, co-founder of Cooper, is constantly pushing us and the company as a whole to think bigger. Design leaders are not only helping to solve problems, but helping to push our organizations to be better. When we are designing, we should be focusing on the experiences we’re providing and supporting. We should be thinking about the larger implications of the products and services we create. We shouldn’t be focused on profits or the costs to the company, but advocating for the humans or people involved in the value exchange. Something he often says: If we aren’t losing a client or two every once in awhile, we aren’t being high minded enough. He’s has an amazing talk on this very topic coming up next week in SF for UX Week - Be on the lookout for that one.
- If you are interested in tackling design leadership like a design problem; Cooper offers a two day class on tools and methods that will help you Thank you for coming to this talk & let’s give a round of applause to the sponsors.