Strategic User Experience Management

Strategic
User Experience
Management
Janice Anne Rohn
Vice President, User Experience
Wynyard Group
#UXPA2016
www.uxpa2016.orgConference Survey: www.uxpa2016.org/survey
Session Survey: http://www.uxpa2016.org/session/survey/356
Slides from Janice Rohn and Arnie Lund

•  Introduction and Background
•  UX Management Framework
•  Motivation
•  Goals
•  Value Proposition
•  Elevator Pitch
•  Persuasion and Storytelling
•  Vision Statement
•  Mission
•  Leadership Qualities
•  Summary
Agenda
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•  Combination of lectures and exercises
•  Feel free to ask questions throughout
•  If time does not allow for all questions, may be time at
the end of sections and the tutorial
Format
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4
Janice’s Background
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•  Early pioneer in the field
•  Founding Board member and past President of UXPA
•  Founded UXPA Outreach program
•  Presented at most CHI conferences for over 20 years
•  Management and Usability Co-Chairs at 5 conferences
•  Founded and led UX departments at 8 companies
•  Over 23 years of UX management experience
•  Over 10 years at VP level
•  Hired hundreds of UX professionals
•  Built over 15 usability labs and design rooms
•  Products have received awards and high ratings from users,
press, and analysts
•  Numerous publications, presentations, lectures, keynote
speeches
Janice’s Background
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•  Decades of personal experience
•  One of my specialties in the field is UX Management
research and teaching
•  Co-chaired Management Community at CHI Conference
for 4 years
•  Led many Management panels and SIGs
•  Led multiple full-day workshops of experienced
executives in the field to discuss the most important
management topics
•  UX management publications
•  Executive Program at Stanford Graduate School of
Business
UX Management Background
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•  This course is a combination of a course that Arnie Lund
has created, plus some of my course
•  I teach a full-day course on Leading Highly Effective UX
Teams for Nielsen/Norman group, which is quite different
and complementary to this course
•  Course is based on hundreds of years of experience
cumulatively over the past 35 years, with an emphasis on the last
5 years
•  Providing a UX Management Framework
•  Best practices
•  Certain elements are true regardless of the organization
•  Some are more contextual
•  Think about your situation and what will work best
UX Management Framework
#UXPA2016

•  Course for aspiring, first-time, and experienced leaders
•  Will cover topics of interest to all
•  Tutorial applies to new and existing organizations
•  Advantageous to employ strategies and tactics sooner
rather than later
•  Sometimes more obvious to employ when manager or
group is new
•  Even if the UX group is not new, still need to employ
these and update on a regular basis—never too late!
Management Journey
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•  Management experience
•  None
•  Less than 5 years
•  5 or more years
•  Executives at the Director level or above
•  Function
•  UX
•  Product
•  Engineering
•  UX Team
•  Just starting
•  Existing
•  Less than 15
•  15 or more
Your Experience
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Motivation
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•  UX is more widely recognized as a necessary function
•  Some top challenges
•  Managing creative individuals while still creating a
consistent user experience across features and
products
•  Field has matured greatly, but is still not seen as
critical as functions such as Engineering
•  Skirmishes of responsibilities and ownership can
occur with Product, Marketing, and Engineering
•  Some new trends, such as Agile, have impacted UX
teams’ ability to deliver great solutions
Why do you want to lead UX?
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•  Ask yourself:
•  Why do you want to manage a UX team?
•  What is driving you?
•  Valid reasons
•  Broaden your influence
•  Mentor others
•  Personal growth
•  Question if:
•  Only path for career growth
•  Should be a parallel individual contributor path to
support career growth for non-managers
Motivation
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•  Can be very rewarding, and can also be very
challenging, so important to understand your motivation
•  Ensure you have an internal driver that steers you
through the challenges
•  Core value system of what you will and won’t do
•  Will keep information confidential when necessary,
even though the information may benefit team
members
•  Won’t spend the vast majority of time jockeying for
position or control
•  Won’t prioritize personal benefit to the detriment of
others
•  Need to have a strong moral compass
Motivation
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Goals and Questions
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5
Have a POV
Find Big Ideas
Be Passionate
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5
Keep your eye
on the goal
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Focus on Goals
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Value
Proposition
Business
Goals
User
Requirements
User Experience in Business
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What is your value proposition?
The value proposition is
a description of how the
benefits of what you are
offering outweigh
competitive alternatives.
#UXPA2016

ROI
Save Costs (e.g., support)
Increase Revenue
Total Cost of Ownership
(TCO)
Represent Customers
Deliver Brand
Create Excitement and
Emotion
Grow Design Thinking
Drive Innovation (patents,
product concepts)
Quality
Vision
more…
Value Proposition Factors
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Value Proposition Example Process
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Value Proposition Exercise
•  Each table introduce yourselves
•  Discuss management challenges
•  Pick one person for whom you’ll create a value
proposition for their organization
•  Think about how their value proposition would compare
to yours
#UXPA2016

What is your elevator pitch?
An elevator pitch (or
elevator speech or
statement) is a short
summary used to
quickly and simply
define your team and
its value proposition.
#UXPA2016

5
Tell Stories
Keep it Simple and Concrete
Stir Emotions
Be Credible
#UXPA2016

Elevator Pitch Exercise
•  Within your table, pick a team to coach.
•  Explore context and corporate/organizational strategic
goals.
•  Brainstorm elevator pitches about the heart of the special
value their team brings to to the company or organization.
(The answer to “What do you do?”)’
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5
Cultivate
Champions
Find Them
Win Them
Support Them
Celebrate Them
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Storytelling
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Persuasion and Storytelling
•  Successful leaders provide
•  Vision
•  Plan for how to achieve vision
•  Ability to influence and persuade
•  As important as the vision and the plan is the ability to
influence and persuade people
•  Stories + Data is the strongest influencer
•  Jennifer Aaker at Stanford Graduate School of
Business
•  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL-PAzrpqUQ
29
#UXPA2016

What is your vision?
The purpose of your
vision statement is to
give shape to the future
you are creating, and to
provide the organization
with a sense of what
could be. It is rallying call
to energize the team, not
a prophecy.
#UXPA2016

The best way to predict the
future is to create it.
– Peter Drucker
#UXPA2016

Creating Them
Purpose
Goal is to energize and engage, and to provide identity.
Hints
Short and crisp (one or two sentences, at most a paragraph or
two).
Should capture something unique about what you want to do.
It should be aspirational, an ideal, a destination for the journey.
It should answer the question “Where are we heading?” It often
completes “We want to…” or “We want to be…”
It needs to be plausibly attainable. It should pass a “red faced
test.”
When you can, build it collaboratively.
Collect phrases.
Organize through affinity.
Iterate to closure.
Revisit it periodically as a team.
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Examples
Disneyland: Create a place for people to find happiness
and knowledge.
Ford: Produce a car that everyone can afford.
Girl Scouts: Help a girl reach her highest potential.
Cirque du Soleil: Invoke the Imagination; Provoke the
Senses; Evoke the Emotions.
Zappos: The online service leader.
Microsoft (original): A personal computer in every home
running Microsoft software.
AT&T (original): One policy, one system, and universal
service.
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Vision Statement Exercise
•  Within your table, choose the same or a different team
•  Create a vision statement for that team
•  Prepare to present to the class, along with your rationale
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What is your mission?
The mission is the
organization’s reason for
existence, and the vision is
what it wants to be.
#UXPA2016

A mission statement is a statement of purpose.
It speaks to how you will accomplish your vision.
It speaks to how you are different. It should
guide the actions of the organization, spell out its
overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-
making. It provides the context of your strategy.
#UXPA2016

Creating Them
Purpose
Goal is to energize and engage, and to provide identity.
Hints
Short, precise, easily understood
Who, what, how and why
Not a vision
Elements
What makes you unique
What you do
For who
How
Use for shaping strategy and prioritizing work
Revisit periodically to provide context for plans
#UXPA2016

Mission Statement Examples
The Coca-Cola Company exists to benefit and refresh everyone it
touches. The basic proposition of our business is simple, solid, and
timeless. When we bring refreshment, value, joy and fun to our
stakeholders, then we successfully nurture and protect our brands,
particularly Coca-Cola. That is the key to fulfilling our ultimate obligation
to provide consistently attractive returns to the owners of our business.
The Jeremiah Program, a broad-based collaborative community
initiative, assists low-income mothers and their children to help
themselves complete their education and achieve economic self-
sufficiency through empowerment skills, access to affordable housing,
child development services, health care, support services and
meaningful employment. The Jeremiah Program mothers and children
develop positive self-esteem and clarify their values on which to build a
successful life.
#UXPA2016

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an
impartial, neutral and independent organization whose
exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and
dignity of victims of armed conflict and other situations of
violence and to provide them with assistance. The ICRC also
endeavors to prevent suffering by promoting and strengthening
humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles.
At IBM, we strive to lead in the invention, development and
manufacture of the industry’s most advanced information
technologies, including computer systems, software, storage
systems and microelectronics. We translate these advanced
technologies into value for our customers through our
professional solutions, services and consulting businesses
worldwide.
Examples
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#UXPA2016

Mission Statement Exercise
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What is your strategy?
A strategy is a plan of
action designed to
achieve a vision as you
execute your mission.
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Internal
Helpful Harmful
External
Opportunities
Strengths Weaknesses
Threats
SWOT Analysis
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DESIGN
FOUNDATION
USER
MODELING
VISION
EXPERIENCE
DELIVERY
46
#UXPA2016

Strategy Exercise
A strategy is a plan
of action designed to
achieve a vision as
you execute your
mission.
Identify one or two
strategic initiatives
that are consistent
with the mission, and
will advance the
mission.
#UXPA2016

5
Change the
DNA
Transform the Assumptions
Alter the Motivation
Create the Language
#UXPA2016

What is your brand?
Team Name
Influence Plan
Identity
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Channels
TargetsofInfluence
Influence Plan
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5
Make Wow
Create Compelling
Design
Engage Empathy
Stimulate Insight
Cause a Parade
#UXPA2016

Top Leadership Skills
What skills do you think are the most important for being
an effective leader?
#UXPA2016

•  Honesty
•  Trust your team
•  Being ”in the know”
•  Ethical
•  Delegate
•  Prepare to be surprised
•  Multiple minds are better than one
•  Clear communication
•  Particularly important when managing globally with
different native languages
•  Many people are better with written communication
•  Good to follow up with written to ensure everyone is on the same page
#UXPA2016

•  Confidence
•  Provide stability and direction
•  Avoid communicating all of your concerns
•  Shield the group when possible
•  Have faith in your abilities
•  Particularly important with more junior members of
the team
•  Commitment
•  Lead by example
•  Lead with passion and energy
#UXPA2016

•  Positive Attitude
•  Optimistic realist or a realistic optimist
•  Can-do attitude while being realistic
•  Creativity
•  Think about the realm of possibilities to address challenges
•  Involve your team in generating solutions
•  Intuition
•  Learn to trust your instincts based on your experience
•  Inspire
•  Make it clear how everyone’s work impacts the company
and its customers
•  Provide a vision for everyone’s contributions
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•  Customized Approach
•  Everyone has different levels of experience, needs, and
capabilities
•  Also different cultures, languages, and educational backgrounds
•  In addition to a foundation of principles by which to manage, it’s
important also to have a customized approach
•  More junior members require more skills development
•  More senior members require more leadership and
management development
•  Vary in how they accept feedback and what types of rewards
work best
#UXPA2016

•  In thinking about these different leadership
qualities, which would you like to work on?
•  Honesty
•  Delegation
•  Clear Communication
•  Confidence
•  Commitment
•  Positive Attitude
•  Creativity
•  Intuition
•  Inspire
•  Customized Approach
Leadership Exercise
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• Keep your eye on the goals
• Create a strategic framework with and for
your group
• Communicate your goals and framework
• Provide stability and guidance
• Be a visionary leader for your group
Summary
#UXPA2016

• http://www.uxpa2016.org/sessionsurvey?
sessionid=72679
Any Questions?
#UXPA2016

Strategic User Experience Management

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