High tech thought leader Karen Holtzblatt introduces the Women in High Tech Retention Project and then shares key factors for retention and interventions. For more information: http://www.incontextdesign.com/womenintech/ karen@incontextdesign.com @kholtzblatt

1. Karen Holtzblatt, CEO
@kholtzblatt
karen@incontextdesign.com
www.incontextdesign.com
Factors influencing work choices
Women in Technology

2. The Problem

3. Policy & Culture
Hiring
Women events
Promotion
Mentoring
We keep trying to bring them in the door
But women leave at 2x the rate of men
Early
Interventions:
• Community
• School
• College
• Outreach
The problem is inside the work
• 30% leave because of the org climate
• Bad for people of color too
• 50% leave the career within 12 years
• vs 20% non-STEM
The Tech Corporation

4. The Research: Why women stay or leave
Survey: 49% thinking of leaving & feel invisible
Field research to find key factors
§ 360 deep dive inquiry into the daily lives of
women in tech
§ Engineers, UX, Product Mgt, Researchers
§ Managers and professionals
§ Women who left jobs
§ Automotive, consumer, ERP, information
search, retail and more
§ Single, Married, Kids
§ Then a quantitative survey of ~400
Result: The WIT @Work Framework
§ Key factors that keep women loving their work
§ A measure assessing women’s experience of each factor – Go take it!
§ Intervention development

5. The WIT @Work
Framework

6. A Tight Cohesive Team
Up to Something Big!

7. The project needs to be compelling –
not socially relevant

8. The Push and Support
From managers and colleagues

9. Local Role Models
Who I know and live the life I want

10. Nonjudgmental Flexibility
From the team and managers
What about family issues?

11. Build Personal Power
Address Self-confidence and Self-Doubt

12. The @Work Framework
Tight Cohesive Team
Up to something that matters
The Push & Support
Local Role Models
Non-judgmental Flexibility
Personal Power

13. Exploring Interventions
Part One: The Team

14. Tuckerman’s classic model of teamwork
And the team develops a set of share values

15. Team Intervention:
Make the Intangible
Tangible

16. Values: the Team Manifesto
Adapted from Barry Overeem’s blog http://bit.ly/2jTdqgN
Accountability Support
FunSuccess
Procedures & Practices
Honesty
Excellence
Trust
Growth
Collaboration
Innovation
Faith
Commitment
Learning
Work life balance
Failure
Rules
Teamwork Integrity
Conduct

17. Create a Team Manifesto
What does this team mean to you?
§ Thinking of stimulus words, write your
answers on a sticky note. One answer per
sticky note.
§ Team members present their words in round
robin, collecting like notes from others
§ Write the value name on the left – and then
the natural opposite on the right.
§ Cluster and Prioritize the value themes
Write down 'Team Manifesto' on a flip chart
and the 5 most important themes on the
left side
§ Write the final poster – include behavior
examples and document on-line
§ Sign the poster to show your commitment
§ Get your managers to sign to gain their
agreement too

18. Do a Process Check
Take managing yourselves seriously
At the end of each week ask:
§ How are you doing on values
• As a group and personally
§ How are you doing on your deliverables
§ How well are you running your meetings
§ How are your personal growth goals – declare your
wins!
Process Check
What’s not – Minuses
- We didn’t give ourselves enough time
for storyboarding
- The visual design is not good enough
for upcoming presentation
- We are wasting time arguing about
word definitions
- I’m (Joe) still not getting my ideas out
What’s working – Plusses
+ We are starting on time
+ We have running code!
+ We went out to lunch together
+ We ran a design critique and
everyone listened and contributed
productively
+ I’m (Ju) speaking up more
Generate design ideas to address issues
§ New processes to try
§ Ways you can support each other
§ Values that should be added
§ Technology that might help
§ Coaching that might help
Try it out the next week and check again

19. Team Interventions:
Plan Informal Roles

20. Every product team needs all these roles
Formal roles don’t always map well to team role skill!
Formal skill roles
§ Product Manager
§ Project Leader
§ User Researcher
§ Interaction/visual designer
§ Developer
§ Content provider
§ Manager(s)
Informal team roles
Make working together work
§ Ducks-lined-up
§ The Cloud
§ The Brick
§ The Gas
§ The Oil
§ The Market Voice
§ The “Leader”

21. Individuals play more than one role!
But they might not want to admit it!
Make informal roles real
§ Help people self identify
§ Put your teams together with
informal roles in mind
§ Lean on strengths
§ Partner to deal with weakness
§ Measure success on the success of
the team as a unit
§ And the individual’s role in it

22. Team Interventions:
Manage the Interpersonal
with Fun

23. Cognitive style makes or breaks a team
Everyone has a cognitive style and needs to manage it
The Cloud (Synthetic Thinking)
§ Links ideas together creating a bigger and bigger vision with more and more
complexity; Loses track of the practical and can self-overwhelm.
The Popper (Divergent thinking)
§ Sees user data or a challenge and generates multiple different ideas for the same
one. Tends not to link ideas together.
The Christmas-Lights-Thinker (Linear thinking)
§ Links all ideas up into a linear or logical story—if one fact or piece is missing the
thought thread is broken. Stops the conversation until it is filled in no matter what it
is.
The Diver (Detail oriented)
§ Must understand every layer and detail of an idea before moving on, from concept to
code; Extremely detailed whether developer or product manager.

24. Talk too much – Talk too little
Changing behavior is hard – Make it physical and fun
Use props to make change tangible
§ Sticky notes to self reward
§ Talk too much: Write ideas in a
notebook
§ Design new silly fun ideas
It works if
§ It is introduced by a respected
leader, coach or manager
§ The person wants help
§ The team does it together
Good
Job!
Good
Job!
Good
Job!

25. Commit to personal change
Everyone has behaviors to improve
1. Name the Behavior
2. Self-Identify
3. Make the change tangible
4. Ask the team for help
5. Celebrate don’t blame

26. Team Interventions:
Make the Implicit Explicit

27. Make practices for success known
Early clear and specific guidance is critical
Our risk is in early career
Survey: Compared to women in their 40’s
Women in their 30’s experience more of this
§ Unsure how to be a success
§ I feel like I am on the line to prove myself every day
§ My team or manager doesn’t value my work so my confidence is shrinking
§ And feel expected to know the job without help or conversation
And better team processes could help
§ The team has a lot of power struggles and competition
§ Our meetings and group work sessions are productive when we have clear roles and
procedures to get the work done.

28. Does everyone have a clear understanding?
The job of managers, team members, mentors and on-boarding!
• Product mission
• Deliverable example (based on role)
• Who’s on the team
• Who influences & who to network with
• How they are measured
• What is team & personal success
• How to give feedback or float ideas

29. Pick a process and stick to it
Structured processes help everyone know what to expect and how to work
We resist structure in the name of innovation
But we keep increasing structure in our methods
§ From Waterfall, Rup, JAD to Agile we add process to deliver on-time
§ Agile is super structured
• Team Manifesto – Daily stand-up meetings – Customer owner & other roles –
Stories, Epics and ways to prioritize – pair coding – 2-4 week sprints – Scrum
coaches
Contextual Design and Design Thinking
§ Is a set of structured design activities and meetings
UX and Agile may not mesh very well but we seek that structure

30. Good Teamwork is
Good WIT Work

31. Manage the team for success and WIT
Good Managers focus on team building – not evaluation
Every team needs shared
§ Values, goals, roles, procedures, success criteria
Focus on process not personalities
§ Make the intangible tangible
§ Plan for formal and informal roles
§ Manage the interpersonal with fun
§ Make the implicit explicit
§ Pick a process

32. For creativity and innovation
Create a team that isn’t
Storming!

33. What’s Next

34. Keep in touch
Tune into the next webinars for more interventions
Join us at CHI
§ WIT-Y games – see our intervention game ideas and give your feedback
§ (And Karen’s Story session and SIG on how to communicate data)
Survey Phase 2 – watch for solicitations and new results
§ We need statisticians!
Want to collaborate? Looking for teams to work with

35. Karen Holtzblatt
@kholtzblatt
karen@incontextdesign.com