Videos

After ten years of the MX Conference, it's time to recognize an evergreen truth: the effective UX manager doesn't practice a labor of love for oneself. Instead, her heart beats for the others—the team, the user, the participants in the delivery of the experience, and the insatiable belief in the idea that better is quite possible.

The process of coming up with a new idea that has legs is challenging in itself, but innovation often stalls at the transition point from idea to implementation. Often there is a gap or 'implementation canyon' that exists in complex organizations between the innovation team and business operations where there is no clear line of handoff or resources to implement.

You start to manage and lead, only to realize that there’s no instruction manual. And none of your old toolkit seems to be working AND you are the first person in this role so there is no one to even ask about what to do next! What does that feel like and how do you feel your way forward to not only survive, but thrive? During my talk, I will share my present ascension story and my ever-evolving personal guiding principles to be able to keep moving forward and will hopefully lead to my success and more importantly, the success of AdaptivePath.

Say what you think. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is so difficult and rare I call it “radical candor” when it happens.

Conway's Law expresses Melvin Conway's observation that we are doomed to design systems that mirror the shapes of our organizations. Forward-thinking companies like Amazon and Netflix use Conway's Law to their advantage.

Resilience thinking provides a framework to understand the growth, reorganization, and renewal in complex systems. We can apply the same principles to design management when we lead teams and products as well.

A winning design strategy is mission-based. An experience design team must address end-user needs and organizational objectives.

In a TED talk, conductor Benjamin Zander said, “the conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful.

Imagine someone handing you the reins to develop a new generation of Star Wars fans. That’s exactly what happened to Rob Maigret when he took the creative helm at Sphero - creators of BB-8, the most popular and best selling toy of 2015.

As a design manager it’s natural to think about what you need from your team. But perhaps the more interesting question is what your team needs from you.