Workshop #1: UX Career Development Plan by Ashwin Umathay & Aunindra Kumar Sinha

Career Development Plan Ashwin Umathay Senior Manager of Experience Design at Intel Security

Aunindra Kumar Sinha Senior lead User Experience Designer at Intel Security

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AGENDA

•  Background

–  Introductions

•  UX Roles

–  Career Options

•  Self development –  Understanding Strengths & Development areas

–  Gathering Feedback –  Creating a Development Plan

•  UX Organizational structure •  Tea Break

Illustra(onsbyfreepik.comAshwinUmathay|AunindraKumarSinha

Background

ASHWIN UMATHAY 15+ years of work Experience

Education MBA, General Management University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign | June 2008 MS, Industrial Engineering (HCI specialization) Clemson University, Clemson | December 2000 MSc, Economics BE, Mechanical Engineering BITS Pilani, Rajasthan | June 1998


Background

AUNINDRA KUMAR SINHA 10+ years of work experience

Education B.Tech, Information and Communication Technology DAIICT, Gandhinagar | May 2006



TELL ABOUT YOURSELF

Where do you work?

–  Start up? –  Design agency? –  Self-employed? –  Mid to large company?

What is your specialty? What is your main objective of attending the workshop ?

AshwinUmathay|AunindraKumarSinha


MY CAREER MOTTO USABLE

EFFECTIVE

DIFFERENTIATED

DESIRABLE

EFFICIENT

USEFUL

Deliver Value & Delight for Users

through creation of products which are:



WHAT I DO - DESIGN MANAGEMENT Create products by Orchestration of People, Process, Tools & UCD Methods

Today’s Topic

PEOPLE PROCESS TOOLS UCD METHODS


If the ladder we take isn't leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.” - Steven Covey



UX TEAM

USER RESEARCH

How it could be better for users

INTERACTION DESIGN

How it works

BUSINESS ANALYSIS

Technical details of design specifications

VISUAL DESIGN

How it looks

VOICE (WRITING)

How it sounds

Typical UX team consists of Business Analysts, Interaction Designers, Visual Designer, User Researcher & Content Writer.

Other Roles include: Prototyper, UI developer, Anything else ?



CAREER OPTIONS

GRADES TITLE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

MANAGEMENT PATH EQUIVALENT

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

I

II

III

Senior

Lead

Architect

Principal

Fellow

0(Master’sdegree)

2to3

5-6(apoten(alforkintheroad)

7-8(apoten(alforkintheroad)

8+(aforkintheroad)

10+

12+

15+

N/A

N/A

EntryLevelManager

Manager

SeniorManager

Director

SeniorDirector

VP/ChiefDesignOfficerAshwinUmathay|AunindraKumarSinha


CAREER OPTIONS

INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTOR

DESIGN PROJECT LEAD

MANAGER



EXAMPLE COMPETENCIES

Innovation Quality Working with Teams

Technical Expertise Operations People

Crea(veskills

DefiningUX

strategy

Adaptability

Brainstorming

Visioning

Producing

Enduserfocused

Customer

Advocate

Valida(ng

Fixing

A]en(ontodetail

Reducingerrors

WorkingwithOthers

Verbal

Communica(on

Wri]en

Communica(on

ConflictManagement

CrucialConversa(ons

Communica(onin

groups

ManagingDesign

Feedback

LeadingIni(a(ves

Domainexper(se

Func(onal

exper(se

Researching

Analyzing

Project

Management

EvangelizingUX

Process

Projectplanning

TaskManagement

Understandingof

Businessneeds

Organizing

Mentoring

Coaching

Nego(a(ng

Influencing

Developingpeople

Managing



EXERCISE -1 (5-10 MINS)

TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO REFLECT

–  Your Strengths

–  Development Areas

WHAT ARE YOUR TOP 3 STRENGTHS?

WHICH 3 AREAS WOULD YOU LIKE TO IMPROVE

UPON ?

CREATE AN ACTION PLAN FOR EACH OF THE 3 DEVELOPMENT

AREAS IDENTIFIED



GATHERING FEEDBACKS

Purpose

- Reconcile perspective ( Yours vs. Others)

Importance of Feedback

- Essential for Self Development

Gathering feedback

-Through Email

-Simple forms

-Through Managers

-Peer Feedback



FEEDBACK FORM ELEMENTS

Set the Context

-Guidance on evaluation

-Encourage to be honest ( Anonymity option)

-Should not take more than 10 min to complete

Information to gather

-Name of person ( For follow-up)

-Capacity in which feedback is provided ( Project, Function)

-Areas of Development & strengths ( Open ended )



FORM ELEMENTS – DO’S & DONT’S

Do’s

-Send to a wide variety of folks

-Keep form simple ( Pay attention to UX, Content !)

-Send Reminders

Don’ts

-Politeness Bias

-Watch out for Reciprocity



CREATE A DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Purpose -Documented IDP ( Individual Development Plan)

Elements of IDP -Where do you yourself in 1 year, 3 years, 5 + years (Vision) -Strengths -Development Areas -Peer Feedback -Possibilities (Career Options) -Action Plan to address Development areas with timelines

Good practices -Action Plan should be SMART -Have Periodic Discussions with your Manager (Quarterly) -Revise the Development Plan as needed ( 6 -months) -Identify 1-2 mentors •  Mentors can be outside your function •  Mentor Relationships are helpful in long run •  Requires time investment and commitment AshwinUmathay|AunindraKumarSinha


1. Define a time for each of the action

plans identified in Section 1

EXERCISE -2 (5-10 MINS)

2. Document where do you see

yourself in 1 year, 3 years & 5 years

3. Review your Development Plan

with your table Partner and get

feedback AshwinUmathay|AunindraKumarSinha


REFERENCES

h]ps://www.paulolyslager.com/how-to-be-ux-expert/?utm_content=buffera5920&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twi]er.com&utm_campaign=bufferh]p://www.freepik.com/


h]ps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/five-ways-fast-track-your-promo(on-jack-welch?trk=hp-feed-ar(cle-(tle-editor-pick

h]p://hexaco.org/hexaco-online

PersonalityTests

h]ps://www.amazon.com/Discover-Your-Strengths-Marcus-Buckingham/dp/0743518144

h]p://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mb(-personality-type/mb(-basics/

h]p://www.basadur.com/howwedoit/thebasadurprofile/tabid/83/default.aspx


§  Centralized and dedicated business function

§  Dedicated function within individual product / engineering teams.

§  Centralized team but aligned to different business units. Kind of a matrix structure

§  Dedicated and centralized team for each business unit in organization


UX Organizational structure


§  Understand the UX set up in your company

§  How is the user experience placed in the overall organizational goals/ strategy? Is it a support team or a key value

differentiator?

§  How UX team works with business leaders, marketing, IT, Product management and clients/ users?

§  Current process and methodologies followed. How it collaborates/ aligns with product/ business verticals – Agile/

Lean UX/ waterfall model etc.

§  Identify the barriers in delivering a great user experience – people/ process/ ownership/ research

§  Understand how effective is your UX team with business teams and end users.

§  How you can restructure the team. Think of the pros and cons.

How is your UX organization



§  Build a strong UX advocacy within the organization and ensure everyone understands the need of UX and

take ownership for right user experience.

§  Collaborate with the cross-functional teams, make them participate in the brainstorming sessions, user

research and share the user testing findings.

§  Aim for gradual change to start with. Perception and focus might not change overnight.

§  Work towards substantial and measured contribution to any assignment

§  Demonstrate ROIs and share case studies.

§  Quote your customer’s review for any significant UX contribution highlighted by them.


Cultural shift in your organization


§  Clear vision for the UX team

§  Design principles for the UX team

•  Strong design leadership team

•  Understand how the UX goals translates into the organizational goals

§  Create an experience center or design inspiration environment


Strong UX foundation

Design environment fostering creativity





§  Build a strong team of UX professionals.

§  Look for people who are passionate for UX and have empathy for end users needs and goals.

§  UX team needs to be focused towards building a great experience for users. Build a culture of user research and

testing.

§  Adapt to organizational changes and needs - Business demands and process shifts.

§  Influence everyone in the organization to adapt to user experience and own it.

Building an awesome UX team



•  Understand the motivation and career goal of every UX professional in your team.

•  Definite career path for the team. Use IDP.

•  Build a culture of brainstorming, effective collaboration and user empathy.

•  Create a design studio/ experience center.

•  Invest time and money in conferences, workshops and other avenues of learning

•  Respect every designers opinion and design philosophy.

•  Inculcate a culture of consensus building and help them articulate well.

•  Help them learn the art of storytelling. It helps create compelling experiences

that build human connections.

Retain talents



Time for some activity



§  Do you have a creative workspace and environment? Share your experience.

§  How do you evaluate/ test your design?

§  Is your company innovative?

§  How is your current UX organization set up?

Lets hear from you



Return on Investment


Business has various yardsticks to measure need, effectiveness and success of any function. Return on Investment (RoI) is a industry wide norm to evaluate any function and more so in case of User experience. Few examples – §  Apple §  Walt Disney

REFERENCES

h]p://stratabeat.com/roi-of-ux/h]ps://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/organiza(on-structures.htmlh]ps://www.interac(on-design.org/literature/ar(cle/i-m-a-business-manager-how-do-i-become-a-ux-designerh]p://www.userzoom.com/selling-ux-internally/the-apple-effect-proof-that-ux-is-worth-every-penny/h]p://freshome.com/2011/10/02/work-environment-promo(ng-comfort-and-crea(vity-fraunhofer-offices-portugal/h]p://maya.com/blog/strategy-for-culture-changeh]p://cdn.home-designing.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/adobe-office-concept.jpgh]p://retaildesignblog.net/2012/12/16/crea(ve-offices-ogilvy-mather-office-by-m-moser-associates-jakarta-2/h]p://freshome.com/2011/10/02/work-environment-promo(ng-comfort-and-crea(vity-fraunhofer-offices-portugal/
