Leadership: bringing Lean UX to a product organization
When I joined my current employer in 2008, it was a startup called Naviance that had just been acquired by Hobsons, a large education company.
I started as the only UI designer and developer. As the engineering team began to grow rapidly, I wanted to make sure that we kept a focus on the users. Over the next few years I introduced the concepts of UX and user research to Hobsons, and ultimately built a team of 8 UX designers and researchers. User Experience is now one of the company's main differentiators, and our UX team members have a strategic role in deciding the future of the company.
Of course, that transition didn't happen overnight. There were a lot of bumps in the road because our product managers, engineers and executives didn't fully understand the value of UX. It took some time to change the culture. And, to be perfectly frank, we're still not all the way there. However, the progress has been significant.
Below is my "sea monster map," the process that I designed to help product teams understand the design thinking / Lean UX / discovery process that successful products should go through. We started by applying pieces of this to a few small projects, then expanding gradually until I coached each product team all the way through an entire Lean UX project. Hobsons started to see positive results - teams were more engaged, customer feedback was more positive - and they asked me to apply this process to a completely new initiative: a brand new product for middle and high schools.
I have been invited to present about this process at several conferences. Two of my slide decks are below.
