culture eats ux teams for breakfast

CULTURE EATS UX FOR

BREAKFAST Are you swimming with sharks or minnows?

UXPA Boston | May 2015

Sarah Bloomer

SarahBloomer & Co | UXPA Boston 2015 1

@boolie

@boolie

SarahBloomer & Co | UXPA Boston 2015 @boolie 2

Drucker did say “Company cultures are

like country cultures. Never try to

change one. Try, instead, to work with

what you’ve got.”

You are here


Culture Capability Maturity

@boolie

CULTURE

SarahBloomer & Co | UXIndia 2014 4 @boolie

What is culture?


What is culture?


corporate

© 2009 Scott Adams Inc. Dilbert


Visible

Invisible Beliefs

Assumptions

Myths

Behaviors

Dress

Habits

Traditions

Procedures

Goals

Management

External brand

Perceptions

Values

Culture are the values and norms

that drive actions


Flickr: Clayton Parker


Flickr: Clayton Parker

Figure out what’s down there..

Here’s an ideal culture

Cultures that deliver great experiences are:

• Adaptive

• Accepting of (reasonable) risk

• Accepting of (reasonable) failure

• Committed to quality

• Willing to prioritize

• Other-focused


K. Goodwin: Leading UX

UX London, April 2011

@boolie

Cultural values and myths


Actual company values are the behaviors, attitudes and skills that are

valued in fellow employees.

Myths are beliefs that reveal those values

Users don’t know what they want, we can design for ourselves

Companies create corporate values that they aspire to

1. Deliver WOW Through Service

2. Embrace and Drive Change

3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness

4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded

5. Pursue Growth and Learning

6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication

7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit

8. Do More With Less

9. Be Passionate and Determined

10.Be Humble

Zappos.com

@boolie

Strategy doesn’t always match culture


http://www.torbenrick.eu/blog/strategy/corporate-culture-

is-driving-the-strategy-or-undermining-it/

Look for mismatches


Strategic goals Behaviors

Improve NPS

by building customer

centered applications

Sales won’t let UX talk

directly to customers

What you observe What you’re told

I must control my relationships

to meet my renewal targets

Why?

Users are stupid Why?

Product managers believe

users don’t know what

they want and we can design

for ourselves

What you observe

Look for mismatches


Strategic goals Behaviors

Our company

doesn’t tolerate failure

What you observe

Become more innovative

What you’re told

I’ll get fired if I fail and look like I

don’t know what I’m doing

Why?

Sales and Dev allow key client

requests to trump roadmap items

What you observe

We’ll lose their business if we

don’t give them what they want

Why?

FINDING YOUR CULTURE 4 ways to identify culture


Culture is created by people


“Rules were meant to be broken”

“People with passion can

change the world for the better”

“Tough but fair”

“…enthusiasm for healthy living

and lifestyle”

but

“stuck in the past”

Culture is created by people


SarahBloomer & Co | UXPA Boston 2015

A simple view of culture

Engineering centric

Paul Sherman. Changing Processes and Cultures. Nov ‘07

Creative approach to design

Tend to design for designers—visually oriented

Technology driven

Have always owned the user interface

Believe they know their customers

Features over usability or user experience

Sales &

Marketing centric

23 @boolie

Design centric

Method 1

SarahBloomer & Co | UXPA Boston 2015

A simple view of culture

Engineering centric

Paul Sherman. Changing Processes and Cultures. Nov ‘07

Wireframes without major restrictions

Opportunities to be creative

Technology driven

Have owned the user interface

Feature lists

Facilitated design

Sales &

Marketing centric

Find ways to collaborate that match the values of your culture

24 @boolie

Design centric

Rules, standards and patterns

Deadlines

Creative approach to design

Tend to design for designers

—visually oriented

Believe they know their customers

Features over usability or user experience

Method 1

Competing Values Framework


Lead Strategic, 2013

Method 2

CVF plots cultures across 2 dimensions


http://www.tobyelwin.com/competing-values-drives-your-organization-

out-of-business/

Method 2

Adhocracies like to innovate


© Kim Goodwin – UI19

Flexible

Adaptable

Fast

Responsive

Risk takers

Little central authority

Works best when small

Startups

UX practice:

“whiteboard ninja”

Listen and sketch

Reactive, not process

driven

Adhocracy

Flexible

Exte

rnal

www.tobyelwin.com

leadstrategic.com

Method 2

Markets like to win


Doers

Results-oriented

Customer driven

Productivity & profit

Values achievement

Competitive

Undervalue employees

Rewards results

UX practice:

“scientist”

Get quantitative data

Be quick

Be sure

Market Stable

Exte

rnal

© Kim Goodwin – UI19

www.tobyelwin.com

leadstrategic.com

Method 2

Barriers, Opportunities, Myths & Values


Method 3

Barriers & Opportunities point the way

A barrier may prevent or undermine the adoption of UX • UX is new to the organization

• No skilled people

• Design research is under valued

An opportunity may help with acceptance of UX activities • New senior manager with previous UX experience

• Initiative to reduce the calls to technical support

• Developers don’t have time to design and code


Method 3

Myths & values are potential landmines

A myth is a belief held by your stakeholders • UI design is subjective and cannot be measured or engineered

• If we design for ourselves, it’ll be fine

• Design isn’t that complicated and can be done fast

A value is a belief that defines the culture through actions • Developers are rewarded for rescuing failing projects

• Pleasing senior management is good regardless of solution

• We’re a consensus driven organization—everyone gets a say in the design

• The business / client is king


Method 3

Acceptance of UX involves change


Skepticism

Curiosity

Acceptance

Partnership

Stop battling for acceptance

and get strategic

Ehrlich & Rohn, 1994

www.useit.com/alertbox/process_maturity.html

Five tactics for teams big and small


Communicate Share, knowledge share, integrate

Educate Enable others

Adapt Change, try it out, improve

Leverage Find allies and opportunities

Facilitate Help others, integrate

Leverage Find strategic opportunities

Case study


Barrier:

Small UX team

Design research is not valued

Myth:

If we design for ourselves,

it’ll work fine

Value:

We have to adopt Agile because

everyone else is

Communicate:

Start small design research activities

focusing on strategic design issues

Educate:

Demonstrations of effective designs

Usability testing

Facilitate:

Bring groups together, don’t work in

isolation

Provide tools and resources

Leverage:

Collect user experience evidence from

customer facing groups

Adapt:

Embed yourself with scrum teams

Opportunity:

Adopting a new approach

Method 3

Cross check your findings


0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

False

True

UX team identified barriers, myths and values.

Then we checked our outcomes with development team via a survey.

Method 3

UX team believed

this to be true

Use field studies to learn culture

SarahBloomer & Co | UXPABoston 2015 36

• Interview and observe the people you work with:

product managers, analysts, quality engineers, scrum team

colleagues.

• Interview stakeholders to understand their goals

and beliefs.

• Be a product owner.

Collect their stories:

How do they feel? What do they say? What do they complain

about? What do they boast about? What are they proud of?

Who do they admire in the company?

@boolie

Method 4

Rich picture

SarahBloomer & Co | UXIndia 2014 37

Competitors

Product

Owner

Business Analyst

Testers

Architect /

Tech Designer

Developers

UX Architect

Enterprise

Architect Business

Analyst Senior

Leadership

Teams

Customers

Which

company

do I trust?

What are people

like me doing and

saying?

What do

customer

s want?

What are our

competitors

doing?

Will it be on

time and on

$$?? Gotta block

for my

team!!

Do they get

what I want?

What do I

want?

They want

what, when? Scrum Master

External

Pressures

In-Group

Pressures

Internal

Pressures

Scrum

Team

The

Enterprise

PO Cabinet

LE

GE

ND

Mental

Models

Ideas

Let’s visualize it

together!

Use rich pictures to

“reason about work”;

(Monk & Howard,

1998)

J. Fabrizi, 2013

@boolie

FINAL TIPS

SarahBloomer & Co | UXIndia 2014 38 @boolie

Acceptance of UX involves change


Skepticism

Curiosity

Acceptance

Partnership

Stop battling for acceptance

• Get strategic

• Be a change agent

Ehrlich & Rohn, 1994

www.useit.com/alertbox/process_maturity.html

@boolie

Be a leader to drive change

• Communicate all the time

• Keep a learner’s mind

• Build trust in all directions

• Give credit where it’s due

• Stay out of the weeds

• Value your team

• Make time to mentor and coach

• Shut up and listen

SarahBloomer & Co | UXPA Boston 2015 40 @boolie

Collaborate in all directions


Adjacent teams

Colleagues

Allied teams

Beneficiaries

Upper management

Stakeholders

Your UX team

Other beneficiaries

@boolie

Build communities of practice


Build relationships within your organization through Communities of

Practice. Promote cross-functional collaboration. Cross-functional teams

drive ongoing research, design and evaluation.

Customer research

Customer facing experience

Product Strategy

Branding

Marketing

UX Team

Product Strategy

Personas

Field studies

Analytics

Sales

Stores

Customer service

Tech support

Training

Personas

Stories

Customer feedback

Voice of the Customer

Sales

Marketing

UX Team

Tech Support

Product Development

Usability test results

Tech support issues

Release plans

@boolie

Tips to move up the maturity model


Learn about your

culture:

Build trust: within your team, with your peers and

your stakeholders

Show you value co-workers: support them, help

them succeed, give them the information they need

Get to know your co-workers: Spend time with

product managers, scrum team colleagues, senior

management.

Share: UX is most effective when it is influencing and

enabling other groups.

Find allies: Learn how other groups are measured.

Identify myths & values: Find what’s preventing you

from moving forward. Also barriers & opportunities.

Communicate in all directions: Within your team,

next to your team, above your team.

Be a leader:

Design your team: Be tactical: Choose activities that will be accepted

within your culture. Align your UX goals to bigger goals.

@boolie

You’ll get there


Culture Collaboration Capability Maturity

@boolie

Other sources


http://www.fastcompany.com/1810674/culture-eats-strategy-lunch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_culture

http://www.tobyelwin.com/competing-values-drives-your-organization-out-

of-business/

http://Leadstrategic.com

http://www.creativebloq.com/netmag/kim-goodwin-designing-culture-

8135475











http://www.tobyelwin.com/competing-values-drives-your-organization-out-of-business/
















http://leadstrategic.com/

http://www.creativebloq.com/netmag/kim-goodwin-designing-culture-8135475








