Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Oxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)
Gold
Tuesday, December 3, 2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024

This video is featured in the Testing playlist.

Share the love for this talk
Oxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)
Speakers: John Cutler
Link:

Summary

For those of us in roles that aim to link experiences, see things end-to-end, or understand systems as ecosystems, the constant currents of change can make it feel like we’re endlessly adapting just to keep up. We long for a stable point of definition and clarity amid all this motion. In this talk, I’ll draw from my experience across various roles and companies to help you recognize and navigate the broader forces shaping our related fields. Using metaphors like oxbows, rivers, and estuaries, and with practical examples, I’ll share tactics for navigating change with intention, helping you stay grounded in the long game while seizing “act now” opportunities.

Key Insights

  • Integrative roles like service design and product management face unique cognitive, emotional, and boundary-spanning challenges.

  • Organizational maturity is not linear; fast, product-led companies can learn from slower, service-design mature companies and vice versa.

  • Current organizational pressures emphasize efficiency and simplification, often risking oversimplification harmful to integrative roles.

  • Using metaphors like rivers helps integrators understand flows of power, obstacles, and safety in navigating organizational change.

  • Oxbow lakes metaphor warns integrators against becoming isolated units during disruptive external 'floods' or organizational shifts.

  • Estuaries symbolize the dynamic, boundary-crossing collaborations that foster creativity but require protection due to sensitivity.

  • There is a prevalent 'battle of the models' across disciplines; embracing diverse models and finding commonalities is more productive than forcing consensus.

  • Reading wider organizational and external 'currents' reduces myopia and helps integrative roles avoid burnout or isolation.

  • Patient opportunism—leveraging existing currents and opportunities—is a sustainable strategy for integrators over constant resistance.

  • Critical architectural and technological decisions often happen without service design involvement, highlighting collaboration gaps to address.

Notable Quotes

"You have to go from delivering a message in three bullets to delivering a massive service blueprint in the next moment."

"There’s pressure for efficiency and simplification that often borders on oversimplification."

"Maturity is not linear; the tanker company had a world-class service design team the fast-moving company could learn from."

"Everyone in a company is circling around similar topics, but each uses very different models and languages."

"Models are sense-making tools; trying to come up with one preeminent model for the company is a recipe for disaster."

"You need to understand where the momentum is in your organization and choose to go with the main current or hang out in eddies."

"Fairy gliding across a river means using the opposing force of the current to move effectively, not fighting it head-on."

"Estuaries are highly productive and dynamic, but also very sensitive and need protection."

"It is impossible to survive by pushing against the current all the time; patient opportunism is key."

"Critical architectural decisions are often made in engineering meetings without service designers; collaboration gaps need closing."

Ask the Rosenbot
Aditi Ruiz
A PM State of Mind: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 1
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Yulya Besplemennova
[Demo] Stress-testing GenAI in user research synthesis
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Peace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Amahra Spence
Designing for Liberation, Rehearsing Freedom
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Erin May
Distributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
George Zhang
UX Research Excellence Framework
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Jose Coronado
People First - Design at JP Morgan
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Steve Portigal
War Stories LIVE! Q&A-Discussion
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Davis Neable
How to Drive a Design Project When you Don’t Have a Design Team
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Michelle Morrison
Culture Design (Videoconference)
2020 • DesignOps Community
Frances Yllana
Theme 2 Intro
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Frances Yllana
The Big Question about Impact: A Panel Discussion
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Jacqui Frey
Scale is Social Work (Videoconference)
2020 • DesignOps Community
Randolph Duke II
War Stories LIVE! Randy Duke II
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Bob Baxley
Leading with Design Operations Past and Present (Videoconference)
2019 • DesignOps Community
Noel Lamb
Cultivating Business Partnerships to Grow Research Ops (Videoconference)
2022 • Advancing Research Community

More Videos

Alex Hurworth

"Innovation in conservation practices is desperately needed to keep pace with environmental changes."

Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine Marin

Designing a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access

October 23, 2020

Laine Riley Prokay

"Building connections early in their career could create even more opportunities further along their career path."

Laine Riley Prokay Lisa Gordon

Carving a Path for Early Career DesignOps Practitioners

September 9, 2022

Eniola Oluwole

"TripAdvisor is really nine major business units each thinking like sub companies instead of one end-to-end user experience."

Eniola Oluwole

Lessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site

October 24, 2019

Nathan Shedroff

"Living personas refreshed constantly with new research allow others to connect with real customer behaviors."

Nathan Shedroff

Double Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically

March 31, 2020

Sam Proulx

"Mobile devices not only have built-in screen readers but also pitch-to-zoom and magnification settings out of the box."

Sam Proulx

Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World

November 17, 2022

Feleesha Sterling

"Choosing the right cadence depends on your team’s resources and maturity—some do it every two weeks, others monthly."

Feleesha Sterling

Building a Rapid Research Program (Videoconference)

May 18, 2023

Neil Barrie

"You get to those iconic signature actions when product excellence meets cultural tensions and what people need."

Neil Barrie

Widening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture

March 25, 2024

John Devanney

"Leadership roles have to evolve depending on whether you’re building awareness, influence, capacity, or measuring impact."

John Devanney

The Design Management Office

November 6, 2017

Katy Mogal

"If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair."

Katy Mogal

But Do Your Insights Scale?

March 12, 2021