Rosenverse
Panel Discussion: Methodologies and Work Environments

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.

Panel Discussion: Methodologies and Work Environments

Gold
Thursday, November 8, 2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Share the love for this talk
Panel Discussion: Methodologies and Work Environments
Speakers: Maria Skaaden
Link:

Summary

In this engaging session, Maria, Megan, and Hannah share their experiences applying UX and change management methodologies within complex organizations like McKinsey, rail transit systems, and tech-driven environments. Maria highlights the value of user empathy and evolving goals in large projects, like the rail system redevelopment, emphasizing intuition and user connection beyond just end customers. Megan discusses the importance of building open, editable playbooks that evolve through team contribution, stressing the need for balancing following rules and embracing scrappy innovation. Hannah introduces the concept of positive deviants, people who naturally exhibit better behaviors on the margins, and explains the importance of leveraging community and social proof to scale those behaviors rather than imposing top-down change. Together, they explore managing designer burnout through diverse challenges, work-life balance, and experiential learning such as field trips. The panelists also address maintaining optimism amid messy change by focusing on advocates and achievable impact areas rather than forcing universal adoption. They share tactical insights on setting flexible timelines within agile frameworks and choosing when to persist or pivot in organizational battles, weighing impact against effort. Their perspectives offer practical guidance on sustaining momentum, fostering inclusive culture, and evolving UX practices in fast-paced, mission-critical environments.

Key Insights

  • Open, editable playbooks encourage continuous improvement and team ownership.

  • Positive deviants provide powerful, community-driven models for scalable change.

  • Change is more successful when it leverages existing behaviors rather than imposing new ones.

  • Avoiding designer burnout requires variety in work and strong emphasis on work-life balance.

  • Physical user engagement, like field trips, recharges designers and grounds empathy.

  • Choosing the right 'hill to die on' depends on an impact versus effort analysis.

  • Success metrics vary widely between organizations, making adaptable frameworks essential.

  • Focusing on advocates accelerates adoption even when others remain skeptical.

  • Deadlines should be ambitious but flexible, acknowledging discovery and learning.

  • Building change from within the community fosters social proof and sustains adoption.

Notable Quotes

"If I can't make the actual playbook available, I'm very happy to talk about what it consists of and how we did it."

"It's all of our job to question why we’re doing what we’re doing and how we’re doing it."

"We keep our playbook in a place where anyone can edit it from the team."

"Positive deviants operate on the fringes and get the best results by doing things differently."

"Change has to come from within, social proof is key."

"Sometimes you just need to do something completely different than what you’re working on."

"We pick our battles and show what a great party it is without worrying about pulling everyone in."

"I am uncomfortable too. Change is uncomfortable, exhausting, but it can also be fun and exciting."

"It’s not a fight; it’s about finding that soft spot where people are already trying to do something."

"We set deadlines but accept that we don’t always make them, and that’s okay."

Ask the Rosenbot
Maria Skaaden
Continuous Design: One eye on the horizon and the other on the next wave
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Expanding Your Design Lens with Systems Thinking
2023 • Enterprise Community
Ross Smith
Breaking Barriers with Empathy
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Dan Ward
Failure Friday #1 with Dan Ward
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Katy Mogal
But Do Your Insights Scale?
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Saara Kamppari-Miller
Cartography for Design Communities
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Corey Nelson
Layoffs
2022 • Advancing Research Community
Gabriela Barneva
Operationalizing Inclusive Design in Service Design
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Nathan Reiff
Research, from Unimaginable to Presently Possible: A Future-Casting Sticky-Note Sprint
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Peter Van Dijck
Hands-on AI #2: Understanding evals: LLM as a Judge
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Deirdre Hirschtritt
Research is Only as Good as the Relationships You Build
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Lin Nie
When Thought-worlds Collide: Collaborating Between Research and Practice
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
JJ Kercher
A Roadmap for Maturing Design in the Enterprise
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Dante Guintu
How to Crush the Talent Crunch
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Soma Ghosh
What emerging methods are advancing UX research [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2023 • Advancing Research Community
Sam Proulx
Understanding Screen Readers on Mobile: How And Why to Learn from Native Users
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold

More Videos

Anna Avrekh

"Trust with your team needs to be established and continuously nurtured because tough situations arise quickly."

Anna Avrekh Dr. John Pagonis Klara Pelcl Sina Schreiber

Expert Panel: Leading in and with Research

March 10, 2022

Taylor Klassman

"In a remote environment, building authentic, deep relationships with stakeholders is a key skill for researchers."

Taylor Klassman

Shaping the Next Era of UX Research: Collaborative Forum

March 11, 2025

Dr. Jamika D. Burge

"I’ve started giving up on product management and focusing more on product strategy and senior executives."

Dr. Jamika D. Burge Steve Portigal Alba Villamil Sam Ladner

The Future of Research: Bridging the Gaps

July 29, 2021

Marisa Bernstein

"Participant experience is everything and it starts with building trust."

Marisa Bernstein

It Takes GRIT: Lessons from the Small, but Mighty World of Civic Usability Testing

December 9, 2021

Dan Mall

"Sometimes you need to connect the people before you can connect the parts in a design system."

Dan Mall

“Ask Me Anything” with Dan Mall, Author of Upcoming Rosenfeld Title, Design that Scales

October 2, 2023

Chris Geison

"We’re here, not in denial of plague and war, but in defiance of it."

Chris Geison

Theme 1 Intro

March 9, 2022

Bruce Gillespie

"It’s worth explaining your new communication approach to stakeholders to save their time and foster discussion."

Bruce Gillespie

Learning from journalism: Balancing impactful communication with compassionate storytelling

March 13, 2025

Nancy Douyon

"If you want to scale, incorporate global UX research from day one and test your assumptions broadly."

Nancy Douyon

We'll Figure That Out in the Next Launch: Enterprise Tech's Nobility Complex

June 15, 2018

Liz Ebengo

"Will you become an advocate for the world’s most vulnerable voices muffled and unheard in complex systems?"

Liz Ebengo

The Burden on Children: The Cost of Insufficient Post-Conflict Services and Pathways Forward

December 4, 2024