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.

People + Places + Practices = Outcomes
Gold
Wednesday, June 8, 2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Share the love for this talk
People + Places + Practices = Outcomes
Speakers: Adam Cutler
Link:

Summary

The speaker from IBM outlines how the company's design culture is deeply rooted in shared values, rituals, heroes, symbols, and practices, emphasizing that culture cannot be faked or bought but must be lived over time. Drawing from their experience at IBM and SteelCase, they highlight the importance of behaviors over time as the foundation of culture. Key contributors like Paul Rand and Doug Powell are cited as heroes shaping this legacy. IBM’s design talent acquisition is highly selective, reviewing over 10,000 candidates to hire 1,500 designers, all entering with a unified 'designer' title fostering multidisciplinary growth. The IBM Studios Network offers adaptable workspace designed for collaboration across disciplines, dissolving 'us vs them' mentalities between design and engineering. Their IBM design thinking framework centers on user outcomes, multidisciplinary teams, and continuous iteration via 'the loop' of observe, reflect, and make. Tools like Hills, Playbacks, and Sponsor Users keep teams aligned and rooted in user needs. The IBM design language provides a system of unity rather than uniformity across 3,000 products, enabling cohesive yet expressive design. Announcement of forthcoming IBM design research underscores user-inclusive, practical inquiry beyond traditional methodologies. The speaker candidly admits ongoing challenges in scaling design at IBM but remains optimistic about refining practices and sustaining culture, always with outcomes and user impact at the center.

Key Insights

  • Culture is defined by behaviors over time, not slogans or statements.

  • IBM hires design talent extremely selectively, taking less than 1% of applicants.

  • Every designer at IBM is hired under the generic title 'designer' to encourage multidisciplinary growth.

  • Flexible, mobile workspaces in IBM Studios empower designers and cross-functional teams to reconfigure their environment daily.

  • IBM design thinking emphasizes user outcomes, multidisciplinary teams, and relentless reinvention through continuous iteration.

  • The 'loop' model combats common pitfalls where designers avoid building and developers avoid reflection.

  • IBM’s Hills, Playbacks, and Sponsor Users ensure focus on user-centered intent, safe critique, and direct user collaboration.

  • The IBM design language aims for system unity, not uniformity, balancing cohesion with designer expression across thousands of products.

  • Accessibility is embedded from the start, not bolted on afterwards, supported by training and onboarding.

  • Sustainable design culture requires enduring elements: people, places, and practices that outlast current leadership.

Notable Quotes

"Behavior over time is your culture."

"You can’t fake culture and you definitely can’t buy it."

"One out of every 40 portfolios are selected; hiring here is super choosy."

"We call everybody a designer to encourage branching out across disciplines."

"If people say 'the design team', it sets up an us and them between design and engineering."

"The loop is an infinity loop where we observe, reflect, and make."

"An intern once challenged a senior VP in a playback about whether an idea was smart enough."

"The design language is a system of unity instead of uniformity."

"Accessibility is baked in from the very beginning and threaded through the entire effort."

"None of this matters without outcomes. We have to design with an outcome in mind."

Ask the Rosenbot
Liza Pemstein
Scaling Research Via an Ops First Model at Clever
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Kara Kane
Communities of Practice for Civic Design (Videoconference)
2022 • Civic Design Community
David Cronin
Discussion
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Bob Baxley
Theme 4: Intro
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Chris Geison
What's Next for Research? (Videoconference)
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Ned Dwyer
The Intersection of Design and ResearchOps
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Catherine Courage
The Enterprise UX Journey: Lessons From the Voyage & The Opportunity Ahead
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Sabrina Mach
How to Design Your Design Operating Model
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Dave Hoffer
UX Job Search AMA with Joanne Weaver and Dave Hoffer
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Shazia Ali
Communication: Innovative techniques for making your voice heard [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Sam Proulx
Understanding Screen Readers on Mobile: How And Why to Learn from Native Users
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Research Operations at Scale
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Niko Laitinen
Adaptable Org Design for Resilient Times
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Opening Remarks
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Dan Donald
Design Systems as a Vehicle for Systemic Change (Videoconference)
2023 • DesignOps Community
Jose Coronado
From Zero to Hero
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold

More Videos

Jemma Ahmed

"Holding on too tightly to insights and controlling data flows can make research teams irrelevant."

Jemma Ahmed Steve Carrod Chris Geison Dr. Shadi Janansefat Christopher Nash

Democratization: Working with it, not against it [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]

July 24, 2024

Nina Jurcic

"Having a design system is not the end goal; it enables radical cost cuts, reduces tech debt, and improves workflows."

Nina Jurcic

The Design System Rollercoaster: From Enabler and Bottleneck to Catalyst for Change

October 3, 2023

Nathan Curtis

"Sometimes clarity trumps consistency depending on the context or specific use case in the system."

Nathan Curtis Nalini P. Kotamraju Jack Moffett Dawn Ressel

Discussion

June 9, 2016

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"Measurements are always a conversation; they should not be a covenant imposed on you, especially when you’re trying something new."

Saara Kamppari-Miller Nicole Bergstrom Shashi Jain

Key Metrics: Comparing Three Letter Acronym Metrics That Include the Word “Key”

November 13, 2024

Malini Rao

"It’s really hard to make changes to these systems because it’s risk-ridden and a major undertaking."

Malini Rao

Lessons Learned from a 4-year Product Re-platforming Journey

June 9, 2021

Mackenzie Cockram

"Stakeholders often have strong opinions; our job is to back decisions with solid, evidence-based data."

Mackenzie Cockram Sara Branco Cunha Ian Franklin

Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research from Discovery to Live

December 16, 2022

Bria Alexander

"Sponsor sessions are not sales pitches but truly high-quality content that you won’t want to miss."

Bria Alexander

Opening Remarks

June 9, 2021

Jackie Ho

"There are no physical boards involved, no whiteboard, no mood boards. The board part refers to people like a board of directors."

Jackie Ho

Lead Effectively While Preserving Team Autonomy with Growth Boards

January 8, 2024

Dan Hill

"Technology is inevitable or inescapable, it just proliferates, but we need to contain it."

Dan Hill

Designing for the infrastructures of everyday life

June 4, 2024