Summary
How do you establish a thriving UX organization in a century-old company? Our opening presentation is a tale of two organizations and two different UX leaders. They followed very different paths and come from different industries, yet their stories of success and lessons for others have a lot in common. Rob Mitzel spent his entire career at Ford, starting from a Safety Engineer and changing roles to evolve into a Design Ops Manager, as the company evolved. Sébastien Malo parachuted to CN (Canadian National Railway) only a couple of years ago, but has already changed the course of his organization. Rob and Sebastien compare and contrast stories of how UX adapted and iterated their teams, skills and service to meet the needs of an evolving enterprise IT organization and the business at large.
Key Insights
-
•
Starting with a protective UX culture can hinder collaboration; openness and sharing usability patterns build trust and advocacy.
-
•
Creating internal UX resources like a SharePoint site and in-person classes empowers both UX and non-UX teams.
-
•
Building a component library that aligns with usability patterns effectively forms an early design system before the term was popularized.
-
•
Transitioning front-end development responsibilities from UX to specialized teams allows UX to focus on core design and research.
-
•
UX coaching embedded within Agile project teams helps raise UX maturity and enables basic design practices spreading beyond UX specialists.
-
•
Clear team principles—expertise coupled with collaboration, advocacy, and healthy compromise—are essential for UX team success.
-
•
Managing not only down (team) but also across and up in the organization is critical to expanding UX influence.
-
•
Running facilitated workshops like persona and journey mapping on existing waterfall requirements brings clarity and reveals gaps, helping transition to Agile.
-
•
Expanding UX into managing business analysis and process optimization integrates human-centered design with broader organizational goals.
-
•
Building a UX alumni network by supporting team members’ career moves creates long-term design advocacy across the enterprise.
Notable Quotes
"My job was to insulate my team from the pressures of the project team and to not allow anyone else to do UX work."
"It was like publishing the family secret recipe; we feared sharing patterns could make us obsolete, but it was essential."
"If you see a need, fill it with a solution even if there’s no formal name or process for it."
"Be an expert, but act as a collaborator. UX is a team sport."
"Sell your vision to your team and close collaborators, but show, don’t tell, the rest of the organization."
"Sometimes you have to push a little and compromise to create a healthy tension that moves projects forward."
"Managing up and across means asking lots of questions and building your mental model of the organization."
"UX brought structure, clarity, and a fresh perspective on a known dataset by running user story mapping workshops."
"Expanding my responsibility beyond UX was not planned, but it helped further the cause of UX in the organization."
"You owe it to your organization and your team to keep growing the UX practice while staying true to your vision."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"The health of our planet directly influences our health and survival."
Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine MarinDesigning a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access
October 23, 2020
"We started to ask ourselves, does every new Design Ops practitioner need 10 years of experience like Lisa and I? What opportunities are we missing by not having more junior roles?"
Laine Riley Prokay Lisa GordonCarving a Path for Early Career DesignOps Practitioners
September 9, 2022
"TripAdvisor is really nine major business units each thinking like sub companies instead of one end-to-end user experience."
Eniola OluwoleLessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site
October 24, 2019
"Traditional MBAs are confident about many things that aren’t true, and your research will often challenge their worldview."
Nathan ShedroffDouble Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically
March 31, 2020
"Mobile browsers are typically updated with the OS, reducing variability compared to desktop browser versions."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
November 17, 2022
"Product and design teams are usually the best initial stakeholders to engage for rapid research programs."
Feleesha SterlingBuilding a Rapid Research Program (Videoconference)
May 18, 2023
"Triple win cultural roles speak to what a company commits to, what users need, and wider cultural tensions."
Neil BarrieWidening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture
March 25, 2024
"The real question is what is it about delivering the value of design at scale."
John DevanneyThe Design Management Office
November 6, 2017
"If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair."
Katy MogalBut Do Your Insights Scale?
March 12, 2021