Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

The Trials and Tribulations of Directors of UX (Videoconference)
Thursday, July 13, 2023 • Enterprise Community
Share the love for this talk
The Trials and Tribulations of Directors of UX (Videoconference)
Speakers: Peter Merholz
Link:

Summary

Directors of UX are navigating an overwhelming set of explicit and implicit expectations in their work, leading to frustration, anxiety, burnout, and leaving the field altogether. In this freewheeling discussion with guest Peter Merholz, organizational consultant and leadership mentor, we’ll address how we got into this situation (layoffs requiring those who remain to manage more people; botched agile transformations requiring UXers to lean into product management; immature organizations not knowing how to value the work), and identify paths forward out of this mess.

Key Insights

  • UX directors are often caught in the middle, managing both delivery teams and cross-functional relationships, leading to burnout.

  • Many design executives lack the skills or support to shield directors from organizational chaos.

  • A large number of product managers lack key skills in managing product development processes, forcing UX directors to fill that gap.

  • UX directors are frequently under-leveled compared to peers in engineering and product, impacting their influence and effectiveness.

  • Some UX directors are the senior-most design leaders in their organizations, necessitating them to act as both directors and executives simultaneously.

  • Leadership work consists largely of undefined responsibilities that require initiative beyond job descriptions.

  • Building trust with cross-functional partners involves demonstrating credibility, reliability, and authentic personal connection.

  • Knowing the subject matter deeply is essential for UX leaders to gain credibility alongside product and engineering counterparts.

  • UXers report lower job satisfaction compared to their peers because of a mismatch between expectations and organizational realities.

  • Organizational and design maturity levels create gaps that UX leaders must navigate by meeting organizations where they are and gradually shifting perspectives.

Notable Quotes

"UX directors often feel like this poor person in the middle here getting pulled in all these directions."

"Middle managers are responsible for the how—process, coordination, and communication—and you don’t see the value of that until it’s missing."

"Many product managers got their roles because they know the business or subject matter, but they don’t know how to manage product development."

"Sometimes the director is the most senior design person in the org and ends up playing the executive role without the title or support."

"If you’re doing a lot of work that’s not in your job description, you might actually be doing leadership."

"Developing trust means showing you understand what it takes to get something shipped, that you’re reliable, and that people can be vulnerable with you."

"Knowing your subject matter as a UX leader is just as important as knowing your craft."

"UXers are less satisfied than their peers because we have failed to set expectations about the real work of UX in organizations."

"Playing politics in UX leadership is about maximizing relationships ethically to advance your agenda, not about being underhanded."

"We don’t get upset when users say one thing and do another, but we freak out when our leadership behaves that way."

Ask the Rosenbot
Mark Interrante
AI for Prioritization (3rd of 3 seminars) (Videoconference)
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi
Contextuality problem: Exploring the Benefits of Qualitative and Quantitative Research
2023 • QuantQual Interest Group (Rosenfeld Community)
Kristin Skinner
8 Types of Measures in Design Operations (Videoconference)
2020 • DesignOps Community
Séamus Byrne
Aligning Teams with Choreography
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Nicole Umphress
Delivering Design Education During a Global Pandemic: Lessons Learned
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Laura Schaefer
DesignOps: A Conduit for Inclusion
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Cennydd Bowles
Day 1 Panel
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Sam Proulx
To Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Craig Villamor
Resilient Enterprise Design
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Kate Koch
Flex Your Super Powers: When a Design Ops Team Scales to Power CX
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
PJ Buddhari
Meet Spectrum, Adobe’s Design System
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Sarah Rink
Remote User Research: Dos and Don'ts from the Virtual Field (Videoconference)
2020 • Advancing Research Community
John Calhoun
Bring your DesignOps Story to Life! The Definitive DesignOps Book Jam
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Christopher Taylor Edwards
Design as a Team Practice, A Practical Guide to Cross-functional Collaboration
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Landon Barnes
Are My Research Findings Actually Meaningful?
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Gina Mendolia
Therapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold

More Videos

Zariah Cameron

"Stop saying rest is a luxury or a privilege. It is not. It is a human right."

Zariah Cameron

ReDesigning Wellbeing for Equitable Care in the Workplace

September 23, 2024

John Cutler

"The top priority is often the lack of a priority, resulting in teams spending 50% of their time jumping between priorities."

John Cutler Harry Max

Prioritization for designers and product managers (1st of 3 seminars) (Videoconference)

June 13, 2024

Nick Cochran

"Sharing with context can really help others to make those connections as well."

Nick Cochran

Growing in Enterprise Design through Making Connections

June 3, 2019

Deanna Smith

"I often lock a process against changes for one to two months unless a major issue arises."

Deanna Smith

Leading Change with Confidence: Strategies for Optimizing Your Process

September 23, 2024

Magdalena Zadara

"The digital identity card is an existing asset that we didn’t have to reinvent, but the user experience on top was lacking."

Magdalena Zadara

Zero Hour: How to Get Far Quickly When Starting Your Digital Service Unit Late

November 16, 2022

Nova Wehman-Brown

"I’ve never done this before. I’m going to be learning as I go and I’m going to share everything I learn with you."

Nova Wehman-Brown

We've Never Done This Before

June 4, 2019

Liwei Dai

"To be truly impactful, we need to actively participate in product design sprints, ideation, and key strategy meetings."

Liwei Dai

The Heart and Brain of the AI Research

March 31, 2020

Gordon Ross

"Having workers leave the airport and travel to the farm to self-isolate was simply not feasible – the province would have to be responsible for quarantine."

Gordon Ross

12 Months of COVID-19 Design and Digital Response with the British Columbia Government

December 8, 2021

Tutti Taygerly

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Tutti Taygerly

Make Space to Lead

June 12, 2021