Lada Gorlenko
Senior Director of Research at MURAL
Sharbani Dhar
Program Design Lead, Australia Post
Sébastien Malo
UX Research and Design Manager, CN
Rob Mitzel
DesignOps and Enablement Team Supervisor, Ford Motor Company
Ivana Ng
Director of Product, Nava PBC
Michal Anne Rogondino
Founder & CEO, Rocket Communications, Inc.
Summary
Join today's speakers for Q&A and discussion of the day's topics.
Key Insights
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Early investment in operations is essential to build a scalable foundation for UX and product teams.
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Interaction at peers' levels, not just with executives, can drive meaningful progress in organizations.
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Asking stakeholders what success looks like is a simple but powerful way to start project conversations.
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Established business metrics like conversion rates can be misleading without considering user behavior and repeat usage.
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Qualitative user feedback and operator enthusiasm can outweigh the absence of quantitative benchmarks in early UX efforts.
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Before-and-after stories help stakeholders visualize UX value even when data is limited or a vision is not fully realized.
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Embedding UX evangelism and mentoring into team objectives helps junior members confidently engage stakeholders.
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Ongoing access to real-time analytics and user feedback channels sustains stakeholder empathy and engagement.
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Partnering closely with client product owners creates a 'power duo' that uplifts UX understanding and adoption.
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Compromise the process or methods but never the end business goals or product outcomes in UX work.
Notable Quotes
"Operations tends to be something companies think about only once they’re scaling rapidly, but it’s a foundation you can build early."
"You don’t have to talk to executives to make progress; peer-level interactions get the work done in big organizations."
"Whenever we start a project, we ask stakeholders what success looks like for them—that question opens the conversation."
"Conversion rates are not enough; poor repeat usage means the product is failing despite good initial numbers."
"Users were excited just to see their terrible interface experiences improved—that enthusiasm is a metric in itself."
"Telling the story of before and after helped stakeholders see how UX efforts could be scaled and repeated."
"Evangelizing and mentoring around UX is part of our team's formal objectives, not just extra work."
"We refuse to keep our user testing invisible; stakeholders have to attend sessions to build empathy."
"Stakeholders owning analytics and feedback empowers them to continuously understand user needs."
"I won’t compromise on the business goals or end product quality; what may change is how we get there."
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