Summary
The talk highlights the challenges UX functions face when integrated later in fast-growing enterprise companies, using SmartSheet as an example where UX was established after many years. It emphasizes the necessity for all employees to adopt a design thinking mindset, making user experience everyone's responsibility rather than just the UX team’s. VB Rosenstein from Zendesk explains how she scaled a global UX research practice by streamlining processes and increasing credibility. Vasilio Sampalis from LEGO describes a combined top-down and bottom-up approach to enhance user-centric maturity that gained notable industry recognition. Jackie Ho from VMware discusses strategies to maintain alignment and accountability across multiple scaled teams while preserving their autonomy. Collectively, the speakers provide actionable insights and methods that help organizations keep the user experience cohesive and high-quality despite rapid growth and product team multiplication.
Key Insights
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In enterprise companies, UX is often an afterthought, making it challenging to embed user-centered design deeply.
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Scaling UX impact requires adapting processes to support growing and multiplying product teams without losing quality.
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User experience responsibility should be distributed across the organization, creating a culture of design thinking beyond just UX professionals.
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VB Rosenstein successfully scaled Zendesk’s global UX research by adding rigor and streamlining workflows for greater credibility.
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Vasilio Sampalis implemented a top-down and bottom-up approach at LEGO to increase user-centric maturity with visible success.
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Jackie Ho focuses on balancing team autonomy with alignment and accountability across numerous UX teams at VMware.
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Rapid company growth requires UX managers to continuously rethink team organization, process scaling, efficiency, and experience coherence.
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Experience risk fragmentation when product teams grow in silos; UX teams must mitigate this to avoid disjointed user journeys.
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Building a design-thinking army across disciplines helps to democratize decision-making around product and customer needs.
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Each stage of growth presents unique UX challenges that require tailored strategies to maintain maximal impact and quality.
Notable Quotes
"Imagine if everyone you worked with, regardless of the role, had deep empathy for your customers and made decisions based on those customer needs."
"In the enterprise space, the UX function is added later. It's not part of the company's original DNA."
"By the time the value of a human-centered process has been proven, UX is often outnumbered."
"How do we scale our processes, maximize efficiency and quality, and keep the experience from getting disjointed as teams multiply?"
"User experience is everyone's responsibility, not just UXs."
"We need to create an army of design thinkers across the organization who can make better decisions on what to build and how to build it."
"VB Rosenstein scaled Zendesk’s global UX research practice, adding rigor and credibility while streamlining processes."
"Vasilio Sampalis’s top-down and bottom-up approach increased LEGO’s user-centric maturity and attracted Gartner’s attention."
"Jackie Ho shares how to keep teams accountable, aligned, and autonomous after scaling UX practices."
"Each stage of growth brings different UX challenges that require new ways to organize, process, and influence the product experience."
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