Influencing the organization as a UX Leader

As UX practitioners who design products, there are a few things we’ve mastered: 

• Understanding the problem space

• Developing clarity on business objectives

• Identifying who the users are & what their needs might be

• Applying systems & design thinking frameworks to come up with solutions, and

• Testing and iterating to make the solutions more meaningful and useful

These same skills can be harnessed as a UX superpower when it comes to organizational strategy.

If applied effectively, they can have tremendous influence and impact within organizations and teams.

Why invest in organizational strategy?

The quality of products is often a reflection of the teams that build them. My observation across many organizations has been that there exists a strong correlation between the adoption and practice of company values and the quality of their output.

Experts have written about this, industry leaders talk about it, and I have seen it firsthand in my almost two decades of working in Tech.

In my journey of becoming a UX Leader, I developed a system to design a team to maximize the synergy and positivity of the collective performance of cross-functional teams. 

This approach takes a holistic look at the organization and the inner workings of its members to assess the efficacy and character of its values, communication, collaboration, skills, tools, and processes. With this overall picture, you’ll be able to identify the gaps and put in place the things that are needed to make everything run more smoothly for the ultimate goal of building great experiences that will improve users’ lives.

You as a Leader are focusing on the design of the factory rather than the design of a single machine within it.

In this role, you’ll wear many hats. You’re a dot-connector, a gap-filler, a problem-solver, and a relationship-builder. 

You’ll be influencing cross-functionally to build a great culture that produces great products and will have a multiplicative effect on future initiatives.

Photo by Xiaolin zhang

You as a Leader are focusing on the design of the factory rather than the design of a single machine within it.

How to design the team?

The process of designing the team breaks down into five phases:

1. Investigate

2. Design

3. Align

4. Implement

5. Reflect & refine

🧐 Investigate

The first step in designing the team is the Investigation. You’ll do this by wearing your researcher hat and by diving into four areas:

• Culture

  • Does the team align and personify the company values?

  • How included do they feel in the mission and vision?

  • What is the team motivated and excited by? 

  • How open are they to differing perspectives?

  • How willing are they to help each other?

  • What do rewards and recognition look like?
    

• Maturity

  • What’s the level of UX maturity in the organization?

  • What level of education would help the organization understand the value that the UX function brings to the table?

  • Does the UX team have a good understanding of the business?
    

• Skills

  • What are the skills needed to accomplish the project?

  • What skills does the team currently have?

  • For the gaps in skills:

    • Are you able to train the current team on the skills necessary?

    • Are you able to hire to fill the gaps?
      

• Processes

  • What are the current processes in place for collaboration?

  • How inclusive is the current cross-functional communication?

  • How aligned are the teams on the vision and goals?

  • Are there tools in place for the teams to be effective?

  • Are the current processes enabling the team to be productive and make progress?

🎨 Design

You’ve done the groundwork and now have all the information you need to design what would be an efficient team that is supportive of each other. You’ll apply the foundational framework of design thinking to synthesize, plan, co-create, and iterate. 

• Design to bridge the gaps

  • Whether the gaps are in skills or processes, draw out a program that would bridge those gaps. Some examples: 

    • If you see that there’s a divide between the teams, it’s an indicator of fear. This calls for establishing trust between these teams as a solution. Take steps to build relationships with each of the teams and team members to remove the fear and bring a sense of togetherness. Some tools that might help here are 1:1s, team bonding exercises, share-outs, Listening Sessions, continuous feedback efforts, etc.

    • If you see that there’s a gap in communication between functions, set up a regular touchpoint between the teams. This can be a share-out, a newsletter, or simply a recurring email letting the teams know what’s going on.

• Now that you have an initial iteration drawn out, your next step is to align with other leaders in the organization.

🤝 Align

Alignment is a critical phase where you’ll be collaborating with other leaders and stakeholders to review and refine the plan before implementing it. Your interpersonal skills will play an important role here in engaging every member at the table and inviting them to make a positive impact.

• You’ll act as a facilitator of the discussion.

• Your main goal is to get alignment on the plan and to steer the team away from consensus. Encourage differing opinions and a healthy debate to help the team come up with a solid plan.

• The next step is to identify owners to lead different areas of the plan and assign the areas to them to drive. 

• Finally, you’ll draft and send out the agreed-upon plan to the team to help them move into the implementation phase.

💪 Implement

If you did an effective job in the alignment phase, implementation will come easy. Through the process of alignment, you’ve created an army of believers with the same mission who will start doing their part in moving the needle. 

• Have a regular touchpoint to share progress on each of the efforts.

• Support and help each other, and adjust the plan as needed.

🪞 Reflect and refine

At this point, there will be a lot of moving parts. You’ll be simultaneously implementing a new program while driving the work in the trenches toward achieving your milestones. It’s critically important to implement a continuous feedback loop to influence the plan at regular intervals. 

• Collect feedback from the teams through a survey (or other formats like open discussion sessions).

• Meet with the core team of drivers and discuss what’s working and what’s not working.

• Refine the plan to fit the newly acquired insights, and trim the efforts that are not working. Introduce any new efforts as needed.

• Broadcast the information out to the organization, and encourage feedback.

What’s the impact of your work?

Through this process, you will have:

• Established strong relationships with other leaders on the team.

• Fostered a supportive culture that is transparent and flexible.

• Created an inclusive team environment through feedback systems from all directions.

• Developed a shared vision and a plan to collectively achieve it.

• Last but not least, if you felt like you didn’t have a seat at the table before, you just redefined what that table should be!

Photo by Munro Studio

Last but not least, if you felt like you didn’t have a seat at the table before, you just re-defined what that table should be!

Why is it worth doing it?

As a UX leader, you have the unique set of skills as a user advocate, an experience specialist, a product manager, and even a program manager.

You bring a unique value to the table, and with this expertise, you’re able to not only influence the products that the organization is building but the approach of the other leaders and stakeholders to define an overall positive organizational culture. 

None of this is easy, and is, in fact, more than what your role or paycheck might call for. But if you’re passionate about changing the mindsets and influencing the organization to focus on the right vision, you have the power to do so.