Links for Week 17, 2019
How a world-class design agency organizes files
Alex shares their striaght-forward process to ensure everyone stays aligned. The Incoming and Outgoing folders are a great idea.
Implementing user insights: how to get started in a single morning
Lauren Pope breaks down a fast-tracked approach to integrating user centric thinking into any design process.
Highlighting stakeholder and leadership misalignment
Maxim (@round) shared one of his go-to stakeholder interview quesitons. I always ask for measure of success, but never thought about asking about their leadership's measure.
I always recommend asking project stakeholders what their measure of success is – and then to ask what their boss’ measure of success is.
— Maxim (@round) April 15, 2019
They are never the same.
Workshop exercise: How would you make your company obsolte
Richard Banfield (@RMBanfield) shared a novel workshop exercise to get leadership thinking about growth:
Recently heard this scenario used as a leadership exercise: “You’re the CEO at your biggest competitor, how do you plan to make this company obsolete in a year or less?”
— Richard Banfield (@RMBanfield) April 13, 2019
Links for Week 22, 2018
Questions to ask a struggling employee
14 great questions to use in your next 1-on-1 with a struggling employee (or anyone).
Kandinsky in Space
Fly through one of Kandinsky's paintings and experience it like never before.
Preventing burnout on your team
People drive culture...
Best performing problem solving teams
Cognitively divers and psychologically safe.
How to be be a great junior team member
- Ask lots of questions.
- Don’t fear mistakes, just admit them quickly.
- Don’t get attached to the results of your work.
- Be patient and understanding.
- Understand a big picture.
Great employees leaving great cultures
Great culture is more than saying '...we have a great culture.'.
Building a design driven culture
Understand the customer, build empathy in the organization, don't design in a vacuum, act quickly
Mosaiq—organizing research
Using Wordpress to share your team's design research.
Links for Week 4, 2018
Building New Organizational Models to Achieve True Digital Transformation
“People have been shown by Amazon, Google, and even Twitter, how easy things can be. So, they just expect things to work and to be relatively simple.”
Outline
A new (and beautiful) documentation tool. Looks promising.
The UX of AI
“If you aren’t aligned with a human need, you’re just going to build a very powerful system to address a very small—or perhaps nonexistent—problem.”
How to design An Innovation Culture
A webinar video of Alex Osterwalder (Strategyzer co-founder) and Dave Gray (XPLANE co-founder) talk about intentionally designing your corporate innovation culture.
Want To Build A Culture Of Innovation? Master The Design Critique
Successful design critiques is based on honesty and trust. It reminds me this tweet from John Maeda:
Links for Week 3, 2018
Design Studios, When Done Well, Change Organizations For The Better
Well-facilitated design studios [workshops] also focus more on the problem, less on solutions.
How I Teach
Last week I said to read anything Jon Kolko publishes. This week, he published a new and free book. Go. Read. Now. This book is for anyone who works with other people, in any capacity.
Future of Design in Start-Ups
Nothing too surprising here. Designers are increasingly transitioning from the agency to the enterprise. Skills will follow suite.
Adele—Repository of Design Systems Design Systems are extremely helpful as teams scale. This repository is one of the best I’ve seen.
Laws of UX
Lovely single-purpose site; fun just to view.
Choose An Amazing Boss. Role Is Secondary. I’ve been fortunate to have a number of supportive bosses. However, there is a difference between a supportable boss and an Amazing (enabling) boss.
Links for Week 2, 2018
A collection of Soviet Control Rooms
Some photos of beautiful, mid-century control rooms of power stations, control towers, and the like.
Inside One of America’s Last Pencil Factory
A fascinating look into the art of making pencils.
Dysfunctional Products Come from Dysfunctional Organizations
I’ve seen this situation play out time and time again. And here’s a little tip—do yourself a favor and read everything by Jon Kolko.
Workplace Hygiene in Sketch
Good rules for design teams to operate by.
How to Resolve Conflicts with a Remote Coworker
Great advice if you work with people, remote or not.
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Richard Baker is a seasoned design leader, fusing strategy, design, and technology to help teams solve difficult problems for over 15 years. Bringing a unique tech perspective to design, He’s well versed in helping engineering and industrial organizations amplify the impact of design in their business, products, and culture.