How to become the leader of the team UX-development
Suppose you manage a team of UX specialists (user interaction experience, User eXperience).
And better to say that you do not manage the team. Let's say you just want to do something good. You are a consultant. You are new. Your position is not important. And your title - too. The important thing is that you want to create a great UX - constantly now and all the time.
No matter what your status is, what situation you are in, whether you are a boss or a loner - you have the opportunity to lead the team and raise the bar where this bar is constantly below the height at which it should be. I, as a professional in UX, created and managed teams of UX-development in different companies. He worked as a consultant with dozens of clients on hundreds of projects. And that's what I learned about this work. This knowledge can be applied, regardless of whether you work within the company, or consult it from outside, whether you are an interface designer or a team management veteran.
')
The leaders I met, who managed to win the respect of their surroundings, had several features in common. One of them: they never demanded that people do what they themselves would not do. Take out the trash, brew coffee or stay to work overtime because of the sudden new product requirements - team leaders do the same as everyone else: they are developing.
Even if you are already at the top of the corporate ladder, and you need to be respected by default - there is no other way to demonstrate your reputation other than to put your experience into action. Develop something yourself or shut up.
This is part of a simple popular psychology, but still: we show others how to treat us. If at the slightest danger we jump out of the chair, we teach people to scare us. If we are annoyed and restless all the time, we teach people to avoid us. If we push others away from ourselves, we teach people not to trust us.
If the director postpones the favorite project of the team for three weeks in order to deal with some unimportant things in another project that will still be minimized soon, and you sigh and roll your eyes because of this - you teach the director what you need treat as a disturbance, not as a leader. It doesn't matter what happens - remember that your reaction and your actions influence how others will see you the next time when you are required to take any action or reaction. Stay calm in any situation, and you will receive all the respect you need to successfully complete projects.
In any office in any company every day there are hundreds of distractions. They can prevent the launch of a new product, the correction of old mistakes or leaving home from work at a reasonable time.
There are managers related to the whims, as an emergency. The chief engineer may suddenly join the team. You may receive a request for a design change made by the CEO’s best friend. Or there may be a person in the company who, during his break, walks and distracts all other employees.
Distractions are different, but none of them matter. Product development and management is a marathon. Relax. Panic and despair will not bring the development to a close point. And they certainly won't make development more enjoyable. Be able to rise above it all. Look in perspective. Everything else is like billboards along the road. You will be distracted by them - you will get into an accident. Learn to ignore them.
Here someone hired you. Theoretically, this happened because you know something. And suddenly, for some reason, as soon as you were hired, you forgot everything. You stopped offering your knowledge, showing your passion, and you began to be afraid. You began to worry about your position, instead of worrying about what you should do.
Actually, it’s your job to know when something goes wrong and be able to report it. If you can confirm your statements with facts, and convince everyone that you know what you are doing, your job is to do so.
Refusing to follow bad ideas. Do not stop expressing your concerns, show your ambitions and knowledge. After all, your passion for creating interfaces brought you here. If you are not needed here - leave from there. Refuse to work where they do not want to take a reasonable argument from a person who is anxious for a job well done. If something went wrong, and you can back up your case, you should be able to voice it. If you can't do this, find a place where you can do it.
If you are a beginner, then confirming your arguments with facts can be difficult at first. You may also not immediately see the perspective. First, get enough valuable experience, and then start expressing your opinion. If you try to take the lead prematurely, it can ruin your reputation.
You do not want to feel resistance when you criticize others. You need other people to control themselves long enough to think about what you say to them and decide that you can be right.
Similarly, others should be able to criticize you. Do not be a person discarding any feedback they don’t like. You need people to see problems in what you are doing. You need other people to know that you are able to accept objections. Take criticism well - because you expect the same from others.
When you are trying to define a project’s vision and strategy — and this should be done for any project, regardless of its size or importance — involve other people in it. And not just to make a good impression on them. Do this because you cannot properly define a project without talking to the shareholders and team members.
You may be a genius, but this does not negate the fact that people achieve better results in the form of an organized group, rather than alone.
A well-managed group is one that has a clear leader who makes the final decision, and at least one “adversary” who must find flaws in ideas, make people prove their viability and how they should think through their ideas.
Also, such groups should not consist of a large number of people - they should consist only of those whose opinion is very important for making decisions. It is necessary to collect opinions, learn about all the options - but also do not forget that there is a big difference between superficial opinion and the ability to delve into the essence of the problem. In addition, after spending a lot of time thinking about all the options, you will later begin the direct execution of the project.
Companies are not made up of UX specialists alone. They consist of marketing specialists, accountants, salespeople, product managers, bosses, programmers. There may be no other UX specialists in the company at all. But you need a group of people who can make good decisions about design, because alone you can't take them all. And you do not have time to correct all the mistakes that people who do not understand UX will make.
Therefore, you need to arm them. To equip with the ability to delve into the essence of the problem, with knowledge, techniques, best practices, design standards - with everything that can be used to make good design decisions. Explain all your recommendations. Give examples of design standards applicable in your case. Explain how to make decisions so that people can at least try to do it themselves. And do it all the time.
If you start from scratch, this practice will not pay off soon. But you will enjoy it; people will begin to respect you for your knowledge; and someday it all pays off. People with bad ideas will turn into people with good ideas. They will become people who will help you do a wonderful job.
The main part of your job as a UX specialist is not to design, but to sell your ideas. You need to convince people that your recommendations are worthy, thoughtful, and most likely correct. They are based on your experience and research that you can provide during the presentation of your idea.
The same is true for everyone else on your team. If you are part of a team, be sure to teach other people how to sell your ideas. Make sure that they know how to prove their point of view, and that they understand that this needs to be done. If you cannot convince people, you will not succeed. The same is true for them.
Dear managers: there are many differences between management and leadership. But to argue about this makes no sense. And the point is to understand the difference between what you really need to manage and what you usually manage. Often these are different things.
Usually run by people. Managers think they are paid to organize, delegate and track. It is a myth.
People want to do their job well. This part of human nature. They need to be proud of their achievements. If it seems to them that they cannot do it, it usually happens because they think that circumstances do not allow them to do it; because their version of what “good work” is different from yours; because you cannot correctly assess what “good” is. In any case, the best way to solve a problem is to do it directly.
In addition, you have an advantage that does not exist in other industries: you work in the web industry. People start doing this work from the heart, they become absolute fans of this work, they love it, they eat it for breakfast.
You do not need to manage people working in the web industry. You need to manage things that prevent these people from working. Your job is not to tell them what to do, but to remove obstacles from their path so they can do what they already want to do. Clear them a path, give them the space they need to do their work.
If you do everything in your power to give them what they need to do the work, but they still don’t do it, then you have problems. But, most likely, this will not happen.
And again for managers: there was once a novice designer in my team who really wanted to do strategy. He told me about it at least three times, while we unsuccessfully tried to get rid of technical debts. He felt he was doing less than he could, and he wanted to do something more.
Soon after, the project I was working on went to the stage of starting development. The first step was to define a strategy. I really wanted to do this on my own. But I gave this part of the work to him. I said that I could always tell him something and answer his questions, but he could manage the project.
Unnoticed by him, I myself asked him questions in the course of the project, which should have pushed his thoughts in the right direction. And he excelled at this project, and proved its worth in many ways and to many people. He learned in the process of different things, which, in the end, made him a strategic thinker.
I repeat: people working in the web industry already want to do something wonderful. They want to learn, they want to do more, build more, design more and produce more projects. They are hungry - so feed them.
When someone needs a chance to improve their skills, find an opportunity to give them that chance. When a project suitable for a person appears, give it to him. Even if you yourself want to do it. In 9 cases out of 10 this person will manifest himself. And both of you will benefit.
In the work of every professional on UX there is an internal and external part. To lead on this front, you must be a leader both outside the team and inside. Every time you communicate with people who are not UX professionals, use this opportunity to explain and show them how you make decisions. To talk about how users see and perceive things, and how your company should want them to see them.
We teach people how to treat us. All UX experts on the planet should behave intelligently, prudently, intelligently, and be committed to their work so that the rest of the people in their organization treat them the same way.
Again for managers: a few months ago I was sitting on a chair in front of an audience at the Capitol Factory in Austin, Texas. Next to me was Harry Max, vice president of design at Rackspace, and a man whom people will remember forever as the developer of the first shopping cart on the site.
We all gave our lectures and took questions from the audience. Several dozen people looked at us, and none of us knew what questions they would ask us. The third or fourth of them made us jittery: “How do you determine who to hire?”.
That is, when you invite crowds of candidates to your place, greet them, answer questions - how do you know which one is good and who is bad if you don’t know anything about UX and how you can evaluate its success ?
This question is not easy to answer. You can write volumes, and such volumes have already been written - about what UX is, why and how much it affects the business, and what skills are needed to successfully run your business or project. People who include UX in their title have different experiences. Some have a degree in cognitive psychology, someone is an expert in usability. Some have just graduated from design school. There are even those who have been doing this for many years in an organization in which they are treated as a special kind of typesetters.
You need to distinguish these people from each other. There is one way to choose a good professional or a person with good potential: look for the person asking the best questions.
media.mediatemple.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/question-marks-street-opt.jpg
A UX specialist can ask different questions: about users, about business, about problems, about needs, previous decisions, team, goals. A good UX specialist wants to see the whole picture.
They do not choose colors - they ask questions in order to understand how, where and when to use which of the colors. They do not develop appearance - they ask questions to determine significance, priorities, meanings. They are not waiting to be told what to do. They are leaders.
If you are interviewing a UX candidate, and you ask all the questions yourself, you can end the interview. This is not the specialist you are looking for.
Psychology is at the heart of design. Everything else is the art of decorating or something else. Design is a plan, and a plan needs a certain result. For design to succeed, human psychology must be at its center. No user will treat the product the way you want it, until you think about why he is talking to him, how he will work with him, and then not taking all this into account.
Something can be used to convince the user of the value of the product. Something to move him to certain actions. Something will surprise users, calm, make laugh or cause irritation. Whatever your intentions, this approach needs to be applied to all design decisions.
However, it is easy to forget that others do not think about your product as you do. They do not understand that psychology is at the heart of design. One of my clients said exactly this: “There is so much psychology here!”. And I replied: "You are selling, and develop your product in this way."
Tell about psychology. Explain to people that UX is much more than checkboxes and radio buttons. UX is psychology applied to design.
People like it when they get what they deserve. They also like being praised in case praise is appropriate. Therefore, share the merits. And people will love you.
But among other things, it will allow you to bring the matter to the end. This, of course, is counterintuitive, but when you share your merits, people will also praise you in return. Concentrate on building a team of people who respect each other. Concentrate on creating a reputation for your team, not for yourself. Worry about getting the task right, not about putting your name on the project. Do not worry - you get your praise.
“An intelligent person is adapting to the world,” said George Bernard Shaw. - The foolish one insists on adapting the world to himself. Therefore, all progress rests on unreasonable people. ”
It sounds selfish - but it is not. This does not mean that you need to redo all, so that they look like you. This means that you need to try to raise the world to your quality standards. We must try to make the world such that it fits the standards. You are a designer, so use your special abilities.
If something turns out badly - get rid of it. If there is a flaw in something, point to it and suggest improvements, because the complaints themselves are useless. If you haven’t done something that needed to be done - tell me why, and if this is an important enough thing, grab it. If only you are worried about something, but you do not care enough about it - it will not happen by itself.
Progress comes when people work on it. They defend their point of view. They make good arguments. They convince, they challenge, they prove. That is how the seat belt was invented. This is how user experience has become a common concept and a necessary thing. 15 years ago, far fewer people worked on this. Then it was difficult, but it was worth it.
Do not be reasonable - be successful.
And better to say that you do not manage the team. Let's say you just want to do something good. You are a consultant. You are new. Your position is not important. And your title - too. The important thing is that you want to create a great UX - constantly now and all the time.
No matter what your status is, what situation you are in, whether you are a boss or a loner - you have the opportunity to lead the team and raise the bar where this bar is constantly below the height at which it should be. I, as a professional in UX, created and managed teams of UX-development in different companies. He worked as a consultant with dozens of clients on hundreds of projects. And that's what I learned about this work. This knowledge can be applied, regardless of whether you work within the company, or consult it from outside, whether you are an interface designer or a team management veteran.
')
Do what you require from others.
The leaders I met, who managed to win the respect of their surroundings, had several features in common. One of them: they never demanded that people do what they themselves would not do. Take out the trash, brew coffee or stay to work overtime because of the sudden new product requirements - team leaders do the same as everyone else: they are developing.
Even if you are already at the top of the corporate ladder, and you need to be respected by default - there is no other way to demonstrate your reputation other than to put your experience into action. Develop something yourself or shut up.
Don't be annoyed
This is part of a simple popular psychology, but still: we show others how to treat us. If at the slightest danger we jump out of the chair, we teach people to scare us. If we are annoyed and restless all the time, we teach people to avoid us. If we push others away from ourselves, we teach people not to trust us.
If the director postpones the favorite project of the team for three weeks in order to deal with some unimportant things in another project that will still be minimized soon, and you sigh and roll your eyes because of this - you teach the director what you need treat as a disturbance, not as a leader. It doesn't matter what happens - remember that your reaction and your actions influence how others will see you the next time when you are required to take any action or reaction. Stay calm in any situation, and you will receive all the respect you need to successfully complete projects.
Do not get distracted by trifles
In any office in any company every day there are hundreds of distractions. They can prevent the launch of a new product, the correction of old mistakes or leaving home from work at a reasonable time.
There are managers related to the whims, as an emergency. The chief engineer may suddenly join the team. You may receive a request for a design change made by the CEO’s best friend. Or there may be a person in the company who, during his break, walks and distracts all other employees.
Distractions are different, but none of them matter. Product development and management is a marathon. Relax. Panic and despair will not bring the development to a close point. And they certainly won't make development more enjoyable. Be able to rise above it all. Look in perspective. Everything else is like billboards along the road. You will be distracted by them - you will get into an accident. Learn to ignore them.
Express your opinion
Here someone hired you. Theoretically, this happened because you know something. And suddenly, for some reason, as soon as you were hired, you forgot everything. You stopped offering your knowledge, showing your passion, and you began to be afraid. You began to worry about your position, instead of worrying about what you should do.
Actually, it’s your job to know when something goes wrong and be able to report it. If you can confirm your statements with facts, and convince everyone that you know what you are doing, your job is to do so.
Refusing to follow bad ideas. Do not stop expressing your concerns, show your ambitions and knowledge. After all, your passion for creating interfaces brought you here. If you are not needed here - leave from there. Refuse to work where they do not want to take a reasonable argument from a person who is anxious for a job well done. If something went wrong, and you can back up your case, you should be able to voice it. If you can't do this, find a place where you can do it.
If you are a beginner, then confirming your arguments with facts can be difficult at first. You may also not immediately see the perspective. First, get enough valuable experience, and then start expressing your opinion. If you try to take the lead prematurely, it can ruin your reputation.
Accept criticism well
You do not want to feel resistance when you criticize others. You need other people to control themselves long enough to think about what you say to them and decide that you can be right.
Similarly, others should be able to criticize you. Do not be a person discarding any feedback they don’t like. You need people to see problems in what you are doing. You need other people to know that you are able to accept objections. Take criticism well - because you expect the same from others.
Invent, incorporate, consider
When you are trying to define a project’s vision and strategy — and this should be done for any project, regardless of its size or importance — involve other people in it. And not just to make a good impression on them. Do this because you cannot properly define a project without talking to the shareholders and team members.
You may be a genius, but this does not negate the fact that people achieve better results in the form of an organized group, rather than alone.
A well-managed group is one that has a clear leader who makes the final decision, and at least one “adversary” who must find flaws in ideas, make people prove their viability and how they should think through their ideas.
Also, such groups should not consist of a large number of people - they should consist only of those whose opinion is very important for making decisions. It is necessary to collect opinions, learn about all the options - but also do not forget that there is a big difference between superficial opinion and the ability to delve into the essence of the problem. In addition, after spending a lot of time thinking about all the options, you will later begin the direct execution of the project.
Increase your education
Companies are not made up of UX specialists alone. They consist of marketing specialists, accountants, salespeople, product managers, bosses, programmers. There may be no other UX specialists in the company at all. But you need a group of people who can make good decisions about design, because alone you can't take them all. And you do not have time to correct all the mistakes that people who do not understand UX will make.
Therefore, you need to arm them. To equip with the ability to delve into the essence of the problem, with knowledge, techniques, best practices, design standards - with everything that can be used to make good design decisions. Explain all your recommendations. Give examples of design standards applicable in your case. Explain how to make decisions so that people can at least try to do it themselves. And do it all the time.
If you start from scratch, this practice will not pay off soon. But you will enjoy it; people will begin to respect you for your knowledge; and someday it all pays off. People with bad ideas will turn into people with good ideas. They will become people who will help you do a wonderful job.
Teach them to train.
The main part of your job as a UX specialist is not to design, but to sell your ideas. You need to convince people that your recommendations are worthy, thoughtful, and most likely correct. They are based on your experience and research that you can provide during the presentation of your idea.
The same is true for everyone else on your team. If you are part of a team, be sure to teach other people how to sell your ideas. Make sure that they know how to prove their point of view, and that they understand that this needs to be done. If you cannot convince people, you will not succeed. The same is true for them.
Clear the way
Dear managers: there are many differences between management and leadership. But to argue about this makes no sense. And the point is to understand the difference between what you really need to manage and what you usually manage. Often these are different things.
Usually run by people. Managers think they are paid to organize, delegate and track. It is a myth.
People want to do their job well. This part of human nature. They need to be proud of their achievements. If it seems to them that they cannot do it, it usually happens because they think that circumstances do not allow them to do it; because their version of what “good work” is different from yours; because you cannot correctly assess what “good” is. In any case, the best way to solve a problem is to do it directly.
In addition, you have an advantage that does not exist in other industries: you work in the web industry. People start doing this work from the heart, they become absolute fans of this work, they love it, they eat it for breakfast.
You do not need to manage people working in the web industry. You need to manage things that prevent these people from working. Your job is not to tell them what to do, but to remove obstacles from their path so they can do what they already want to do. Clear them a path, give them the space they need to do their work.
If you do everything in your power to give them what they need to do the work, but they still don’t do it, then you have problems. But, most likely, this will not happen.
Let them cultivate
And again for managers: there was once a novice designer in my team who really wanted to do strategy. He told me about it at least three times, while we unsuccessfully tried to get rid of technical debts. He felt he was doing less than he could, and he wanted to do something more.
Soon after, the project I was working on went to the stage of starting development. The first step was to define a strategy. I really wanted to do this on my own. But I gave this part of the work to him. I said that I could always tell him something and answer his questions, but he could manage the project.
Unnoticed by him, I myself asked him questions in the course of the project, which should have pushed his thoughts in the right direction. And he excelled at this project, and proved its worth in many ways and to many people. He learned in the process of different things, which, in the end, made him a strategic thinker.
I repeat: people working in the web industry already want to do something wonderful. They want to learn, they want to do more, build more, design more and produce more projects. They are hungry - so feed them.
When someone needs a chance to improve their skills, find an opportunity to give them that chance. When a project suitable for a person appears, give it to him. Even if you yourself want to do it. In 9 cases out of 10 this person will manifest himself. And both of you will benefit.
Make an impact at every opportunity.
In the work of every professional on UX there is an internal and external part. To lead on this front, you must be a leader both outside the team and inside. Every time you communicate with people who are not UX professionals, use this opportunity to explain and show them how you make decisions. To talk about how users see and perceive things, and how your company should want them to see them.
We teach people how to treat us. All UX experts on the planet should behave intelligently, prudently, intelligently, and be committed to their work so that the rest of the people in their organization treat them the same way.
Hire the right people
Again for managers: a few months ago I was sitting on a chair in front of an audience at the Capitol Factory in Austin, Texas. Next to me was Harry Max, vice president of design at Rackspace, and a man whom people will remember forever as the developer of the first shopping cart on the site.
We all gave our lectures and took questions from the audience. Several dozen people looked at us, and none of us knew what questions they would ask us. The third or fourth of them made us jittery: “How do you determine who to hire?”.
That is, when you invite crowds of candidates to your place, greet them, answer questions - how do you know which one is good and who is bad if you don’t know anything about UX and how you can evaluate its success ?
This question is not easy to answer. You can write volumes, and such volumes have already been written - about what UX is, why and how much it affects the business, and what skills are needed to successfully run your business or project. People who include UX in their title have different experiences. Some have a degree in cognitive psychology, someone is an expert in usability. Some have just graduated from design school. There are even those who have been doing this for many years in an organization in which they are treated as a special kind of typesetters.
You need to distinguish these people from each other. There is one way to choose a good professional or a person with good potential: look for the person asking the best questions.
media.mediatemple.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/question-marks-street-opt.jpg
A UX specialist can ask different questions: about users, about business, about problems, about needs, previous decisions, team, goals. A good UX specialist wants to see the whole picture.
They do not choose colors - they ask questions in order to understand how, where and when to use which of the colors. They do not develop appearance - they ask questions to determine significance, priorities, meanings. They are not waiting to be told what to do. They are leaders.
If you are interviewing a UX candidate, and you ask all the questions yourself, you can end the interview. This is not the specialist you are looking for.
Always consider psychology
Psychology is at the heart of design. Everything else is the art of decorating or something else. Design is a plan, and a plan needs a certain result. For design to succeed, human psychology must be at its center. No user will treat the product the way you want it, until you think about why he is talking to him, how he will work with him, and then not taking all this into account.
Something can be used to convince the user of the value of the product. Something to move him to certain actions. Something will surprise users, calm, make laugh or cause irritation. Whatever your intentions, this approach needs to be applied to all design decisions.
However, it is easy to forget that others do not think about your product as you do. They do not understand that psychology is at the heart of design. One of my clients said exactly this: “There is so much psychology here!”. And I replied: "You are selling, and develop your product in this way."
Tell about psychology. Explain to people that UX is much more than checkboxes and radio buttons. UX is psychology applied to design.
Share merit
People like it when they get what they deserve. They also like being praised in case praise is appropriate. Therefore, share the merits. And people will love you.
But among other things, it will allow you to bring the matter to the end. This, of course, is counterintuitive, but when you share your merits, people will also praise you in return. Concentrate on building a team of people who respect each other. Concentrate on creating a reputation for your team, not for yourself. Worry about getting the task right, not about putting your name on the project. Do not worry - you get your praise.
Be unreasonable
“An intelligent person is adapting to the world,” said George Bernard Shaw. - The foolish one insists on adapting the world to himself. Therefore, all progress rests on unreasonable people. ”
It sounds selfish - but it is not. This does not mean that you need to redo all, so that they look like you. This means that you need to try to raise the world to your quality standards. We must try to make the world such that it fits the standards. You are a designer, so use your special abilities.
If something turns out badly - get rid of it. If there is a flaw in something, point to it and suggest improvements, because the complaints themselves are useless. If you haven’t done something that needed to be done - tell me why, and if this is an important enough thing, grab it. If only you are worried about something, but you do not care enough about it - it will not happen by itself.
Progress comes when people work on it. They defend their point of view. They make good arguments. They convince, they challenge, they prove. That is how the seat belt was invented. This is how user experience has become a common concept and a necessary thing. 15 years ago, far fewer people worked on this. Then it was difficult, but it was worth it.
Do not be reasonable - be successful.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/292998/
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