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[IA Summit 2008] 'Managing A Strategic UX Team' Model
Posted Friday April 18, 2008

If you’re managing (or part of) a team inside of a large corporate organization, then you’re familiar with the difficulties of juggling strategic and tactical concerns. This was the focus of my poster for the this year’s IA Summit. So, for all you ‘innies’ running a strategic User Experience Design group, here’s a model for you:

Download the Managing A Strategic UX Team Poster (pdf file)

[CLARIFICATION: Since creating this, I’ve joined Viewzi — I no longer work in the corporate environment in which this was produced…]

The Problem that led to this model
In my experience, we’re frequently asked “what are you working on?” Many times this is just a conversation starter. And other times, if it’s a project owner, that person really only want to hear you say “yes, we’re working on your project.” But at the executive level, the question is a strategic one: what is it that you are working on that is either going to make me look good and/or benefit the business. In these circumstances, we’ve two challenges:

1. address their concerns, but also
2. communicate how the things about the UX practice that they may not understand but are linked to top level strategic goals.

This is a communication problem. And a difficult question for UX groups to answer succinctly, given the breadth of activities that we are working on at any given moment—from ‘order taking’ on interface efforts to design research, internal presentations, technology experiments, or perfecting our ping pong skills.

But more than a communication problem, this is a strategic planning challenge: As a leader in a company, I have to be able to defend how every bit of our time fits into the overall strategic direction. This is especially the case where resources are tight and you have to make trade-off and priority decisions that don’t sit well with some.

3 Boxes Model
I’m a big fan of models—especially models that ‘get it right’, making simple the complex and providing a platform on which people can map their activities.

So when I came across the 3 Boxes Model from Vijay Govindarajan, I found it to be one those rare occasions where someone has framed the strategic conversation in a way that is easy (very easy!) to understand and can be built upon by almost any group inside an organization.

The ’3 Boxes’ are:

• Manage the present
• Selectively Abandon the Past
• Create the Future

...which are then rolled into these into 2 groups:

• competing for the present
• competing for the future

Brilliant. The 3 Boxes apply to all business units, project teams or disciplines. The resulting groups— competing for the present / competing for the future— are the perfect frame by which to evaluate where you’re time is being spent. Which leads me to…

Proactive and reactive work
When I arrived at my corporate gig, it was agreed that to be successful (truly successful), the UX group would need to split our time between ‘proactive’ and ‘reactive’ work. Different words, same idea.

Reactive work consists of funded projects for this year— enhancements, incremental changes, new projects building upon existing structures. It’s this kind of work that most folks expect from a tactical UX group (aka ‘order takers’). And this is the work that demonstrates short-term value. Of course to a good design team this is the work that can be immensely frustrating—like straightening deck chairs on the Titanic. But, to quote Thomas Dolby: “A few years in the music business taught me that you don’t invest ahead of the revenue curve.”

Proactive work consists of those future ideas we have around how things should be (and could be, given a reframing of the problem to be solved). This could simply be the ‘ideal’ version of the reactive projects we’re working on. Or, these ‘future ideas’ could be a radically different take on what’s possible and valuable given our understanding of business and customer goals. Of course, these solutions might potentially poke at the business model or challenge the technology infrastructure—which is to be expected as one leg of the 3-legged stool.

One problem with this language— proactive and reactive — is that they only suggest user interface or project related work—which is only the end result of a bigger process. Between ‘proactive’ and ‘reactive’ efforts, there are a score of other initiatives that have nothing to do directly with any particular project or product design—training, brown bag lunches, design research, persona creation, guidelines and standards, etc.

There was another big problem. Not surprisingly, this language didn’t stick. ‘Proactive’ work began to be associated with the ‘fun, sexy stuff’ that was keeping us from doing the real work. Of course, this perspective is flawed— there’s a world of difference between work and progress. And anyone spending more than a few days with us quickly recognized the strategic value our UX group offered. We would never be satisfied with ‘putting lipstick on a pig’.

Putting it all together
So, a simple change in language sent me down the path that led to this model. I had already listed the many different activities we were or would need to be engaged in, and thinking in terms of competing for the present or the future proved to be the perfect base to layer these activities to… End result, this was a great framework for me to explain all of our efforts to my peers and upper management in a way that is strategic and not tactical.

And now…?
What I’m most curious about is whether this framework would work elsewhere, or is this only applicable to the culture in which it was created? I’m curious to see how these generalized activities translate into other companies and other UX Design groups with different cultures and roles within the organization.

So, now it’s your turn, innies. How does this work (or not work) for you?