Capabilities

Strategy, Leadership
& the Value of Design

I have built a career around my passion for creating positive change with design–I regularly coach others on the value and application of design within their context

Whatever the industry, whatever the scope, I believe deeply in the tools and methods designers have to create positive impact–whether that is for a customer experience online or in person, associate process, technical platform, greater good within the local community, or even change within our society at large. I teach others about how to harness the power of design through micro and macro strategies alongside my cross disciplinary leadership team, coaching, and teaching courses inside and outside of my day job.

I offer experience in design leadership, design strategy, service design, design research, organizational design, design education, user experience, communication design, systems design, and complexity theory application.

I split my time between these three areas of focus :

Business Strategy

I am a strategic partner alongside my cross disciplinary leadership peers within product, tech, and other business subject matter experts to make sure we are in alignment around vision and how to get there through workstream scoping, team structure, ceremonies, and general approach to how we are working efficiently toward organizational goals.

People Leadership

Building, growing, advocating for, and leading design teams is something I care about deeply. In close coordination with business strategy, I align designers with the most impactful work that also aligns with their career goals, resource budgeting, recruiting, and semi-annual talent management efforts. I’m accountable for people and team growth.

Design Advocacy

I am constantly selling design–whether I am breaking down a method that will help the team move ahead, presenting a case study and the impact of design to another team, coaching my people to emphasize the importance of their work, teaching an enterprise wide course to non designers and/or designers. I aim to act as a beacon for the value of design.

COACHING DESIGNERS & NON DESIGNERS

DESIGN RESEARCH

agency-corp-0044-comp

The higher the quality of the research the higher the quality of the solution. Below are some examples of primary and secondary research I have experience with:

– Interviews: 1:1, group
– Ethnography: observation, diary
– Surveys–various platforms
– Co-creation workshops
– Collaborative making 1:1
– Card sorting
– Heuristic evaluation
– Competitive analysis

SYNTHESIS & STRATEGY

Making research actionable is key to the success of any project. Often that translation layer of learning to “so what” challenges teams. Methods I have coached them through:

– Affinity diagramming
– Blueprint development
– Personas, archetypes
– Experience principles
– Project roadmaps
– North star development
– KPI, OKR creation, measurement
– Analytics assessments

FACILITATION

agency-corp-0076-comp

Aligning across disciplines, teams, or otherwise can be one of the most challenging aspects of the work to maintain momentum. I have facilitated groups of up to 100 for:

– Vision creation, refinement
– Context gathering
– Group sense making
– Co-creation, ideation
– Mapping exercises
– Prioritization activities
– Strategic planning
– Educational workshops

CREATIVE CONCEPTING

agency-corp-0020-comp

Co-creative concepting activities are key to shaping next steps regarding prioritization, resourcing, and workstream development. I offer and mentor others within these areas:

– Sketches–paper, digital
– Storyboards
– User journey maps
– Experience maps
– Wireframes
– Womps–wireframe comps
– Interactive demos
– Body, service storms

PROTOTYPING, TESTING

agency-corp-0076-comp

I have both taught, through courses, and recommended, through day to day activities, various means to learn through prototyping–for desirability and usability testing:

– Paper, digital prototypes
– Spacial prototypes
– Scenario role playing
– Co-creative drawing
– Usability testing
– A/B testing
– MVP scaling
– Analytics analysis

ANALYSIS & ITERATION

oshin-portrait-0017

I coach teams around success metrics, how they gather them, and how they will continue to iterate upon an MVP, or first round, product. I often oversee a researcher here:

– Learning plans
– Key results tracking
– Analytics tracking
– User feedback collection
– Future feature prioritization
– Roadmapping features
– Quality assurance reviews
– Resource requests for staffing

CAPABILITIES