a Macintosh girl in a Microsoft world
I unabashedly love democratizing user research. I didn t always think this way. In fact, I used to have the opposite view: no one who isn t a skilled user researcher should conduct user research. If you talked to me earlier in my career, including the time when I first started writing this blog, I would have Continue reading Shadow IT, shadow research, and democratizing research
In a previous role, I hired Parker[1], who was pivoting from a successful career as a front-end software engineer to a career as a user researcher. Parker had learned about user research when they left a small bootstrapped startup. They got a Senior Engineer role at a big tech company and started meeting their colleagues Continue reading career pivot challenges
In the current tech jobs market, I ve talked to a lot of folks who were looking for their next role. Instead of simply diving straight in and looking for something very similar to their previous role, I think it s worthwhile to take a step back and be thoughtful about what that next role should be. Continue reading the work you love and the work you don t
I ve had some conversations lately with folks who are feeling stuck and not sure how to move forward. They are getting great feedback from their peers and their boss, and yet they are still feeling exhausted and unable to see a future in which they re not feeling this way. They might think that they re flirting Continue reading what gives you energy?
Elpha invited me to write about leading an effective design organization. Here s what I had to say:
Layoff. Reduction in force. Redundancy. No matter what word you put on it, a layoff is one of the hardest things for a manager to lead through. It s natural to feel overwhelmed in this situation, regardless of whether you re the decision-maker on who is leaving the company. You will have your own feelings about what Continue reading managing through layoffs
Finding your next role is a difficult but important challenge. How do you know what you re looking for? You could simply look for your current job title, or maybe the next job title on the ladder, but that doesn t help you know whether that s a good job for you. When I m trying to figure out Continue reading identifying what you want in your next role
As a leader, delegation is one of the most important things to do. You have to learn how to delegate effectively, what to delegate, how to support someone who you ve delegated to, and how to hold them accountable. As a recovering perfectionist, I ve also had to learn how to let go of how I imagine Continue reading the fine art of delegation
One of my mentees, a newly-minted director, asked how to evaluate the performance of the managers who now report to them. We were discussing some of the differences as you move from manager to director and how to make the shift in mindset. Measuring the effectiveness of individual contributors (ICs) is relatively straightforward. Are they Continue reading evaluating the performance of managers
The most recent episode of the Awkward Silences podcast from User Interviews has a brilliant interview with Holly Hester-Reilly about common mistakes that are made when planning, conducting, analyzing, and sharing user research. When she discussed planning user research, she talked about needing to understand what decisions would be driven by the user research. This Continue reading the decisions…