What I really do
When I started my lead role, I was handed a list of responsibilities that I would be taking onboard.
Here it is:
Creating and implementing experience strategy for assigned portfolio, designing high level concepts to set vision and presenting to executive leadership to gain buy-in.
Working closely with the portfolio research lead to plan exploratory and evaluative research activity across a portfolio of project initiatives.
Directing team members across the end to end UX process through problem space definition, ideation and concept creation, detailed design and validation.
Oversee the delivery of design across multiple Agile scrum teams, managing issues escalated by team, and actively managing stakeholder relationships across and beyond project portfolio.
Working closely with other UXD Leads to ensure strategic alignment of feature delivery across assets, contribute to implementation of design practice initiatives and manage resourcing across assigned portfolio.
Mentoring and conducting performance reviews and development conversations with direct reports, and providing constructive feedback on outputs of juniors and peers.
Driving design culture at CBA within the Experience chapter and beyond, & advocating for UXD in the broader organisation.
This was very helpful at the time because there’s no playbook handed to you at this level - moving from working with your peers to managing them.
Someone told me it was a ‘step sideways’ which made it sound easy. The truth is, all the theory doesn’t actually prepare you for the reality. I’ve managed designers in smaller agencies before, but in a large, complex corporate environment you’re working across a team of 10, not just one or two designers.
What is truly important
As I stumbled through the first six months of my role, there were plenty of hard knocks (I’ll save that for another time) - but I soon realised two very important tasks were missing from that original list.
Hire sh!t hot designers
Keep sh!t hot designers
If nothing else, you could be a good manager if you successfully accomplish these two tasks. Of course, you also need to attract potential suitors - but again, another problem space for another day.
At the end of the day, designers are people and the success of your job depends on being surrounded by great, diverse community of thinkers, doers and collaborators.
Lastly - what is shi!t hot? What you’re picturing probably isn’t what I have in mind. I’ll post my definition in my next post.
Thanks for reading!