UX Leadership Potential ProgramInterview Results and Design Direction

UXLT input and approval• December 14 UXLT meeting

• Audience definitions• Program goals• Program components

• January UXLT interviews

• March UXLT meeting• UX leadership potential areas of focus• Asks: Program design, budget, approval

AudienceLevels 61 to 64Outstanding contribution ratingAchieved or exceeded commitment ratingDemonstrates ability

Ability as a Leader in the UX DisciplineAbility as a UX Leader in his/her Business GroupPerformance (in line with CSP)

Demonstrates commitmentCommitment to Microsoft’s customersCommitment to remain at Microsoft and within the UX Discipline

Demonstrates aspirationDistribution across UX teamsParticipation supported by manager

Goal

To improve user experience with Microsoft products and services by identifying and developing the key skills of emerging leaders in the UX discipline

Benefits• Microsoft benefits

• More valuable products• Employee retention

• UX community benefits• Creates solutions for the toughest problems facing MS UX today• Enhances community• Develops leadership successors across UX and business• Raises visibility of new leaders across discipline leadership

• Individual benefits• Accelerates leadership competence and career path• Deepens understanding of business, technology, and user-related systems• Heightens Self-Awareness• Moves toward qualification for other bench programs• Connects future leaders with current thought leaders• Forms cross group and personal bonds for mutual support and growth

InterviewsFocus QuestionsCompetencies – Priority Identify the 2 competencies that you feel are most important for successful leaders (mgrs

and above) in the UX Discipline at Microsoft.

Competencies – Gaps Identify the 2 competencies that you feel represent the most critical gaps in the skills set of the potential leaders in the current workforce.

Business Results – Priority Identify the 2 business results areas that you feel are most important for successful leaders (mgrs and above) in the UX Discipline at Microsoft.

Business Results – Gaps Identify the 2 business results areas that you feel represent the most critical gaps in the skills set of the potential leaders in the current workforce.

Experiences What experiences (2-3) in your career were pivotal in developing the skills that have made you successful in the UX discipline at Microsoft?

Results

Top UX leadership development areas• Strategic Thinking• User Experience Vision• Communication• Organizational Agility / Dealing with Ambiguity

Strategic thinking• Objective: Enable decision-making that is aligned with

business, technology and user experience strategies• Understand Microsoft strategies and their impact on people,

processes, and values• Understand competitor strategies and their impact on people,

processes, and values• Align and prioritize based on strategies

User Experience Vision• Objective: Improve ability to develop a unique, user

experience vision of a product• Link product /feature vision to business strategy

Communication• Objective: Articulate a product/feature vision

• Communicate effectively in persuasive ways; integrate data and user experience insight into solutions

• Analyze stakeholders and align with their priorities and strategies • Articulate how the vision furthers the business strategy

Dealing with Ambiguity, Organizational Agility

• Objective: Develop strategies to drive results amidst ambiguity• Understand the role of a leader in defining business results and

delivering on strategy

Design Principles• Empirically based program design process• Utilize action learning • Alignment with 70-20-10 Theory of Learning• Alignment to User Experience CSPs• Focus application to discipline-specific business results• Clear accountability

• Owner: Surya Vanka• Approver: Brad Weed (or designated UXLT member), Irada

Sadykhova • Reviewer: UXLT• Participants: Katie Schwartzenburg, Ken Fry

Design Principles• Central Element: Task Force (Action Learning) to address hard

problem that is relevant to user experience discipline, engineering profession, and/or Microsoft strategy.

• Interactive workshops to develop targeted skills relevant to program objectives.

• Project-based experiences to solve hard problem and build individual competencies.

• Program design recognizes the potential leader likely will not gain this experience on the job

Next Steps

Validation of Goals, Objectives by UXLT, Budget Allocation March

Design Proposal and Approval March – April

Development, Vendor Engagement beginning April

Launch Early next FY

Interview Results: Experiences

New Companies / New Groups

• Understand corporate culture and figure out how to ‘fit’ into existing system• Ambiguity• Building business from ground up• Moving to an acquired company• Build a program from scratch• Turn around a trouble group• Experience a well-thought-out collaboration process where design was integral to process• Build reputation from the ground up

Existing Businesses

• Freedom to lead where UX was considered of central importance• Redefinition of Product• Successful refinement of UX strategy• Freedom to lead as sole designer

Exposure

• Exposure to Broad Business Leaders• Successful partnership with other disciplines• Involvement in initiatives beyond UX

Personal • shock of bad review lead to the realization that “you have to be the one to alter behavior if you want to get something done”

• Uncharted research territory

Competency: CommunicationCritical Competency Skill / Behavior Gap• Communicate well with business partners • Empathic communication skills: Ability to articulate

thought that others can understand through multiple media… make people come to work and enjoy it. Make folks feel good about what they do.

• Communication: Know audience, persuasiveness (at high level, not trying to cajole people); articulation of issues and presentation of problem. Empathetic

• Map language into domain-dominant language in which I work. Tie into rest of business entities

• Situational awareness in communication • Strong point of view of User Experience and Value.

Communicate the vision effectively• Great people skills and great communication skills. Know

what you are talking about. Interface with different people. Inspire to own. Articulate vision.

• Understanding what it is that the business leaders need; how to communicate effectively with them… spend lots of time focusing on communication to designers and developers. Focus conversation in domain of design.

• Situational awareness in communication • Number of teams that are weak (cannot take a stand and

impact the conversation) as leaders are not great communicators and not technically proficient. This may be attributable to the fact that we promote people too quickly from doing the work to become the lead – they become resource managers and they no longer engage in prioritization, relationship between work; aloof from what the real people are doing. That’s also how you use ability to be the inspirational leader

• Holistic thinking blurs the lines of software and hardware… also dabble in marketing. Storytellers. Smart stories, strategic, user considered. Relevant.

Result: Organizational AgilityCritical Business Result Result Gap• Relationship with product teams • Effective designers / researchers > discipline agnostic > not

hung up on roles and responsibilities > quick to find centers of gravity who are achieving results and attach themselves > proactively attaching themselves to it… not waiting for the invite > dropping the ego

• Design: Pull back the reigns when a dev team is moving forward on one solution… envision multiple solutions in rough form before a dev team moves too far on one type or another

• Partnership with program managers (education and assessment): can we provide training to the right set of PMs to develop design skills / evaluate potential PMs for the design skills >

• Design Territorialism – (all design has to come through “us” and you can’t call yourself a designer unless you’re in ODG)

Competency: UX VisionCritical Competency Skill / Behavior Gap• Strong point of view of User Experience and

Value• Communicate the vision effectively• Great people skills and great communication

skills • know what you are talking about • interface with different people • inspire to own • articulate vision

• Result: to set architecture, direction, etc. • Currently have people playing process leadership roles but not as

many people architecting the experienceUX supports another person designing thisSame level of influence and drive on experience direction and vision often seen as preview of Program Management

• Few people who can be inspirational with regard to the discipline. Several people who can make things work, but that work is dull. Great people come here for passion, intent to do great stuff. Lots of people who can do great work do unseen work

Business Results: UX Vision Critical Business Result Result Gap • Identify gaps without being told and figure out how to

fix them > kts interpretation: strategic thinking, formulation and presentation of problem

• How UX can uniquely address pain points, vision can drive prioritization, activities, etc., build relationships and articulate where the business is going

• Figure out what is the big bet and what UX does within that

• Design is looked at as a luxury given X amount of time > still a lower priority

• Inspiration• Features not benefits not an overarching picture: UX

can bring that to the process but we’re not in the position to do this right now, bridging the gap between UX and marketing / content publishing.

• Not equipped to make the case for spending on UX• Integration between teams in product lines > we have

very inconsistent UIs (office, windows)

Engagement • Drive initiative through Discipline Leadership Teams• Centralized oversight by Learning Strategies Program Manager

• Drive core and common components• Standardization

• Needs analysis • Program design principles• Participant nomination / selection• Program evaluation

• Administration by Pipeline Owners and Knowledge Engineers

• Event support from EE Events Manager• Biz Ops support

Discipline-Specific Elements

• Action Learning• Skill- based Training (soft and technical skills)• Competency-based Training• Networking• Mentoring• Coaching• Exchange Programs• Exposure to Leaders

Common Program Elements

Potential Program Components

• In-depth Assessment (MS360)• Discipline-specific leadership and

performance messages • Development Planning

• Transition info• Reflection• Development

Planning

Opening Event Closing Event

Program Evaluation

Quantitative• Job Impact (self-

reported)• Retention / Attrition • Promotional Velocity• High Potential

Indicator

Qualitative• Impact• Leadership Presence • Engagement• Strategic or Systems

Thinking