Maximize Your Impact: Adding Strategic Value to Your Tactical Work
Whether you’re frustrated with feeling like you lack agency in your work, or you're looking to take your UX game to the next level by incorporating strategic outcomes into your tactical deliverables, this podcast episode is essential listening. Learn how to incorporate strategic objectives into your tactical deliverables, speak to the value of your work, and become a more effective UX practitioner, regardless of your level of experience.
This week I’m joined by my long-time friend, colleague, and UX Strategy expert Laura Barboza for the beginning of our 4th season of UX Cake!
Laura and I explore the differences between strategic and tactical work in UX research and design. We start by discussing why it's so important to incorporate strategic objectives into your tactical deliverables. After all, without a bigger picture in mind, your work may lack direction and purpose.
We give you practical tips for adding strategic outcomes to your tactical UX deliverables in both research and design. We discuss the challenges that designers and researchers may face and possible pushback from stakeholders who are more focused on short-term goals, and how to speak to the value of your efforts and tie it back to user and business objectives. By being clear on these objectives from the start, you can ensure that everything ties back to the larger strategic goals.
At the heart of this episode is the message that everyone, regardless of level, can and should think more strategically in their work. By understanding the bigger picture and incorporating strategic outcomes into your tactical deliverables, you can become a more effective UX practitioner and build products that truly meet the needs of your users.
So, whether you're new to UX or a seasoned practitioner looking to up your game, be sure to listen to this engaging and informative podcast episode - or watch the video! You'll come away with practical tips and strategies that you can implement right away to take your UX work to the next level.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Leigh Arredondo 00:02
UX Cake is all about developing the layers, you need to be more effective in your work and to be happy and fulfilled in your career. I'm your host, Lee Allen-Arredondo. And I'm a UX leader and leadership coach. Hello, and welcome to UX cake. Today we are talking about how to insert strategic objectives into tactical work in UX. And this applies to research and design since that's where we're coming from. But I think that there's going to be a lot of ideas you can apply to any work that you do, where you're doing tactical work, and you want to be effecting strategic level work. So this is a special episode, because it's the first episode of season four. And that's exciting to be in season four. And it's also special because I'm very excited to be joined by my very dear friend, longtime colleague, former business partner, Laura Barboza. Laura, long time listeners might remember you from multiple episodes. In season one, I just went through to look at all the different times that we talked together on UX cake, and there were a few. So for folks who are not familiar with Laura, she is a seasoned user experience leader herself and a teacher and currently teaching at SBC, which is the School of Visual Concepts. And most recently, strategy and research director at agencies artifact and blink. Both of those are global agencies, here in base here in Seattle, also formerly at REI, and for really consultant to very large companies, very small startups. So experience in a lot of different environments, like myself, we have that in common. So thank you so much for joining me again, on UX cake, Laura.
laura barboza 02:16
happy to be here. Lee, thanks for inviting me over and over again. And it's always a pleasure to chat with you. Yeah.
Leigh Arredondo 02:24
Likewise. I mentioned that you've already been on multiple episodes. And since this is season four, I think it's kind of fun to think back at the very first introduction episode for the entire Podcast, episode 000. In February of 2018, you and I introduced it together. And yeah, that a lot has happened since then, huh?
laura barboza 02:56
It sure has, or is the event later? Here
Leigh Arredondo 02:59
we are. Yeah. And a two year hiatus in there. 2020 2021, which was just ridiculous years for everybody?
laura barboza 03:11
Of course. Yeah. But you made it through. And you know, the conversation continues. That's the That's the wonderful part.
Leigh Arredondo 03:18
Yeah, yeah, we both have made it through a lot of different things. Since then, episodes 11 and 12. We talked about going into consulting. So that's something both of us have done. Like at varying times in our career, you know, going back and forth between full time and consulting. And then in Episode 16, you were on a panel about giving more effective presentations, Shark proofing your presentations, I had to laugh, remembering how you were Oh, my God, you saved my skin on that one. Because it was a live episode in front of there were a lot of people showed up. And we're waiting for one of the panelists. And I text her and she's like, Oh, I have the flu. I'm like, what is it? So you thanks for letting me know. Yeah, yeah, really? So yeah. You very graciously agreed to join the panel. And it was great. It was a great panel, and you rounded it out? Yeah.
laura barboza 04:28
Yeah. It was. It was a good time. Do I remember that? Like, is that how engaged everybody was?
Leigh Arredondo 04:34
Yeah, I sure do love live events, and I hope to bring them back. It will happen this year. Yeah. It's a lot of work. So it was helpful to have partners, like companies that were partnering with me to help those happen. Yeah, so now we're into a new season season four. And I think really the only difference this season? Well, the the biggest difference, I think, is I'm trying this a different approach with the format and having more conversations versus kind of quote unquote, interviews. And I think a lot of the interviews I've done have felt like conversations, and I've always gotten really good feedback from other people about how they enjoyed the conversation. And, and when I think about the pod, the podcasts that I like to listen to, they are often conversations versus interviews and topical. So I mean, it's always been topical. So that won't change. But I did record one episode already in this new format, and found that it is very difficult for me, actually, I tend to fall back on into interviewer mode. And so, it
laura barboza 06:02
might be, you know, it's hard to separate the two, I think, right? I think interviews can and sometimes should be more conversational, right? Just that people at ease, and just have a little more of a comfortable environment. Not feel like we're being interrogated at all. But I do the same thing, even with my brand. Lee, like, I have conversations with them. And every now and then I'm like, why did that happen? And how does that make you feel? And I go into I go into research mode, right, with my own friends about, you know, very, you know, personal topics. But I think it's it's because that's that's a good conversation, a conversation where you're maybe asking for a little bit more, maybe digging or better understanding and, and also keeping it light. Because, you know, we're we're not, we're not hired to have these conversations. Right. We have them because our hearts are blessed to have them.
Leigh Arredondo 07:00
Yeah. Yeah. And that's a good point. A conversation is about asking questions between two people or, you know, as many people are in the conversation, it's, those are, I think, the most fulfilling conversations anyway, where you can actually get into some some interesting territory when people are asking questions of each other and not just sort of talking about themselves or their own experience. So
laura barboza 07:31
yeah, it's about engaging, I think the people involved and not that we need more engagement with each other, because they think your your conversations with me are always very easy. Vice versa. But yeah, I think it's about engagement. Right, making sure you know, everybody's still present. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Leigh Arredondo 07:53
Well, I knew that you would be a perfect person to have a conversation with because we always, we often have great conversations. So yeah, I'm also excited because this topic, specifically around how to insert strategy when you're doing tactical work, is something that you and I both have lots of examples and ideas to share. So I think it's going to be a great opportunity for listeners, or watchers of UX cake as well. So maybe we should dive in? Let's do it. I was thinking that perhaps we should take a minute to talk about what we mean by strategic work versus tactical work. And, and you and I may even have different sort of ideas about what what we're thinking when we talk about it. But what do you think you were interested when I first brought this subject up? So what are you thinking about? What, what we mean by strategic work versus tactical work? What's the difference between those two things?
laura barboza 09:07
Well, for me, what that means is, and I'm going to talk about it from like a research standpoint, before I talk about it at a more broad, body, like level, but for me, I think that strategic work, particularly in research is really about foundational, generative insights that help you kind of understand the environment, the person, the emotions, everything that's involved. Before we even get to, like solutioning right before we get to a point where we're trying to understand whether one approach is going to work over another approach better I like about thinking bigger, it's about being more kind of end to end thinking and, and maybe creating a little bit more space for lack of a better term, right. I think a strategy container is a much bigger container but because there's so much involved, that it requires a little bit more organization or requires a little bit more thought. And it's also a place to play, right to think about what the possibilities were for tactical work, it's a little bit more precise, it may be something that's already been decided it's a direction that we're going on, and we're committed to. And in that space is a smaller container in my, in my experience, or in my mind, because there's not a ton of wiggle room within a practical container. As I mentioned, things have already kind of been decided. And now we're just really trying to figure out how we're going to do the thing, or ship the thing or, essentially work within those parameters. Or strategy kind of again, you have kind of a little bit more space to think bigger. And even though there are some parameters on the strategy container, sometimes there's still a little bit more room to like, move around and be creative and think, think about the full experience of whatever it is that we're working with, whether that's just for a consumer product, or whether we're thinking about the working environment of the people offering that service, or the partners that they work with to make that happen. So it's a lot more complex, maybe for lack of a better word.
Leigh Arredondo 11:29
Yeah, I like how you describe it as a bigger container. I think of strategy as a much higher level, objective or vision. In fact, actually, I think a strategy is the objectives that get you to a vision or two a big goal, perhaps. So when you talk about, it could be either the, the user's goal. So what, what is the user's goals, sometimes we don't even know. And we have to do strategic work to find that out, especially in research. Another sort of example of tactical versus strategic is the usability of something that's already created. And we're trying to figure out, you know, what improvements could we make versus generative research, where we're, we're looking for insights to help guide and inform what we're going to create?
laura barboza 12:32
Yeah, I, I'm thinking vividly of a slide that I usually include in all of my research classes, and that kind of separate, you know, strategic from tactical work, right. And I always presented as strategic is doing the right thing, versus tactical is doing the things right. And, obviously, the thing, the right things kind of carry over into the tactical side, one, those right things have been decided. But how to do those things, right and doing them right, is truly, as I mentioned, kind of that phase where we're, we're committed to a path and we're moving forward in this direction. And, and it's about figuring out like the best solution, not necessarily finding a solution in the strategy phase. Right? The strategy phase is a little bit more exploratory.
Leigh Arredondo 13:24
Yeah. Right. Yeah. So maybe we can talk a little bit about the why let's start with the why why is it important to try to put these some strategic objectives or outcomes into tactical research or design? And I think about as kind of two levels, right? Like, why is it important to do the work? And then why is it important for us to talk about it. But why it's important for us to do it is, so many times we're being asked to do tactical work in UX research and design. When there hasn't necessarily been the strategic work at the user level. Often, there's strategic work happening at the business level. But it doesn't necessarily always happen at the user level with aligning user goals and business goals, for example. And so often we're asked to do this tactical work and we watching users or understanding user behavior, can see how things might not meet the objective that the business is hoping for. That's one reason that I can think of why it's so important and why I have done it and I've I've had my ask my teams to do it in the past. What comes to mind for you Wow,
laura barboza 15:00
that's a great reason. I mean, obviously alignment at all level, all levels, right is is important. I think for me, it's it's really about understanding, right? If I think about like, like the essence of UX work for me user experience work is really about understanding the user experience. And the user experience goes above and beyond one screen, one page, one digital platform, right. And so when I think strategy, you know, I think about all of the things because when it comes back to understanding, we get to understand why the person engages why they need a particular solution, or product or service. It's really, it's really about like, really, really getting to know who your, who your audience is, who your customer is, so that we can ultimately build, right haptically build an experience that really does mean that person's full experience, not just a one, one piece of the experience, one touch point of the experience. Yeah, I want to bring it back to you, Lee, and kind of, you know, in the in the spirit of conversation, right, how how does it sound to you when I, when I mentioned, you know, this is about kind of understanding like a holistic story, a holistic, holistic understanding, you know, the audience, do you feel? How did that play with what you mentioned, in terms of aligning business goals with customer?
Leigh Arredondo 16:41
Yeah. That's a good question. Because I'm in 100% agreement with you, as far as that is what we should in UX in design and research or whatever specific work you're doing and UX, that is what we are responsible for. And we are more responsible for that than anyone else in the company, or the organization. Not that other people don't care about it, hopefully other people do care about it. And so it depends on where you work, whether you think other people care about it or not. But most places, no one cares about it quite as much as the folks who are in user experience disciplines. And I think so for me, aligning it to the business objectives is that piece where and we can talk about this more a little bit later, too, when we talk about challenges with doing this, but aligning it to business objectives is a key in not only really being strategic, but also, it's a key in making sure that it's valued by the others, you know, who are they might say customers are first. But that's not necessarily what their objectives or motivations are, as an individual or as a team. So,
laura barboza 18:32
you know, it's almost like strategy can happen at two different levels, right? Because I can see that there is business strategy happening on kind of the business side, right, they need to make X amount of money, they need to charge X amount of stuff, there's there's X amount and overhead, you know, etc, they have to have a business strategy to stay afloat, right to manage the business. But then there emerged strategy associated with that, because your customers are what keep your business alive, right? Without customers, you don't you can't sell a product or service or, you know, give what you're trying to give. So, there's times where I've seen this happen, where there's a lot of effort, you know, put into the business strategy piece, how to make money, how many people do we need, how many customers should buy, blah, blah, blah, but then there's not a lot of conversation around? How do we make it so that they, you know, we facilitate the profit for them? Or how do we ensure right, that those are really the customers will engage or track busier from an experience standpoint, and so it feels to meet them times that they're, you know, we might be doing that to us, the people are doing that kind of in our own corners of the business. We're not doing it with the business when they're doing business strategy work. So there's a disconnect, sometimes right? That happened between what the strategy for the business is versus what the strategy for the customer is. And so bringing those two together is me. But it doesn't always crop in. So I think for your point, Lee, that, that we, as UX people are kind of the Guardians be advocates for the customer experience or that end to end, you know, a pleasant engagement. We are the ones that usually have to kind of take that business strategy from a pie and bring it down to the CX, you know, customer level, and then think about like, Okay, what is the customer experience as it relates to the business experience. But we don't always have time to do that. We don't always have partners that help kind of align the two. And we have to be really mindful that because we can't just say, well, that doesn't work for that take it this way. Because this is what the customer needs, when it when it kind of the opposite direction of where the business wants to go.
Leigh Arredondo 21:04
Yeah, yeah. And that's why we have to, we've learned ways to be more strategic when we haven't been asked
laura barboza 21:15
to. That's right.
Leigh Arredondo 21:17
So that's really what we're talking about here is when you're in a situation where you you haven't necessarily been asked to do the strategic work. But there is some amount of strategic work that is needed. You know, how do you insert that into the tactical work that you've been asked to do? And, and with buy in, because if you don't get buy in, at some point along the way, sometimes you don't have to ask first. And I'm sure you and I will have plenty of examples of how to do it. But at some point along the way, you do have to get buy in, and we can talk about that as well. And one
laura barboza 22:02
thing I want to add leads to the to this point that you're making, is that anybody can be strictly check right at admin at any given time, it doesn't matter what your title is, it doesn't matter what your experience level is, it's almost like it's necessary for everybody to take kind of a strategic call when something is put on your plate, right? From a work standpoint, from if somebody comes to you and says, Hey, I need you to build this website, or I need you to create the feature for our digital product, or whatever the case might be. That's a tactical ask. But we can take a strategic pause, to ask more question, to get a better sense of like the lay of the land, and the business goals and the objectives and so many other things that are associated with the app, instead of just reactively. Thinking like, Okay, you're, you're here's your page, here's your feature, right, without asking any question, right? It's similar to me, when I think about how long we do research, right? The intention isn't to say, like, hey, pack them, or what do you want, and then come back and say, well, the customer wants it. But we need make, we the people in the middle are the ones that are kind of making sure that we understand what is needed, and then come up with what makes sense for everybody, the business and the customer. As ICS as in, you know, individual contributors, I almost forgot what it stood for. As individual contributors, we you know, we can take that pause and and ask the question, that's the strategic questions that are that are necessary, even if we're not in a position to, you know, change or direct the strategy?
Leigh Arredondo 23:43
Yeah, I'm really glad that you mentioned that, because I often see UX practitioners who don't think that they have any agency in the work that they are doing. There are a lot of reasons why. But or sometimes they might be wanting to do more strategic work, and they get frustrated, what they see as very tactical work. And so yeah, this is something that anyone can do. Sometimes you have to get creative about how you do it. And so that's what we're going to talk about is, you know, how can people do it and some of the challenges that we see people face so I would love to find out just some ideas from you. I know you've been thinking about some examples from your own experience, which is in research.
laura barboza 24:43
Yeah, well, I have a view and it's funny. I feel like I'm gonna walk us down memory lane a little bit. Because I think back at my you know, to my career as a kind of a junior, maybe mid level researcher, I was doing a lot of usability testing. I also, another way to walk down that memory lane is that, you know, this was in what 2012 2015, you know, around those years, maybe a little bit earlier, where I feel like a lot of strategic UX work wasn't being done. And a lot of it was usability testing, it was more like, we decided we're going to make this, you know, thing. And now we just need to make sure that the thing works well for people, right. But there, but there was many times where maybe, maybe what was built wasn't necessarily aligned with what the customer needed, right? We were just trying to build it in the best way, it could be built right with the customer's input, though, a strategic approach that I have, in those days as a usability researcher, right, was to be a little bit more strategic, not just in how I created my usability session guide, for example, but also in how I delivered my insight to the team. Boy, it was almost like this approach to say, Fine, I will work within the tactical container. But I will still be strategic within that practical container. For the sake of informing the work at a bigger picture, right? Or at a higher level. Yeah. And so that looks like a core, you know, starting with really great stakeholder question, making sure I understood where everybody was coming from, and, and again, kind of understanding that layer that lay of the land is right, like, what's the purpose? What, you know, what does this mean for the business? Like, ultimately, what is the outcome here? And then, knowing that I would structure my usability session guide my interview, in a way that, of course, allowed me to collect feedback on the prototype or whatever it was that we were testing. But in in that conversation, we'll ask the customer, how do you operate? What are your barriers? What are your motivation? Right? And that usually starts in kind of the pre session conversation or question, where we're asking them, you know, how often do you use the product? What are you use it for? And don't seem to be very practical questions, but you can get more strategic with them. And add a little bit more strategy questions, like as if you were doing foundational work, right? As if this was a five minute and textual interview at the beginning of the user? Right?
Leigh Arredondo 27:29
Right, you could, you could broaden it a little bit. And it's not just about this product, it might be this process that the user is typically in, and the pain points that they have their.
laura barboza 27:43
Right, exactly. So those five minutes, I mean, really, that's probably what I dedicated to that, right, considering the rest of my interview was 100% focused on the tactical stuff on the product paper, the app, or whatever it was, I will take those five minutes to be strategic with the customer. So it's almost like a good time to be strategic with the stakeholders. Then I took five minutes to pick with the customer in the preset an interview, right before the usability tests. And then the way that I delivered my insight was very, of course, tactically focused. But at the very end of my and I would only wait for the end, I don't know why I waited to the end. But that was my approach. At the very end of my insight delivery, I would say, I have three other things to share with you. And those weren't related to the prototype, it was bigger picture stuff that I was like, I would say things like, you know, there was a conversation about gift cards, you know, that seems really interesting. Maybe there's an opportunity for this company, you know, to or the team to look deeper into gift card purchases, right. And so I would say things like, because we heard customers say XYZ, right? So give them a little bit of insight there. But it was also an invitation to say, maybe there's something there. Maybe it's worth exploring. And so I would maybe have a couple more like bigger, kind of more high level insights that didn't really relate right to the to the prototype specific of the study. Another way is to recommend more research around something that wasn't super clear, right? The one thing is to be like enter something interesting with giftcard. Another thing is to say, yes, we heard people prefer the prototype a over prototype B, but it's because of this one thing that we don't fully understand yet. They chose that because of this, but we're not really sure why. And so it's almost an invitation to the team to say maybe we shouldn't look deeper into that may be pervy too, we can add more. We can spend more time doing more strategic work around why prototyping was better before we try to make prototype a, you know the next thing And so that's another way to be good be Jake, I think within a tactical container. But I'll pause and before I before I keep going down memory lane, because I mean, once I got the strategy rolled, obviously it actually, even though I was still doing a fair amount of practical work, huh?
Leigh Arredondo 30:20
Yeah, I think that is definitely been my approach with my own work and my team's work and research is inserting the strategic questions and insights in presentations, you can also insert those questions as they come up in the in the interview, I know that you have done that as well. Which is one reason why I, it's so helpful to allow conversation in a research interview, even if it's just usability and not an interview. But I so often would see people follow a script, just and like, insert question after question after this was, yeah, even experienced researchers, I've seen do this. And I'm like, Wait, where's the space for them to talk about what else is coming up for them? And to find out around the edges? What's their pain points and motivations? And how might they do this? Normally, if they weren't using this prototype, or, you know, this product, or you know, like, totally so many opportunities to find out that kind of aracite Add a plug, if I may,
laura barboza 31:43
Lee, this is about making the product more human, which is another thing that we and us do, right? That's the kind of part of the job to guard the human experience. We can't be robotic interviewers, with question after question after question. Because that doesn't feel human, it doesn't feel like we are extracting that human experience from the participant. We're really just going down the list of our 25 questions, and are more concerned about making sure we get answers to them within a 60 minute interview. Right. Right. So so that human aspect of it. I mean, this is how we this is how we learn how we build products, why we're why we do the work that we do.
Leigh Arredondo 32:28
Yeah, that's a good point. Somehow, I also remembered something, when you said 25 questions, it made me remember, work that I've done with teams where they're doing unmoderated studies. And you can do it there as well, you can ask more strategic questions. And you can do it in a way where it doesn't take up the entire, you know, 10 minutes or whatever you have. But to gather a little bit of insight there as well. I just wanted to speak quickly before we kind of move on to challenges, but about how to do this in a design perspective. So one of the ways that I've identified adding strategic objectives to the process, before designs are created. So actually, this is kind of a similar. This is sort of the same structure that you outlined with research. As far as start before you are actually doing the work with stakeholders and identify what the objectives what the strategic objectives for this work is. And so identifying both the business and the user objectives of the work and using that as a guide throughout every presentation that you have with stakeholders, always bringing it back to it needs to be have stakeholder alignment on Yes, these are the objectives. So once you identify them, you get alignment on it, and then you're always bringing it back. These are the objectives that we're moving towards. So everyone can remember that when there's a difference of opinion, for example, if there's no data to back up one way or another. And then another thing you can do before launching into a detailed design is creating storyboards, or mini wire flows. It to sort of describe what a wire flow is, it's, it would be like something between a flow diagram and a wireframe so there's not very much there's a you know, a little box that represents the screen or the step right. With not very much information just enough to say this is what this step is. them and putting that together, that shows how the piece that you're working on works within a greater system or the bigger picture. So I think that's another thing that can be really, really helpful in helping bring the rest of your stakeholders along with how this fits into the big picture. And then so they're thinking about the big picture, both from a user perspective and the business or system perspective.
laura barboza 35:35
I love that Leah reminds me of work that I've done mainly, and how now that I think about it. This is something that I that I've definitely had the opportunity to do more in health and then then in the consulting work rare and consulting world, but Nordstrom ARIA I, I mean, other in house experiences that I've had, there was always a, either a link back to our personas, or a link back to big company wide initiatives, right, or values. And there's a lot of sharing around like, you know, Rei is for everyone, right? Rei is about, you know, the outdoors, and it's about, you know, community and this that any other like whatever their values, that would somehow always make it into my my presentation, whether they were focused on design, or whether we're focused on research, it was always like, okay, part of our, the objectives of the work is to link back to this one value, or we have these three key values that we want to work with. Because those are the REI values, right, as a business as an organization, we would say, then, for the experienced business, our principles are XYZ, and then we had principles that we would lean back on. So then it was like, higher level organizational value, right? company wide, then business unit principles, which were about pretty Rei business, they could be like, you know, freedom in the outdoors and support by a diet and you know, so many other things. And then, I guess, deeper than that, or maybe more at a more granular level, there were like, design related. I don't know what to call them principles or objective. But also what something that anchored us into like, Okay, this is what the design look and feel like, right? So branding was very much considered, right, when it came to those principles, right, when it came to what it felt like what it sounded like. And so for that, that was a really beautiful way to align, again, the business with the business unit with the design, the thumbs or practices that we're trying to be consistently held across the across the either the organization or the business unit. Yeah,
Leigh Arredondo 38:07
yeah, actually, that something that I have done in the past with teams is to create design tenets. And you can do that at all different levels. It could be for, you know, big project. Or if you if there aren't design tenets for this big project, and you're doing one little piece of it, you can create some design tenets. You know, kind of when you're doing that pre work, it does, again, require some stakeholder alignment, at least with your product manager. And that sometimes can be a challenge, especially for junior and mid level. Or, I don't really love the term Junior, but especially for entry and to mid level level designers who are working with product managers who aren't necessarily experienced in the value of something like a design tenant, or some of the other suggestions that we've had, which kind of brings us to the challenges of, of doing this work, because sometimes it can be seen as extra scope that isn't needed, because your stakeholders or even your manager didn't ask for it. And so I'm curious if you've ever gotten pushback, or speaking to a strategic, bigger picture, when the stakeholder was asking for something pretty tactical. Oh, yeah.
laura barboza 39:58
It happens to me all the time because I always try to be, you know, strategic and, and so I get, you know, I get the pushback quite a quite a lot. And, and I understand the pushback, right, I understand the reason why, like, we need to kind of stay the course and and get the get get this done. And then maybe we can think about it later. And there's always the argument of like, put your best foot forward, don't, you know, don't launch a crappy experience. Let's try to make it better. But, um, but I do understand the pushback. And, and I think, you know, if we're talking about how I managed, right, the challenge, I don't just pick the know and say, okay, alright, you know, I might look for other ways, right, to help inform whatever it was that I was advocating for, while also still continuing to focus on the fact that hands right or the topic. And it's not to say, go rogue and do what you want, like, you know, incorporate the years questions that your stakeholders told you not to incorporate. But it's still, to some extent, like, what I do is that I position myself mentally, I, myself as the partner, or my stakeholders, I, like I put it on me to be responsible for informing certain thing. And it's up to them to do whatever they want with the information. It's up to me to collect it. So I try to find a balance between how much do I collect? And then how much do I give them back and then step away from it, because it's not my call to decide what to do with that information. But it was my opportunity to be like, here you go, you know, I know, you said you didn't want this, and, you know, whatever. But but but here's some insights. Anyway, I guess that's interesting. And in some cases, it worked. In some cases, I hear a little bit of silence, and like, there's no response, maybe at the end, or just like, Okay, we got what we needed. But maybe chose three months later, they might come back and be like, you know, you mentioned that there was this one opportunity here. I think we're ready to look into that. And those are the days where I'm like, you know, throwing confetti and you know, doing all the lovely celebrating things. It's exciting, it's exciting for theory that the client said, or that your stakeholders understood, yes, there was something there. And after I left that little seed there for them, and and the plant ultimately grew right, or it started to grow. And so I think that's one way to deal with those challenges. Again, not saying to go rogue and, you know, go against what, what people are asking for, but it's really about refocusing your conversation, while also still collecting those tiny side, you know, side conversations or side data points, that will ultimately help inform the bigger experience.
Leigh Arredondo 42:57
As you're talking, I'm thinking also about the importance for relationship building, and how important that can be to defined the people who are most likely to want your insights, or on the design side, to appreciate a larger impact. There's like building those relationships. And that can happen. I think that can happen both in house and as a consultant, or in an agency. But another thing that brings to mind is the importance of talking about the value of this, the work that you're doing. So for design, for example, there may be arguments about well, this is going to take a lot of extra time. So it is important to be mindful of time, and to not take a lot of extra time, but also to do what you can, you know, within the structure you've been given, but also to speak to the value of what you're doing, or what you want to do very, very specifically, because it is not enough to say, well, this is going to improve the design, or this is going to improve our research findings. Like we kind of talked about very few other people care about that as much as you do. That's the UX practitioners. So also it's not measurable. It's it's very much that sounds like an opinion, you know, like well, this is just going to be a better design. So you really have to tie this to the value of the effort to the impact So how is this going to help the user? How is this going to help the business? How is this going to help the stakeholders? How does it actually help to meet their objectives? Why is it more impactful on their objectives? One thing that comes to mind, I had a conversation with someone about this recently, about a designer who was doing iterations that weren't asked for, but they felt that it better met the needs of both the user and the business. And what they found was there was disagreement about the impact. So some people loved it. Some of the stakeholders loved it. And they were like, Yes, this is this is clearly more impactful. There were stakeholders on the product side, who were more annoyed, because it wasn't what was asked for. And so that sort of like, points back to this, speaking about the value of impact, because product, people do care about impact on objectives. And also relationship building. You were talking about how you planted a seed. And maybe a few months later, someone came back and said, you know, that thing that you were talking about? I'm really interested, you know, can let's talk about that a little bit more. And I imagine that that is someone that felt like they had a relationship with you, and in as much as they could come and talk to you about it.
laura barboza 46:47
There was trust there. Right. And I think trust is something that isn't pushed on people, right, because and this is where the there's a sensitivity and a strategy in around relationship building. Right. And I wanted to say earlier, as you mentioned, you know, strategy around, relate, or when it comes to building relationships with the right people, we don't always talk about that as being a strategic approach, but it helps them loosely is a strategic approach. And then the message is also strategic, because to your point, if I'm talking to the product manager, what I'm going to tell the product manager is this is how it's going to help the product, this is how you're going to be able to measure XYZ, they care about the metrics, and they care about a lot of those things. They are responsible for showing the story, the health of that product, right or the health of that situation. If I'm talking to the business owner, who essentially has to fund maybe an effort that I'm pitching or something along those lines, I talk to them in a completely different way. And I talk to them about the bottom line. Because I'm about like, growth rate of the of the business itself, it's not so much about the product more than it is about like profit, right, the p&l behind it, sometimes the operation behind it. I mean, once again, I'll use another RDA example. But I was working on a very large service design project, Rei, when I was pitching that, to some of the design team, and to the head of the business, right, and the manager or the director, and it started to dawn on me, I needed, I needed to talk to the operations manager, because we were talking a lot about operations. And I was pitching this to people who didn't care as much about operations or who weren't focused on operation, the way that this other director was. And once I started talking to her about how service design was going to change operation, it was a whole new world, the conversation shifted, the project started moving forward, she was able to help me convince the other teams that I was talking to the manager, right, the business unit manager, and then him essentially, have the budget right or make for that, that project. So, again, the strategy behind this is how do you talk to people? What's the message with those individuals? Same product, different message in the, you know, strategic sense of doing the work, same message, right payment, tension, different methods, depending on who your stakeholders are?
Leigh Arredondo 49:33
That's right, which means you need to understand the language that they speak after you can talk their language because it is kind of like talking different languages. And you do that by getting to know those people, having conversations with them, asking them, what's important to you. What challenges are you facing? You know, kind of like user risk Search on your stakeholders.
laura barboza 50:03
That's right, that's absolutely what it is. But really developing a relationship with them. So that truck can be mad between the two. Right? If they feel like you're being too pushy, if they feel like you're trying to manipulate if they feel like, this isn't coming off authentically, like you don't really care, you know, you just want to advocate for the user. Right? It might not go, you know, as far so, them knowing that you truly have their best intention in mind is really important for them. And, and important for the team important for the work. We're all in it together. Yeah,
Leigh Arredondo 50:42
that's right. Yes, you do need to be able to argue for your work and speak to your design decisions and your research decisions. But it's not all you, you got to find other folks who can who also see the value and use those people as your advocates, as advocates for the user centered work, and they're there, they're out there, or you wouldn't have a job.
laura barboza 51:18
That's right. That's so and I, you know, always thinking, you know, assuming good intentions, everybody has good intention, right? Even the people who push back, their their good intentions are just a different focus than then the UX serves focus. But at the end of the day, we're all trying to succeed. We're all trying to push things forward. And it's really about remembering, right again, like, we're all human. And and we're all, we all have our important roles to play in the process,
Leigh Arredondo 51:50
trying to see it from your stakeholders perspective. Well, before we wrap up, is there anything pressing that we missed? You think that you want to add?
laura barboza 52:02
I think you started to touch upon this, the the fact that, you know, it might not be an easy say, for an entry level designer or researcher to feel like, like they have a handle right on like the strategy piece. I think I just want to encourage, you know, people to try, I want to encourage them to think about, again, what their role is their one unique individual goal, right or role is as part of a product team. And if that role is to constantly advocate for the customer advocate for the user experience, or at least keep it top of mind, right, if that's our focus. How do we do that? Even by simply asking questions, right? At the end of the day, you might still have to do whatever it was that somebody asked you to do. And my defense to that, but nothing stops you from asking questions, nothing stops you from understanding the business a little bit more. There's always an opportunity, right to learn one more data point, one more thing, piece of information that can actually help you maybe carry out the work in a slightly more strategic way. Anybody can ask questions, and anybody can think bigger, and maybe influencing the conversation might take a little bit of time with the five stepping stones and people right partners in the work are really important will help get you there. The closing thought, I think, I think we can all be inspired to do that. Because it's very easy to shy away from it when you feel like, you know, somebody isn't gonna respond well, at the end of the day, you're really just projecting. You're not forcing anybody to do.
Leigh Arredondo 53:49
That's true. Yeah. And what's the worst that can that can happen? Someone will say no. Or that's right. I mean, maybe they'll say no, thank you. Maybe they'll be nice. Maybe they won't be nice. But you have learned something in the process. And keep doing it. Keep doing it. Because you know, just because one person says no, doesn't mean you're going to continue getting a no and I understand it can feel really frustrating. I do understand that. Which is where maybe we'll have another conversation about practicing detaching from outcomes.
laura barboza 54:35
That's an important one. We get so emotional when it comes to our work. Right. You cover.
Leigh Arredondo 54:41
Yeah. Thank you so much, Laura. I think this has been a fantastic conversation. I enjoyed it. Thank you. Bye. Ciao.
Leigh Arredondo 55:00
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