Are you ready willing and able to lead a UX Research and Design team? - La Tosca Goodwin

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Are you ready, willing, and able to lead a UX Research and Design Team? Tosca Goodwin UX and product professional. SAFe coach. People leader. Superhero wanna be.

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MC Tosca

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Terminator Tosca

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Beefy Tosca

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Super Tosca

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My ﬁrst Job. ● No professional development. ● No clear career path. ● Promotions based on seniority - not merit.

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Be honest about who you are professionally. ● The Dunning-Kruger effect. ● Most people have their careers and professional development in the hands of the wrong leader. ● The wrong reason.

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Many years later . . .

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People Leader -Screens -Projects -Tooling -supporting Partnerships -Peer-to-peer mentorship -Individual professional growth -specialization -People - Larger Strategic Initiatives -Team mentorship -Team growth -Budgets -Negotiation -Building Partnerships -Admin Tasks -Processes -Strategy -Generalization Individual Contributor

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Before you commit to either path: 1 Self-Reﬂect Study the Path You Choose 2 3 Figure out your Impact and Inﬂuence 4 Consider the Balancing Act Understand the Challenges 5

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Are you ready?

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“If it’s something that someone else can do, why not you?” -My mom

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Know your stuff ● Are you considered the expert in the room when it comes to UX? ● Can you teach and mentor your peers in UX? ● Can you persuade people, that what you are bringing is the best experience to the table for the problems they’re trying to solve ● Can you inﬂuence your peers in adjacent disciplines to be user advocates in the way they approach their work?

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Knowing your stuff is not enough ● Stakeholders and Business owners care about value to the company. ● Product managers care about the growth and health of their products. ● Development cares about the quality of the product and maybe more so the output of their teams. ● Sales cares about getting the product in actual hands. ● Support cares about the performance, the stability, the quality and all the -ilities of the product.

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Stay Relevant

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Are you willing?

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You have to be willing to inspire. ● Mentorship is not just about imparting knowledge. ● Fostering a supportive and empowering environment where individuals can thrive and reach their full potential.

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Accept you are not Always Going to be the smartest one in the room just because you are the leader

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celebrate and activate your team ● Complacency has no place in people leadership. ● When your team brings home the wins, this is one of the best feelings as a people leader. ● But you need to lean in, when they don’t win.

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Express gratitude immediately And Often

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Are you Able?

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To Equip them. Then Empower them. ● The vision for where they’re going as a UX org. ● The goals for success. ● The strategy for how they will get there together. ● The tools and process for working consistently and efﬁciently.

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To Energize them. Then Liberate them. ● Energize them around the common goals of the company and your team. ● Allow them to be deliberate about innovation with dedicated time and space to do it. ● Free them to explore options without the fear of failure, but with a posture to learn from their mistakes.