Taking a half-done car, driving it at breakneck speed, and completing the assembly at the same time

Transcript

1. UX Australia 2019 -30th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU3008E) YOEL SUMITRO: I am a bit nervous. You can hear from my accent that I am Indonesian. Let's see if they can understand my accent. So, two years ago I was in Sydney talking at a conference. At the time, I was thinking about design, I was working at (inaudible). But today I will talk about a different topic. I will talk about a topic around driving a car at a breakneck speed and designing at the same time. So, a half-done car is a design concept. I work in Jakarta, an e-commerce marketplace (inaudible). I am eating lots of product designers there. So, I have a half-done car and I have to drive it at a breakneck speed. Why? Because the (inaudible) in Indonesia. And at the same time, I have to (inaudible). Because of the half-done car. So, I will put this in more context about the half-done car, why I have to drive it at that speed, and why have to assemble at the same time. As you see, because this is an e-commerce marketplace, there are so many other companies in Jakarta. Some of them are backed by great investors, for example, software investors, (inaudible), shopping. We definitely need to fight to get market share in Indonesia. Because it's a big market. If we don't drive at breakneck speed, we will lose out to the competition soon. That's the context. The next one is 4 Unicorns. I joined Bukalapak in May last year. In the 1.5 years since I joined, our company (inaudible). Our active users doubled in one year. We serve about 1 million (inaudible). (Inaudible) are apps serve the teenagers, that is also one of our products. So, that's the second context. The third context is that we have so many products. We have about 500 employees at Bukalapak, and there are about 140 designers in my team. We have to design many products. We design products, we help people pay their (inaudible), byproducts, pay their bills, by market stocks, (inaudible). You can read the Quran, you can read the Bible, we have our own Netflix, except (inaudible). So, lots of programs we have to build. And how about our team? How about my design team? I will show you the design of our product in 2018. This is our design. (Inaudible) Can you imagine, this design was 2018. Just last year. Not the 1990s. (Laughter) So, I told my team, "Hey, team, I will never use our app to make a shitty design." Sorry, I can't say that, shit, fuck. Anyway, that was (inaudible). There are many reasons why we came up with this design at that time. This is my designers' background. 42% of them came from the (inaudible) background. And we asked them to design.
2. UX Australia 2019 -30th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU3008E) Page 2 of 9 60% of them (inaudible), they learn how to design, (inaudible), some of them learn architecture, accounting, and some of them did not have any degree. Designers, 140, were making products to (inaudible). So this is who I had to work with. So, in this context, I am at the assembly at the same time, and you have to drive fast, otherwise you will be out of the competition. So how do we handle this? To drive very fast, before, I was working at Apptio, and (inaudible) years ago... I was working very hard so we were not out of the competition. Grow more design leaders, do design applications, DesignOps, why should I (inaudible). So, from all of these things, I focus on one. I remember my time at Uber, a guy called Johnny, he is behind the Uber app that you have. It was all made by this person, yes, there was a group of designers that work with him, but they all know him. So, I called Johnny, I say "hey Johnny, if I want to make more Johnny's in my company, what do I do? If I want to make more of you in my company what I do?". So, we came up with the competition, things that were different from other designers, so, for sure, he had a wealth of experience, he knew how to problem solve, (inaudible) a lot of options, he could see the balance and inconsistencies, and (inaudible). And then he said one important thing that he learned, he learnt all of this from (inaudible). So from the small insight, I was trying to use (inaudible), I need to make sure that my team also learns. So, I call this (inaudible) inception. I have to make sure that my team has the (inaudible) learning, so, I am also doing (inaudible) correctly. So, I will go to all the (inaudible) learning sessions, to make sure that all of these (inaudible). If you have these kinds of things, these kind of insights, what will be the first decisions that you will make? This is a way to advance with your team? Ideas? SPEAKER: (inaudible) YOEL SUMITRO: Look at our designs. (Laughs) Basically, I do find all the (inaudible), and whether the program relied on external people, whether they are more directing, there dimensions... The first thing I do, as you can guess, (inaudible). In Singapore, we sent some of our directors to this conference in Melbourne, and sent some to the UK, I know that (inaudible). But, as you can see, after you have heard all of these insights that we have learnt for the last two days, you can be very inspired, it is very hard to apply that to (inaudible). And then we look at our designs, it is a good thing, but it is hard to apply. We don't know if it is (inaudible) in our design.
3. UX Australia 2019 -30th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU3008E) Page 3 of 9 So, these sorts of conferences are good to give you a real knowledge, inspire your team to be more scalable, not just sending a few designers to the conference. And then, what if I get a guest speaker, to my team. So I look at Google Hangouts, and (inaudible), to do research, information architecture... The picture on the right is a doctor, at Google, teaching us how to be (inaudible). And many more. So, how about we just make our own conference? So that is what we do. We have this conference every month in Jakarta. The last one was in September.Then people come and talk about UX design. Is good for my confidence, we realise that we are not that far behind other practitioners, like Singapore. What is the problem with this, it is that we rely on external people. They may not know the problems that we have in our company. They will say it is good what you're doing, but we don't have the time, the luxury to do that kind of research. (inaudible) OK, how about we use all this knowledge, and we really apply to our company, by doing peer to peer mentoring. So, what we do, we list all of the skills that we have in our team, there is, for example, one or two that is good at generative research, so we list all of the mentors, and we want them to make their own sections in the company. And then if one person doesn't know how to do motion design, then I know who to talk to. From this, what next? We make our own conference, we do peer-to-peer mentoring, but still, I feel that we haven't made that many journeys. What is next, is maybe mentors that focus one- on-one on my team. So, I hire mentors. I try and find designers in Indonesia, that don't mind having (inaudible) salaries, and mentor our team. It is a full time job, mentoring my team. Every day, what they do, they mentor one on one. My 140 colleagues. Sometimes we have to remember that they are in machine learning (inaudible). So we have these design mentors. The next thing, the art of giving and receiving (inaudible). I used (inaudible) to describe, we tend to speak in dialect ways m. You cannot say that your design is "shitty", you have to say that maybe the person needs to fix the design. Giving and asking for respect, is a crucial part of learning. Remember the concept of design, (inaudible). Remember, we are here, brave enough to (inaudible). So, giving and receiving in design is important, to improve design. The good thing, is that then people can bring the skills back to their squad. They get more comfortable in asking. The second one is also important, because hall of shame. Basically we create an account where people can update things anonymously, the things they want to keep and drop, the things
4. UX Australia 2019 -30th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU3008E) Page 4 of 9 they want to give kudos to. Again, remember the context. These are people who don't like giving feedback, they don't want to do these reflections. Not they don't want to, but they are not used to doing it. The harmony is more important than getting shit done. So, people can upload their screenshot of the design, (inaudible). And that whole design team can learn from mistakes and also from other design members. In all of these things, we can also make our mini (inaudible). And they will get points and try to gamify the system. The next thing is called quest. For now, at this stage, most of my team has learned lots of things. They learn from the guest speaker, the design mentors, those conferences. Sometimes you don't have time or the channels to apply knowledge, so sometimes they learn new methods. (Inaudible) I may not have time to do it. So what we do is, every week we choose some passion projects, 3-5 projects, and people can sign up for it. So we give them about 75% of their time, if they want, to sign up for this project. This project can be literally different from what they (inaudible). Designers can learn how to (inaudible), (inaudible)s can learn how to design. And then we will do the last one. With all of this, the design topic is really important. Remember that at the beginning I tried to hire design mentors, that is not (inaudible). It is really impossible to make these three mentors be mentors for all of my designers. So what we do next is try to make… So what they do is, the design mentors we hire, they mentor us, the design managers. So that we, the design managers, can learn how to be good design managers. Every Friday we gather in one place and read a book together. You don't have to read anything beforehand, so it isn't very tough. You can just come and read together and discuss what it means to be good design managers. We read this book every month. We look at a framework that all good design managers can use. We look at a framework for how to nurture the skill of our designers. All we even make specific things about what one-on- one means for us in design. So, topics to do during your one-on-one sessions, you shouldn't do design work with your managers, you should not give an update of your work as a primary topic, you should do it through emails. Sometimes you see this and you think it's obvious. Do you just state the obvious? But design managers just became a manager one year ago and they don't have any experience for how to become design managers. The same thing for me. The one I have skipped, number nine, is also very important, which is designed tools and
5. UX Australia 2019 -30th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU3008E) Page 5 of 9 systems. To make sure that the tools, processes and systems that we make really foster that learning, collaboration environment. For example, we just recently changed the tool use from (inaudible) to Sigma, because we believe that can foster collaboration more than using Sketch. And we keep updating the tools and processes and assign decisions to make sure everyone can learn from each other. So, (inaudible). Some work, some don't work. And we keep iterating. That is why we call it iterative learning. And you can see here the difference between those. For sure, one is cheaper. One time activity is cheaper, it is trying to cut low hanging fruit. But usually it has low impact, more than the ongoing, the one that relies on internal, the one we can adapt to day-to-day processes. But sometimes you still need this (inaudible) because again, we drive at breakneck speed. My CEO always asks for new designs, "Where is your design, where is your design?" And to be able to serve that need, we need to do both. And sometimes we combine both. And here is a video about our summer camps. (Video plays) (Music plays) YOEL SUMITRO: Yes, that is the team. We had a combination of all those things I showed to you. It isn't one solution for all. So, what's the result? (Inaudible) So, this was a design in May 2018, and around December 2018, we changed to this design. It was not perfect but in four months, I think we're quite proud of it. And this is the homepage. (Applause) And that is the new design. Again, that was the design last year. We are doing this again this time, but I am quite proud of what we could do in those four months. So, when the next person asks you why, why do we do all this learning? Why do we design all this learning? At the end, we all have our own reasons, but this is my own reason. A name is Susan, she was my manager when I worked at Uber, now she works at Facebook as a research manager. She is the one who hired me to be a senior UX researcher. Can you imagine how someone with this accent can work as a UX researcher? You know, all of these insecurities, every time I have to write a research report or give a research report, with English is my second language, it is really hard for me. But Susan,
6. UX Australia 2019 -30th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU3008E) Page 6 of 9 knowing all of these limitations I had, still hired me. And in the two years I worked at Uber, I learnt a lot. I met so many good researchers there, I learned a lot of methods that I wouldn't have learned if Susan didn't hire me. So, I learned a lot from her. So, I asked her at the time, "Why did you hire me with all of these limitations I have?" If you look at my accent, for example, I cannot say Bondi Beach. (Laughter) I cannot say (inaudible). (Laughter) I try in front of the mirror, (inaudible). Still I can't say it. But still, Susan hired me. When I moved back to Indonesia at the time, I asked myself what diversity means Indonesia. In the US, it might be the designers, the (inaudible), but it made mean different in Indonesia. People who don't go to universities, if you go to the start-ups, the people you meet kind of come from the same group. Usually a middle upper-class people who can afford to study abroad, work abroad, and then moved back to Jakarta and work at those top companies. And usually people try so hard to hire those top designers or engineers. Because we don't have any good design schools in Indonesia. I learned the value of diversity. With high-performance things, you can cover a large area, you can cover more people. A good example of that, I heard one designer, who was colourblind, I had one from graduated from a Islamic school, and from these people I get very diverse ideas. Some of you may remember, (inaudible), in research they use phones like this. The bottom part is one that they cannot fit. I would not find that if I didn't have (inaudible). This article, went viral, in July. It is one of our designers. He said that he didn't have an undergraduate degree, he hadn't lived in a big city... (inaudible). He was one of the designers behind our (inaudible). And he's a designer at a very young age. So, I really want to work with these people. Our brand designer... Women who cannot marry their girlfriends, husbands who collect motion figures, (inaudible). We want to make sure that we hire all of these people, they might not have a beautiful degree from Sydney, Melbourne, Stanford, they might not learn what (inaudible)flow is, but they have all the guts, the motivation to join us. Thank you. (Applause) If you have questions, we still have 10 minutes, feel free.
7. UX Australia 2019 -30th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU3008E) Page 7 of 9 SPEAKER: Lunch should be ready in about 10 minutes. Any questions? QUESTION FROM FLOOR: (Inaudible) SPEAKER: I will just repeat the question – did you ever think about starting from scratch, starting hiring new people that came in with the skills? YOEL SUMITRO: Yes, I did. With not all of the designers that we hire, (inaudible), we need to do the performance in progress with them, and they need to finish it in a good timeframe. Any more questions? If you want to be our guest speakers, mentors... this is our Instagram account. QUESTION FROM FLOOR: (inaudible) SPEAKER: What are the key qualities that make up a good design manager? YOEL SUMITRO: One thing that I learnt a lot for the last one 1.5 years, is not to be two hands on, sometimes when I look at a problem, I really want to do it, to direct them, in the direction I want, but sometimes I need to know that they may take longer time to learn about it, but I need to let them fail so that they can learn from their mistakes. The second, is the art of giving feedback to them. This is a skill that I have had to learn a lot, maybe since I lived abroad for a lot of years, I have become (inaudible) to them. Some of my managers are not very comfortable in giving feedback to them, but they have to learn. QUESTION FROM FLOOR: (inaudible) YOEL SUMITRO: Yes. For example... The question is, (inaudible). When we designed our first product, (inaudible), we really make sure, (inaudible). QUESTION FROM FLOOR: (inaudible) SPEAKER: How easy is it for UX designers to move to Indonesia? YOEL SUMITRO:
8. UX Australia 2019 -30th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU3008E) Page 8 of 9 It is very easy as long as (inaudible). QUESTION FROM FLOOR: (inaudible) SPEAKER: In the redesigns in the search bar, it looked less dominant than you would expect, why? YOEL SUMITRO: Exploring, and locating, survey users do not go to our website just for locating. Many of them are streaming and exploring. They are not sure that it is the product that they want to buy. QUESTION FROM FLOOR: (inaudible) SPEAKER: The cultural differences between what you learnt from San Francisco and working in the Australian example, what can we learn from working in the Indonesia market? And other Asian markets? YOEL SUMITRO: I think that one thing I learned, I don't know if I can say this, sometimes, people just talk for the sake of talking. We are on the opposite side, we are not there to give our opinions, to talk, talk, talk. I think that is the thing that I learnt from my gig in the West. SPEAKER: Maybe we should stop talking, and stop having meetings (Laughs). Actually do our work. QUESTION FROM FLOOR: (inaudible) SPEAKER: You have focused on design craftsmanship, what is your next goal? YOEL SUMITRO: You can be a really good designer, or a manager, in Indonesia, if you want to get more (inaudible) you have to be a manager. But not every designer is a good manager or wants to be one. We need to think about that you can be a good designer, you don't have to be a manager, you don't want to spend your time in meetings every day. This is very clear, my competences, what should I do to be a designer, (inaudible), we have designed systems that are still very young in Indonesia, I need to hire someone for this (inaudible) methods. We are still working on a design system. (inaudible) we need to have operations in place, within the company.
9. UX Australia 2019 -30th August, Breakout session (AUUXAU3008E) Page 9 of 9 Last but not least, to get to the table, and it's really wanted. I have to make sure that my designers are not seen a second-level citizens in the company. I want them to be at the stage where they can sit with (inaudible) and can give a good insight. But to get a seat at the table, I have to make sure that the team does their work. It is a two-way street. A lot of work, but we are working on it.