As the Head of UX I was responsible for the quality of design yet I wasn't allowed to work directly within a sprint. As their compentency manager, I was responsible for skillset and morale. I managed 6 designers and 3 researchers. I needed to expand the designers' skillset - a combination of needing stronger interaction design and usability heuristics with less experienced, and highly educated designers needing to learn how to collaborate and work consistently with other designers on a suite of products working in Agile. I also needed to expand the researchers' skills as they came from different backgrounds - not including UCD or digital experiences and wanted them to able to present actionable results and better collaboration with designers. I also needed to build up leadership skills with some designers being dominating and others being passive in different scrum team cultures.
the approach
Inspired by Tranformative Leadership and Growth Mindset I strived to create a space for them to grow individually and together without an authority figure or fear of judgment believing that they would all learn and blossom.
I introduced the initiative to the team. I started as the lead for the first session with the intention of handing it off as soon as we got it up and going. There I demonstrated that leading an initiative meant facilitating and ensuring the success of the session. The initiative lead was responsible for initiating and ending the session as well as recording the session and posting the recording to the team wiki.
The team read books together, but no one was required to read the entire book. Everyone on the team signed up to read a chapter of the assigned book. This included a 15-minute presentation about the chapter, and then facilitating a 15-minute conversation with the team about how this chapter relates to our work, our products, and/or organization. If someone was not available for a book club session or had a heavy workload, they were responsible for finding someone to switch weeks.
I let the team pick the first book which I found a bit esoteric without the needed design and Human Factors practical. So I selected the next two books and explained my decision to the team.
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
Dashboards were a feature that I was engaged in at a product management level, and many of them would be engaged within the next few sprints. I wanted to ensure they had the basics of dashboard design and data visualizations. I also like this book because it covers design principles and some high-level usability principles. The researchers eagerly signed up for the chapters that focused on design, and the designers jumped to the other chapters.
Human Factors for Technical Communicators
The second book I selected was an introduction to Human Factors. I needed to revive and inspire the researchers who had backgrounds in cognitive psychology, experimental psychology, and human factors (offline, defense products). I needed to expand the usability knowledge of the designers who had come to UX via Visual Design.
result
Of course, their skills expanded and their work improved, but more importantly, their morale improved and relationships blossomed between offices with collaboration happening organically between teams during sprints.
I coached everyone in leading and presenting during their 1:1's. Everyone was exposed to presenting their ideas, hearing other people's ideas, learning to manage our stronger personalities and our "chatty" UXers while ensuring participation in the conversation.
Although it meant doing some work on their own time, the activity was supported and received well..