The Main Thing

Elevating Processes for 2024 - A Fresh Approach

Hello,

As we step into 2024, I want to share a shift in focus that excites me both personally and professionally. This year, at UXDX, we’re diving deep into the world of process optimization. Why? Because I’ve observed that even the most skilled individuals can excel in one setting and struggle in another. Often, it’s not the skills or knowledge that’s lacking, but the process that’s misaligned.

Process has a bad reputation because we have implemented bad processes. But everything is a process, even flexible ways of working.  It’s these nuances in processes that we aim to master, ensuring that every team member can consistently perform at their best, regardless of the context.

I personally like goal setting, both personally and professionally, and I’m guineinely excited about the plans we have in store for you this year. I hope you’re as recharged and ready to embrace these changes as I am.
Happy 2024! Let’s make it a year of breakthroughs and exceptional growth.

Rory

Now, over to you: What is your top professional goal for 2024? How do you plan to achieve it?

Looking forward to hearing your inspiring goals,

* Scroll down to see last week’s poll results.

This Weeks Updates

Enabling the Team

10 Ways to Prove You’re a Strategic Thinker by Brenda Steinberg and Michael D. Watkins
Want to be more strategic in 2024? Here are some tips on how to demonstrate your strategic skills

Strong Opinions, Weakly Held by Abraham Thomas
Most people struggle to fully commit to a decision while remaining open to changing it. Strong Opinions, Weakly Held (SOWH) maximize the rate of learning.

Product Direction

Good Goals/Bad Goals by John Cutler
Ambiguity allows for communication drift and experimentation but too much ambiguity can lack direction. It’s a balancing act.

Product Predictions 2024 by Marty Cagan
Product Managers, PO's, Product Leaders, Product Ops - Marty covers it all in his 2024 predictions.

Continuous Discovery

How to Run Surveys at Every Stage of the Design Cycle by Maddie Brown
Most UX surveys are administered during the final phase of the design cycle. However, they can be used effectively throughout the design cycle.

Recipe for UX Rapid Research by Kayla Farrell
Kayla shares an approach they used at Indeed to implement rapid research teams.

Continuous Design

Futureproofing UX in the Age of AI by Gerren Lamson
Your human-generated guide to boosting your UX team’s ability to build trustworthy and ethical AI-powered experiences.

Five Common Story Mapping Mistakes by Jeff Patton
Jeff highlights five common challenges that teams encounter when they start story mapping and how you can avoid them.

Continuous Delivery

Souring on Serverless by Levi Nunnink
Unless you have high traffic the cold start problems with serverless can make your app feel sluggish.

Hexagonal Architecture For Cloud Ecosystems by Adam Rice
To help manage complexity in the cloud, McDonald’s developers are using Hexagonal Architecture patterns.

JOB OF THE WEEK

Director, Software Engineering - People.AI
🏬 Walmart
📌 Full-Time, Dallas, Texas

About Walmart
Walmart is a multi-national tech powered omnichannel retailer with over 2.2M associates. People.AI, supports the HR department with AI and GenAI solutions for all of Walmarts associates.

See role details here

New Video Release This Week

It sucks. But it happens. And if you’re charged with leading the team you need to do it in the best way possible. Kevin shares some insights on how to use a human-centered approach to layoffs and how you can try to protect efficiency and morale at the same time. Want to know more? 👇👇👇

The Results of Last Week’s Poll

The question was: What are you measured on?
Users responded:

There is a lot to unpack here. As expected most teams are still measured on Outputs.

But I find it fascinating that there are teams measured on Outcomes when they don't seem to have control over their features. Is there any finger-pointing if the outcomes aren’t achieved? “We built what we were told to build - it’s not our fault.” 

Or teams that are measured on Impact - costs and revenue tend to be lagging so I'd love to dive deeper into how you can course correct in time if things are not going well. I think we'll have a few more polls to dive deeper into this topic...