UX Management & Leadership
I spent several years as a UX Manager. I managed teams of up to five UX architects and user research interns. I found that the world of UX is different for manager focused on-the-ground, real-time experiences and engagements:
Trade-offs between doing hands-on work on the ground and spending time dealing with upper management to help ensure my team members could focus on doing their jobs.
More meetings and presentations. Giving a presentation on taxonomy and why we should care about it in front of over 100 people was a major one.
Securing buy-in across the organization (managing sideways and up).
Working with other departments to develop new ways of doing things. For example, I worked with the Consumer Reports marketing research group to get user testing better integrated in our projects.
Led a major enterprise-wide taxonomy initiative at Consumer Reports, and was very active in the implementation of a new search engine.
Mentoring
One of my favorite parts of managing is having the opportunity to mentor others.
My career mentors have had a major impact on my work and life, and I strive to pay it forward
AS A UX MANAGER AND LEAD, I CAN HELP YOU:
Set up a UX team
Assess your UX teams’ skillsets to help identify gaps and opportunities for growth
Hire quality people
Vendor selection