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Panel Discussion

Learning Is The Engine: Designing & Adapting in a World We Can’t Predict

In a world where change is constant and complexity is the norm, learning is the engine that drives great design. In this session, Jen explores how designers can move beyond just solving problems to enabling adaptation at multiple scales: individuals, teams, and organizations. Jen shares principles from complexity science and real-world practice to help you design the conditions for curiosity, reflection, and meaningful change – for your collaborators and customers alike. Walk away with a fresh lens on your role as a designer – that is, a mediator of collective learning.

Take Aways:

  • A mental model for approaching design in complex systems or volatile domains, shifting from control to curiosity, from solutions to sense making
  • An understanding of the parallels in learning at individual, team, and organizational levels, and why that matters for your design practice
  • Practical principles for creating the conditions where adaptive learning can thrive in your team, product, or organization
  • Inspiration to reframe your role as a designer: not just solving problems, but enabling systems to learn, grow, and evolve

How To Get Usability Testing Right: a Chat with Steve Krug

Every company wants to make useful products that people want–but few really do. In today’s episode, Steve Krug, author of Rocket Surgery Made Easy, chats with guest host Laura Klein. Steve shares tips for setting up a successful usability test–and what two questions you should never ask during the test. Ever.

Use AI to Drive Outcomes that Go Beyond the Design Sprint

Design Sprints have undeniable utility but have a bit of baggage in 2024. AI has its reputation at stake, as the first wave didn’t quite go as expected. As Designers, we have tools, methods, culture, and urgency to consider. Attendees to this talk will walk away with helpful context on AI’s past, present, and future, relevant examples of use, and pragmatic tips for practitioners.

Rise of the Machines: Talking Tooling with Elizabeth Churchill

How will “smart” technology and AI impact work for humans? Dr. Elizabeth Churchill, director of UX at Google, talks to Lou about how she sees AI providing a creative counterpart to work done by humans, not as a means to supplant it. She discusses the difference between coordination tooling and skills tooling, and how both are primed to be invaluable components of the EUX toolbox.

We’re ecstatic to have Elizabeth as our opening keynote speaker at the 2017 Enterprise UX Conference.

Navigating the pitfalls of systems thinking in service design

While systems thinking is all hype, a superficial application may jeopardize the value of service design practice. This talk will highlight the hidden dangers of applying systems thinking, with examples of struggles from over a decade of practice experience. To support the ongoing evolution of service design, this talk will share strategies for adopting a systemic approach that amplifies, rather than erodes, the transformative potential of the practice.

Leading Change with Confidence: Strategies for Optimizing Your Process

Constantly improving processes and embracing an iterative mindset can be difficult. In this session, I’ll share unexpected hurdles I faced while leading large-scale changes and how you can avoid them. We’ll dive into key moments where I hit roadblocks and more importantly, I’ll share the valuable lessons I learned the hard way. Let’s turn my “list of things I wish I knew” into actionable best practices that you can apply to lead change more effectively.

5 Antifragile Strategies for a DesignOps 2.0

The term “anti-fragile” comes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.” It describes systems, organizations, or entities that not only withstand shocks, volatility, and stressors but benefit and grow stronger from them.

The current state of design is undoubtedly challenging and will continue to be volatile

We need strategies that move us out of defense mode, beyond resilience & mere product delivery, and position us as indispensable during times of transformation. In this talk, we explore five anti-fragile strategies for DesignOps 2.0, that will inspire you: New Work Models & Hiring Strategies, Ops beyond Design, Interconnectivity, Rise of the Chief of Staff, and (Anticipatory) Destination Teams.

Panel Discussion

Our panelists discuss the day’s conference sessions. Moderated by Patrick Quattlebaum

Knowledge is Power: Managing the Lifeblood of the Design Org

Knowledge management (KM) and KM best practices are not discussed as critical skills for DesignOps team members. DesignOps’ responsibilities should include the management of tacit and codified UX knowledge. Everyone talks about design systems and insight repositories. Still, those tools only cover a portion of the UX knowledge a DesignOps team needs to create, manage and make available to the organization. DesignOps teams are responsible for creating, managing, and disseminating processes, tools, and artifacts to support the teams involved in delivering design value and impact at scale.