This document discusses the key ingredients for building a great Lean UX team. It identifies three main ingredients: 1) A leader with a clear vision for Lean UX; 2) A team of T-shaped professionals with both broad and deep skills; 3) The right corporate culture and shared core values among the team. It emphasizes the importance of cross-functional collaboration, a user-centric approach, continuous learning and iteration to maximize user delight.

1. Building a great Lean UX Team
Ariadna Font Llitjós, PhD
Design Principal and Manager, Watson Group
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IBM Design
@quicola #leanux #designthinking @ibmdesign

2. Catalonia’s popular tradition: Castells (human tower)

3. Castellers
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4. Embracing failure
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5. Lean UX Team
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1. Cross-functional team - Agile
2. User-centric design and development - UX
3. Just-in-time (minimize waste) - Lean
4. Maximize learning - Agile, Lean startup, UX
5. Validate and iterate - Agile, Lean startup, UX
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6. 1. A leader with a clear and strong Lean UX team vision
2. T-shaped designers and developers
3. The right corporate culture and team core values
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Great Lean UX team’s secret sauce

7. 1

8. Form follows function… or does it?
Form = team (organizational) structure
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Function = primary goal, reason of existence
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9. Form B - Tower
Doc
QA
Form = team (organizational) structure
Form A - Independent functions
(silos)
Design Dev QA Doc Design Dev
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10. Function A - Independent goals Function B - Focus on user delight
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Outcomes
Design
Dev
QA
Doc
Design
Dev
QA
Doc
User delight
Function = primary goal, reason of existence

11. Real world example
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User delight Release 1

12. Real world example
User delight Release 1
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User delight
Release 2

13. Outcome follows form (instead of function)
User delight Release 1
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User delight
Release 2

14. Lean UX team’s secret ingredient #1
A single leader with a clear vision and
understanding of what a Lean UX team is
and how it operates
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15. 2

16. T-shaped designers
and developers
who fit in
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17. T-shape professionals
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BROAD
DEEP

18. What are we emphasizing when we state team’s goal as disjoint vs joint?
BROAD
DEEP
BROAD
DEEP
QA
Doc
Design
Dev
QA
Doc
User delight
Design
Dev
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19. Specialized Skills
• Design
• user research
• user experience
• interaction design
• visual design
• Development
• front-end
• application
• back-end
• QA
• UI and UX tester
• application tester
• backend tester
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20. Productive skill overlap (great for pairing + directions to grow professionally)
- Design
- User research & user experience
- ux & ix
- interaction design & visual design
- Design - Dev
- Visual design & front-end dev (esp. CSS, also html, javascript)
- User experience & front-end and application development
- User experience & application and backend development
- Development
- front-end & application
- application & back-end
- QA
- UI/UX tester & UX/UI designer
- UI/UX tester & visual designer
- Application tester & front-end /application dev
- Backend tester & application/backend dev
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21. T-shaped designers, developers and testers
that complement each other and fit in
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Lean UX team’s secret ingredient #2

22. 3

23. Culture
and
Values

24. Team Core Values
• Open and honest communication - radical collaboration
• Passion - quality, focus on the user
• Balance - design and code quality vs speed, work-life balance
• Continuous improvement
• Just-in-time (start low-res and iterate; minimize waste)
• Design Thinking - user-centric methods to innovate
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25. Corporate Strategy
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IBM Design Thinking is a framework for
delivering great user experiences
to our clients.

26. This is not a user experience
I@BM qDeusiigcn o :: l IaBM #Colnefidaenntiaul :x: ©#20F13l oIBMw CCorpoornation

27. This is a user experience
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28. IBM Design Thinking = Cross-functional collaboration to innovate
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Viability
Product
Management
Desirability
Design
Feasibility
Engineering

29. Hiring new team members

30. Maximum overlap to foster alignment
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31. Thoughtful diversity to foster both collaboration and creativity
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32. How can you influence team culture?
• Hiring T-shape developers that complement each other (Lean UX lead & team)
• Training and coaching (Lean UX lead)
• Orchestrating work to allow team members to both shine and learn from each
other (Lean UX lead)
• Team building activities (team & Lean UX lead)
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33. What happens when there isn’t a set of core
values shared by the team and/or the right
corporate culture?

34. When Culture and
shared values are
lacking…
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35. 3 key ingredients for a Great Lean UX Team
1. A leader with a clear and strong Lean UX team vision
2. Team of T-shaped professionals
3. The right culture and core values
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36. Feeling after a Release!
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37. Including our users…
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38. Thanks!
@quicola
!
#leanux
#designthinking @ibmdesign