Rosenverse
The Intersection of Lean and Design

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

The Intersection of Lean and Design

Thursday, January 10, 2019 • Enterprise Community
Share the love for this talk
The Intersection of Lean and Design
Speakers: Jeff Gothelf
Link:

Summary

On January 10th, lean expert and author Jeff Gothelf joined us to take your questions and talk about the intersection of lean and design in general. 

Key Insights

  • •

    Dedicated designers on teams are essential to avoid conflicts and delays caused by split priorities across multiple teams.

  • •

    Sustaining UX teams through organizational regime changes requires leadership alignment and embedding design in organizational DNA.

  • •

    Scaling UX efforts in large enterprises benefits from linking team OKRs directly to top-level strategic brand values.

  • •

    Effective OKRs measure changes in user or customer behavior, not just technical or output metrics.

  • •

    Leadership buy-in is critical in ensuring user experience considerations influence technical platform decisions.

  • •

    HR functions, especially Learning and Development, are powerful enablers of enterprise-wide cultural and organizational change.

  • •

    Proactive transparency—regularly communicating UX work and findings—builds credibility and partnership within enterprises.

  • •

    When leadership resists UX insights, involving them directly in research activities and quantifying UX impact can help shift perspectives.

  • •

    Changing team missions from output delivery (e.g., building an app) to outcome achievement (e.g., increasing mobile commerce) encourages experimentation and innovation.

  • •

    The term 'Lean UX' may have limited the reach of organizational change efforts by being perceived as a specialized discipline instead of a broader mindset.

Notable Quotes

"If you put one person across three teams, every day they have to decide who they’re going to piss off."

"When you have a dedicated designer, you see faster learning, iteration, collaboration, and agility."

"The hardest part is changing the measure of success from output to outcomes, specifically changes in customer behavior."

"The leadership gave five million bucks and said show me value in six months or we won’t give you the rest."

"HR, especially Learning and Development, holds the real power of organizational transformation."

"The only way we know we’re delivering value is if somebody changes their behavior."

"You want to move from ‘make me a thing’ to ‘change customer behavior.’ That’s where the magic is."

"Proactive transparency about UX work draws attention and eventually makes people come to you proactively."

"If a new regime doesn’t value design, you’re still going to get design, it’s just going to suck."

"Calling it Lean UX might have limited its impact because people think UX is just for 'those people'."

Ask the Rosenbot
Janaki Kumar
Innovate with Purpose
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Bria Alexander
OKRs—Helpful or Harmful?
2022 • DesignOps Community
Jen Cardello
Curating insight: Strategies for integrating knowledge across research functions
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Cheryl Platz
Embrace Your Fun Factor: Game Development Best Practices for Product Design
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Fredrik Matheson
First-time users, longtime strategies: Why Parkinson’s Law is making you less effective at work – and how to design a fix.
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Josh Clark
Sentient Design, AI, and the Radically Adaptive Experience (1st of 3 seminars)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Gillian Salerno-Rebic
From Insight to Impact: How JourneySpark Used WEVO Pulse + Pro to Drive a 50% Lift in Ad Engagement
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Adel Du Toit
Get Your CFO To Say: 'Our Strategic Goal is User Obsession'
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Etienne Fang
The Power of Care: From Human-Centered Research to Humanity-Centered Leadership
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Aditi Ruiz
Pulse Check: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 2
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Alison Rand
Scaling Impact with Service Design
2021 • DesignOps Community
Bria Alexander
Reflect and Chart Forward
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Bud Caddell
Theme 2 Intro
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
John Maeda
About Design Organizations
2019 • DesignOps Community
Kritika Yadav
Optimizing AI Conversations: A Case Study on Personalized Shopping Assistance Frameworks
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Jeff Gothelf
Innovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold

More Videos

Dr. Karl Jeffries

"Tech workers in the UK are five times more depressed than the UK average, with stress killing creativity."

Dr. Karl Jeffries

The Science of Creativity for DesignOps

January 8, 2024

Amy Marquez

"There’s been a huge convergence because everybody’s got a mobile device now and expects a certain kind of experience."

Amy Marquez

INVEST: Discussion

June 15, 2018

Steve Portigal

"Building an internal research practice is critical for long-term value and integration of insights."

Steve Portigal Chris Chapo Kelly Goto Christian Rohrer

Discussion

May 13, 2015

Alicia Mooty

"Involving designers early in the process is crucial to avoid the 'fast-food' model where they feel like order takers."

Alicia Mooty

Design Staffing Models

September 30, 2021

Ana Maria Montero Barrantes

"I am not throwing away your UX."

Ana Maria Montero Barrantes Aditi Dhar Michelle Kaplan Nate Osborne Matt Laurence

The Authentic UX Talent Show

January 8, 2024

Lada Gorlenko

"We can’t complain about not having a seat at the table if we don’t offer one of our own."

Lada Gorlenko Sharbani Dhar Sébastien Malo Rob Mitzel Ivana Ng Michal Anne Rogondino

Theme 1: Discussion

January 8, 2024

Sofia Quintero

"Data entry is the enemy; automation is the key to making research repositories successful."

Sofia Quintero

The Product Philosophy Behind EnjoyHQ

March 10, 2021

Laura Klein

"The incentive structure at a big company is set up to reward people for entirely different stuff than innovation requires."

Laura Klein

Unique challenges of innovation in enterprises

April 23, 2020

Andrew Michael

"At Hotcho, we started with a qualitative focus, swung too far into quantitative, and then found a balanced middle ground."

Andrew Michael

Building a Product Insights Team

March 10, 2022

Latest Books All books