Summary
In her talk, Julie reflects on her five-year journey at Citrix, sharing insights from her role as part of a small design team in a distributed company. She recounts her background, including her initial experiences at startups and large enterprises like Xerox and Adobe, which ultimately led her to Citrix. Julie emphasizes the lack of awareness of the design team within the company when she first started and explains how they progressively established their identity by engaging with customers and collaborating with various departments. She discusses major milestones, such as the shift to customer experience design and the implementation of initiatives like pop-up design studios to integrate design thinking across the organization. Through practical examples and humorous anecdotes, Julie highlights three key lessons for cultivating a design-oriented culture: make a splash, value design, and blend qualitative insights with quantitative measures. The talk underscores the importance of design thinking not only in product development but also in HR and other aspects of the business, showcasing the transformative power of empathy and design in enhancing company culture and customer experience.
Key Insights
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Design teams often start unseen; proactive engagement is crucial.
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Integrating design thinking into different business functions can enhance overall company operations.
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Courage and visibility are key to a successful design culture.
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Building empathy through customer interactions drives design innovations.
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Collaborative workshops can foster cross-department understanding and relationships.
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Using metrics, such as NPS, helps demonstrate the impact of design initiatives.
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Making design visible in corporate culture can change perceptions and increase engagement.
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Trial and experimentation are vital; failure can lead to valuable lessons.
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Establishing shared goals across teams ensures cohesive success in projects.
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Emphasizing the fuzzy front end of the design process can yield innovative solutions.
Notable Quotes
"I remember the recruiter had reached out to me a while ago and said, what's that Citrix thing you wrote to me about?"
"When I got there, I wanted to learn about who our customers were."
"We worked on everything but the products."
"People didn’t know we had a design team."
"What does a design team do?"
"Design thinking could be bigger than just about products."
"We had this idea like, why don’t we also have a booth at the conference this year?"
"I didn’t know we had a design team; what does a design team do?"
"Design should be like our whole goal, to put tech support out of business by having great products."
"Trust in the design process; that fuzzy front end is scary, and you don’t know where it’ll take you."
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