Rosenverse

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
Matt LeMay
You Don’t “Get” Anyone to Do Anything
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Holly Cole
Understanding Experiences: When you have to do more than work
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Spencer L. A. Stultz
Why Social Justice Frameworks are Necessary for Successful DEI/JEDI Initiatives
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Sahibzada Mayed
The Politics of Radical Research: A Manifesto
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Kyle Godbey
Non-linear service design for complex adaptive systems
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Charles Lee
Building a New Home for the Atlassian Design System
2020 • Enterprise Community
Mary-Lynne Williams
Exit Interview #4: From Product Design Leadership to Sound Healing
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Deanna Mitchell
Designing with culture: Unlocking impactful insights for Product and UX
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Bria Alexander
Welcome
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Steve Baty
Discussion
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Peter Merholz
The 2025 State of UX/Design Organizational Health
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Paul Bakaus
Killing the handoff: Iterating design live in the browser on real production code
2026 • Designing with AI 2026
Conference
Leisa Reichelt
Opening Keynote: Operating in Context
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Bria Alexander
Theme Two Intro
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Ari Zelmanow
Dark Side of Democratization
2023 • Advancing Research Community
Megan Blocker
Panel: Excellence in Impact
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold

More Videos

Victor Udoewa

"Colonial ways of being, knowing, and valuing will never produce emancipatory methodologies."

Victor Udoewa

Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion

March 26, 2024

Peter Morville

"Every few years consultants come in and tidy up our mess, but as soon as they leave, we mess it all up again."

Peter Morville

The Architecture of Understanding

May 13, 2015

Sam Ladner

"The boss’s son is no longer the default backup boss; there are now written rules accessible to all."

Sam Ladner

How Research Can Drive Strategic Foresight

March 9, 2022

Michelle Bejian Lotia

"We created research indexes with search blocks that update over time to help people focus on the most recent insights."

Michelle Bejian Lotia Anne-Marie Morell

Rolling Out a Repository: How Zapier Centralizes Insights from Across their Organization

March 28, 2023

Leisa Reichelt

"At Atlassian, many confident non-researchers were already doing lots of research, which was an opportunity and a challenge."

Leisa Reichelt

Opening Keynote: Operating in Context

November 7, 2018

Sarah Gallimore

"Every parent we talked to had some variation of the question: this exists, can I use it right now? Where was this when I needed to apply?"

Sarah Gallimore

Inspire Progress with Artifacts from the Future

November 18, 2022

Joerg Beringer

"This is real serious analysis, not pre-prepared or fake data."

Joerg Beringer Thomas Geis

Scaling User Research with AI: Continuous Discovery of User Needs in Minutes

September 10, 2025

Peter Merholz

"Designers embedded in teams often feel lonely and their work leads to fractured user experiences."

Peter Merholz

Customer-Centered Design Organizations

June 8, 2017

Dalia El-Shimy

"Stakeholders aren’t leaving us out on purpose; they make reasonable decisions with imperfect information."

Dalia El-Shimy

So You've Got a Seat at the Table. Now What?

March 31, 2020