Summary
The talk opens by imagining a workplace where everyone has deep empathy for customers, improving both product and employee experiences. It highlights that in enterprise companies, UX is often added late and must scramble to scale and maximize impact amidst rapid growth. Using SmartSheet as an example, the speaker outlines challenges UX teams face as companies grow, including team organization, process scaling, and preventing disjointed experiences across product silos. Three speakers then present their success stories: VB Rosenstein, director of experience research at Zendesk, shares how she scaled a global UX research practice while adding rigor and credibility; Vasilio Sampalis, lead UX designer at LEGO, describes a top-down and bottom-up approach to increase user-centric maturity that gained Gartner's attention; and Jackie Ho, design practice lead at VMware, discusses maintaining team accountability and autonomy while keeping alignment post-scale. A key theme is making user experience everyone’s responsibility through an organization-wide design thinking culture.
Key Insights
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UX often gets added late in enterprise companies after product and engineering teams are established.
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Scaling UX during rapid company growth requires adjusting team structure and processes continuously.
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UX teams must avoid product silo experiences by maintaining a cohesive overall user experience.
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Creating a culture where everyone practices design thinking democratizes user-centric decision-making.
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VB Rosenstein scaled Zendesk’s global research practice with process streamlining and increased rigor.
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Vasilio Sampalis implemented both top-down and bottom-up strategies at LEGO to improve user-centric maturity.
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LEGO’s user-centric program attracted attention from Gartner, signaling high success.
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Jackie Ho focuses on balancing team autonomy with alignment to keep multiple UX teams accountable at VMware.
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Each growth stage introduces unique UX challenges requiring tailored management approaches.
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Embedding empathy for customers deeply across all roles can significantly improve product and employee experiences.
Notable Quotes
"Imagine if everyone you worked with, regardless of the role, had deep empathy for your customers and made decisions based on those customer needs."
"In the enterprise space, the UX function is added later. It’s not part of the company’s original DNA."
"By the time the value of a human centered process has been proven, UX is often outnumbered."
"How do they grow and organize their teams to keep up? How do they scale their processes? How do they maximize efficiency and quality?"
"We need to create an army of design thinkers across the organization who can make better decisions on what to build and how to build it."
"VB Rosenstein scaled Zendesk’s global UX research practice while adding rigor and credibility to their work."
"Vasilio Sampalis’s program at LEGO is so interesting and successful that it has attracted the attention of Gartner."
"Jackie Ho talks about how to keep teams accountable and aligned while maintaining their autonomy."
"Each stage of growth brings different challenges for UX to overcome."
"User experience is everyone’s responsibility. It’s not just UXs."
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