What are the important qualities that go into design leadership? What can design leaders do to help their teams collaborate and grow? In this episode, we sit down with Tim Merrill (Director of Product Design at HubSpot) to discuss the unexpected intricacies and challenges of leading a design team.

"When you're doing design critiques, which are ultra important to growth as a designer, you have to have that kind of trust and understanding that you're both coming from a place of wanting to make things better. Not from a place of ego or trying to show that you know what you're talking about and somebody else doesn't." — Tim at 10:30

Tim on Twitter: Twitter.com/timeril
Tim on LinkedIn: LnkedIn.com/in/timmerrill

Email us: Hello@UXandGrowth.com
Austin on Twitter: Twitter.com/ustinKnight
Geoff on Twitter: Twitter.com/dailydaigle
Matt on Twitter: Twitter.com/mattrheault

Design Leadership with Tim Merrill (Director of Product Design at HubSpot)

Stories, debates and advice. Austin Knight, a designer at Google (formerly HubSpot), sits down with friends from around the world to discuss User Experience and Growth tactics.

This show is entirely non-profit and independent, to ensure that the content is always of the highest quality. It does not have ads, is not associated with any business or organization, and does not accept donations. It is privately funded by the host.

To learn more, visit us at www.austinknight.com/podcast

Technology

Tech News

Podcasting

Gadgets

Software How-To

What factors breed innovation? How do you take a product from zero to one, launching and iterating quickly? What does it mean to create sustainable growth? In this episode, Cambria Davies (Product Manager at Ro) tells us the story of launching one of HubSpot's flagship products from scratch, and all of the critical steps her team took along the way. We dive into jobs-to-be-done, activation metrics, and the significance of sustainable growth. Plus, Cambria gives us a peek into her new role at Ro, and some of their recent fast-paced COVID-19 launches.

"For those who might not be familiar with the Jobs-to-be-Done framework, the basic premise is that people hire products to fulfill jobs for them. So in the morning when I wake up, I have a job of waking up as efficiently as possible and I can either hire a cup of coffee to perform that job for me, or I could hire a green juice. So, you really shift the way that you think about competition and how people explore solutions to their problems, which is rooted in acute pain points or problems they have, as opposed to it being this generalizable demographic that will always drink coffee in the mornings." — Cambria at 12:29

Cambria's site: https://cambriadavies.com/
Cambria's blog: https://www.shipsh.it/blog
Cambria on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cambria_davies
Ro: https://ro.co/ (P.S. They're hiring. Ping Cambria if you're interested.)

Book about JTBD: When Coffee and Kale Compete by Alan Klement
Book about error reduction: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Austin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ustinknight
More about the show and host: https://austinknight.com/

Necessity, Innovation & Rapid Launches with Cambria Davies (Product Manager at Ro)

So you've started a podcast. Now, how do you book guests? What about sponsors and affiliates? Where should you be promoting your show? In this episode, I sit down with Jason Ogle (Host of User Defenders) to discuss the intricacies of being a podcast host.

This episode was originally recorded in April of 2017 and we didn't release it. So now, it's being brought to you as a bonus episode. The recording may be a bit dated, but the information isn't. Enjoy!

User Defenders Community: https://community.userdefenders.com/
User Defenders Podcast: https://userdefenders.com/
Jason on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonogle

John Lee Dumas' guide to podcast sponsorships: https://www.eofire.com/podcast-sponsorships/

Austin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ustinknight
More about me and the show: https://austinknight.com/

Podcast Mastery with Jason Ogle (Host of User Defenders)

What are the key pieces of a great portfolio? What are the best tools for building and launching one? And what are the pitfalls to avoid? In this episode, Martijn van den Broeck (Designer at Google) joins me to talk about the art and science of design portfolios. For years, Martijn has closely studied portfolios, developing expertise in everything from the ideal number of case studies to the right way to handle an NDA and beyond. He shares a comprehensive approach to building, launching, and leveraging a portfolio.

"I'm surprised by how few people actually have read their NDA and tried to understand it. One thing I did was write an article about what I learned while interning at IDEO. So I couldn't go into the specifics of projects, but I could still say, 'Hey, I went to IDEO and I learned all these amazing things' that weren't NDA protected." — Martijn at 22:56

Martijn's portfolio guide: https://medium.com/portfolio-principles

Martijn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MartijnvdBroeck
Martijn's portfolio: https://martijnvandenbroeck.com/

Austin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ustinknight
More about me and the show: https://austinknight.com/

Design Portfolios with Martijn van den Broeck (Designer at Google)

What do designers do after they've achieved their career goals? Why aren't designers typically founders, and why is creative burnout so common? In this episode, I sit down with Joel Beukelman (Designer at Google) for a raw and honest conversation about career growth, goal attainment, and the inevitable existential crisis that follows. We touch on the dangers of being emotionally attached to work, the prevalence of ego and homogeneity in design, and the confusing world of design titles and roles (and how they impact us). Plus, Joel shares his framework for evaluating one's career and its impact on life.

"I had to look outside of design in my career and be like, 'There has to be something more than this, because this obviously isn't fulfilling or making me feel purposeful'. In the end, I had a meeting with Monica, my manager, and she was like, 'What do you want next?' and I was like, 'I want to work less. I want to be here less. Can we do that?' It was a weird conversation to have with my boss, but that was really it. I didn't want to invest my time in my career." — Joel at 9:55

Please note that this was recorded well before the COVID-19 pandemic, in October of 2019.

Check out the video that Joel made about this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtUeQvp9b8M

Try his framework for yourself: https://www.bkl.mn/designer-at-scale

Joel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_bklmn
Joel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/joelbeukelman
Joel on Instagram: http://instagram.com/bklmn

Austin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ustinknight
More about me and the show: https://austinknight.com/

Design Leadership with Tim Merrill (Director of Product Design at HubSpot)

Download our free app to listen on your phone