Rosenfeld Review Podcast

The best operating models for design orgs are mission-driven, evolving, and team-developed. Those criteria might seem daunting, but Daniel Orbach, Lou’s guest and a speaker at September’s DesignOps Summit, explains how he facilitates a dynamic culture of co-creating with his team at JP Morgan Chase. Daniel outlines his framework, one where the whole team is involved. It’s a dynamic, fluid process that builds teamwork, creates buy-in, and establishes a framework of periodic review, which encourages continual evolution.

Lou and Daniel discuss the impact of rituals and mission statements on both teams and individuals. They also explore the impact of a team’s operating models on the broader organization and how interactions with various teams can foster shared understanding within the broader context of the organization.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

- How mission statements can inspire and drive operating models

- The power of organic rituals and the unusual, unifying ritual of Daniel’s team at JP Morgan Chase

- How cross-pollinating between teams can create a shared vocabulary and increase understanding

Quick Reference Guide:

2:36 - Introduction of Daniel

3:14 - Co-creating operating models with a team

4:33 - On mission and operating models

7:19 - Quarterly impact retrospectives

9:16 - Rituals and mission

12:55 - Co-creating operating models

15:34 - Why you need the Rosenverse

18:39 - Operating models’ effects on broader organizations

21:00 - Shared vocabulary

23:07 - Cross-pollinating in organizations to facilitate shared understanding

25:05 - Operating models and the individual

28:09 - Daniel’s gift for the audience

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:

DesignOps Summit https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designops-summit/2024/

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by John Coram https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316796883

Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush https://www.amazon.com/Pieces-Action-Vannevar-Bush/dp/1953953204

Being simultaneously data-driven and creative seems paradoxical. So does building statistics into the creative process. John Paul de Guzman has managed to do both. As the founder and chief creative of Frost Design and Consulting Group, and speaker at the upcoming DesignOps Summit, millions of Filipinos have been impacted by their work with major FinTech and telecom projects.

Much of the UX/UI talent in the Philippines is self-taught, often struggling with the gap between academic training and industry expectations. To address this, John Paul developed a systematic approach to training and design processes.

John Paul and Lou discuss how Frost has embraced data-driven design, which, contrary to the creative chaos one might expect, has led to more efficient workflows and better client outcomes. By integrating tools like Trello and Figma, and leveraging AI for task management, John Paul has significantly reduced administrative overhead. This approach allows designers to focus on their work rather than getting bogged down in busy work. They can track work in real time, eliminating the need for status meetings and improving overall productivity—a win-win for both the team and their clients.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

- How John Paul and his team at Frost systematically integrated data into their creative processes

- How John Paul addressed the talent gap in his company

The tools he uses to track workflows and achieve always-current status on projects

- How probabilistic analysis helps predict project timelines and manage client expectations more accurately

- How John Paul is integrating AP in the project-tracking process

Quick Reference Guide:

0:13 - Introduction of John Paul

2:16 - The path that got John Paul where he is today

5:18 - What it means to be data-driven

8:39 - Systematizing the data-driven design process by tracking workflows

11:58 - Mapping the workflow

16:01 - Break

18:45 - Tools for probabilistic analysis and managing time

24:11 - The level of granularity John Paul’s team tracks

25:56 - Handling aspects of work that are more conceptual and difficult to atomize

30:46 - John Paul’s gift for listeners

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:

DesignOps Summit 2024 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designops-summit/2024/

Giving feedback to subordinates can be just as stressful as receiving it. Yet evaluations are a critical component of retention, employer/employee expectations, and production in general. Having an evaluation framework and system in place creates efficiencies, fills voids, and benefits everyone on the team. Enter Ignacio Martinez, associate director at Grand Studio in Chicago. He’ll be delivering a talk at the Design Ops Summit in September, “Fair and Effective Designer Evaluation”.

In this podcast episode, Ignacio and Lou explore the importance of a well-structured evaluation framework that highlights “glows and grows” in the areas of craft, quality, client interaction, and teamwork. Ignacio’s system, built on the very accessible Google Sheets, combines quantitative metrics with qualitative feedback to reduce bias and offer a comprehensive assessment of designers' performance. His framework allows for continuous feedback from peers, project directors, and supervisors.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

- The principles and methodologies behind creating a fair and effective designer evaluation system

- How contributions from peers, career managers, and directors can create a robust evaluation system

- The importance of a structured framework with clear categories and traits such as craft, quality, client interaction, and teamwork.

- The benefits of incorporating both quantitative metrics and qualitative feedback to minimize bias and provide comprehensive evaluations.

- How to create a framework for continuous ongoing feedback from peers, project directors, and supervisors

- How evaluation criteria may evolve based on internal priorities

Quick Reference Guide:

0:13 - Intro of Ignacio

3:54 - Evaluating designers then and now

6:32 - Gut feelings versus using a system

8:27 - Defining desired traits and levels

11:49 - The framework of the documentation

14:54 - The Rosenverse

17:34 - Who are the evaluators? Are they biased? Are they anonymous?

21:33 - The frequency of evaluations

22:36 - Consider what makes the business run

26:05 - The importance of transparency

26:51 - Ignacio’s gift for listeners

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:

Blurb of Ignacio’s “Fair and Effective Designer Evaluation” https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designops-summit/2024/sessions/fair-and-effective-designer-evaluation/

DesignOps Summit virtual conference - September 23-25 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designops-summit/2024/

Rosenverse https://rosenfeldmedia.com/rosenverse/

Donald Glover https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2255973/

Kate Towsey - Research That Scales by The Rosenfeld Review Podcast (Rosenfeld Media)

Is it time to advance the practice of service design?

Ben Reason and Patrick Quattlebaum think so. They’re veteran service designers and co-authors of a pair of Rosenfeld books—Service Design: From Insight to Implementation and Orchestrating Experiences respectively.

Ben, founder of LiveWork Studio, and Patrick, who founded Harmonic Design in Atlanta, join Lou to talk about launching a new Rosenfeld conference—Advancing Service Design—designed to highlight the service design’s potential for a new generation. They see opportunities for service design to go deeper—by integrating with and strengthening existing practices, like product management and agile, and broader—by better connecting systems that span multiple organizations (think healthcare).

Working with the Rosenfeld team, they’re creating a conference program that you can be a part of—they describe the kinds of presentation proposals they’re looking for from prospective speakers. Patrick and Ben hope you’ll join them in advancing service design; the conference will take place virtually December 3-4.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

- The real meaning of service design

- How service design is evolving

- Some crucial differences between work in the North America and Europe

- Why communication between organizations is so important

- How the upcoming conference will inspire and support you

- How to contribute and become part of the upcoming case studies

- How the panel discussions at the December conference will be different

Quick Reference Guide:

0:15 - Introduction to Ben and Patrick

1:50 - Being change agents to take Service Design to the next level

5:03 - Announcing a new conference: Advancing Service Design– Looking at Service Design Through Different Lenses

6:05 - Perspectives on different sides of the Atlantic

11:30 - Why service design exists in the first place

12:38 - More about the upcoming December virtual conference

17:40 - Call for proposals for the case studies and what they are looking for

19:00 - Ben’s ideas for the conference: The next iteration of service design going from within an organization to between multiple organizations

21:09 - Patrick’s ideas for the conference: Getting the people who want to transform things to communicate and the complexity of partnering together

23:05 - Bringing success from the inside

24:45 - Commercial break

27:10 - Personal story from Patrick about communication highlighting the broader concept of the case studies for the conference

32:30 - Personal story from Ben about connection across systems

37:16 - A different type of panel discussion to be at the conference

40:15 - Gifts for listeners

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:

Apply to speak at ASD2024 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/apply-to-speak-at-advancing-service-design-a-new-conference-from-rosenfeld/

LiveWork Studio https://liveworkstudio.com/

Harmonic Design https://thisisharmonic.com/

Service Design: Form Insight to Innovation by Andy Polaine, Ben Reason & Lavrans Løvlie https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/service-design/

Orchestrating Experiences: Collaborative Design for Complexity by Chris Risdon and Patrick Quattlebaum https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/orchestrating-experiences/

Movie: Clueless https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112697/

The Ready https://www.theready.com/

Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan https://www.bravenewwork.com/

Leah Buley and Joe Natoli have teamed up to make something great (check out the reviews on Amazon!) even greater. How? Well, considering that The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide was written more than a decade ago, it was time to revisit the content and make it even more relevant for today’s UX teams. After all, times have changed.

But the fundamental principles of the original book haven’t changed. They are as solid today as they were 11 years ago. What has changed is that the methods have been adapted for the speed of change in today’s businesses.

Joe says it best: “These methods are shorter. They're simpler. They’re more direct in a lot of ways, and they cut to the chase in a way that longer processes don’t. I've met plenty of senior people who are throwing up their hands and going, ‘We're doing all the things. Why isn't this working?’ And the truth is, they're kind of overworking and overthinking. Everything in this book is practical and direct and gets you from point A to B. I just don't think there's any better way to get there.”

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

- About Leah’s experience as a solo UX practitioner and the inspiration behind the first edition of UX Team of One

- How the UX field has changed over the past decade

- How the second edition aims to provide comprehensive yet practical UX methods that can be applied in various organizational settings

- About the shortcomings of UX boot camps and educational programs

- A perspective that balances UX advocacy with business objectives and the reality of corporate politics

- How to navigate and thrive in a UX career despite industry challenges, focusing on practical, adaptable methods and tools.

Quick Reference Guide:

0:46 - Introduction of Leah and Joe

1:33 - The User Experience Team of One, second edition

6:46 - Large or small team, Leah and Joe’s book is comprehensive without being overwhelming

8:58 - Righting wrongs

12:14 - What’s new in the second edition – striving to do more with less

15:58 - Break - plug for the Rosenverse

18:20 - The current shitstorm

21:39 - On speed

24:40 - On toolkits. Tools and methods are two different things.

28:16 - Who needs The User Experience Team of One?

30:45 - Leah and Joe’s gifts for the audience

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:

Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/0593652886

Jakob Bro, jazz guitarist https://jakobbro.com/web/

Confessions of a Pricing Man by Hermann Simon https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Pricing-Man-Affects-Everything/dp/3319203991

Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe https://www.amazon.com/Bonfire-Vanities-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0312427573

The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide by Leah Buley and Joe Natoli https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-user-experience-team-of-one-second-edition/

Have you ever thought about the similarities between art and science? Or about how math is the language of the universe? No? Welcome to a perspective shift. Ultimately this episode is about making things better, not just different. But how we get there is through a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with the witty and philosophical Erin Weigel.

Erin Weigel wants us to make things better, not just different. But how do we get there?

Lou had a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with Erin, always witty and philosophical—and often funny as hell. Join them on a perspective-shifting conversation that bridges disciplines and challenges conventional thinking, all in the pursuit of genuine improvement.

Erin is the author of the recently published Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments. She brings a fresh, accessible, and humor-filled take on what may seem like a dry topic: experimentation. Erin digs into the role of experimentation in design, advocating for always defaulting to experiments even if they’re the quick and dirty kind.

Erin and Lou also cover the following:

- Wonky stuff like normal distributions, the central limit theorem, and what can be learned from outliers

- The power of experiments to unite multidisciplinary teams by getting away from opinions and finding the truth

- How professionals can use the principles of experimentation to navigate uncertainties and drive meaningful improvements

- Discerning the impact of changes made

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

- How Erin, with a fine arts background, became the principal designer at Booking.com and the Senior Group Product Design Manager at Deliveroo

- The fundamental similarities between art and science

- Why you should never skip the experimental phase

- How experimentation unites people across disciplines

- The difference between making things different and making them better

Quick Reference Guide:

0:32 - Introduction of Erin; similarities between art and science

4:05 - Barriers between art and science

5:58 - Statistics is fun!

12:37 - Defaulting to experimentation

18:06 - Break - 5 reasons to use the Rosenverse

20:36 - Experimentation as a uniting force

25:49 - Make things better, not just different

28:32 - Erin’s gift for listeners

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:

Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments by Erin Weigel: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/design-for-impact/

Ologies Podcast with Allie Ward: https://www.alieward.com/ologies

Rosenverse: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/rosenverse/

Factfulness: 10 Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and 10 Reasons Why Things are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling: https://www.amazon.com/Factfulness-Reasons-World-Things-Better/dp/1250107814

In the latest episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Lou sits down with old friend Peter van Dijck, author of Information Architecture for Designers: Structuring Websites for Business Success, one of the first books ever written on Information Architecture. Peter is now a partner of Simply Put, a Colombian company that builds and designs useful AI Agents—including the soon-to-launch Rosenbot!

Peter offers insight into the world of AI. Having been one of the first to speak about IA, it is fascinating to hear what he now has to say about AI. Join Lou and Peter as they take you through the journey where language itself is transforming from design to technology.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

- An introduction to the Rosenbot, an AI bot that Peter’s company is developing for Rosenfeld Media

- Some basic vocabulary for speaking about AI and ML so you “don’t feel like an idiot”

- Mind-blowing truths about the potential of Generative AI’s language capabilities

- How writing has transformed from a design to a technology and learn what that means for how we interact with the data

- About the importance of highly curated information when training bots and the tricky balance that comes when you want to present less polished sources like unedited conversations

- The importance of the human side of things

- The biggest surprise that has come from working in the industry

Quick Reference Guide

[0:15] - Lou’s introduction of Peter Van Dijck

[3:00] - AI on a basic level

[4:59] - Generative AI’s language capabilities

[18:08] - How we interact with metadata and writing as a technology

[20:00] - How real-use cases make technology more exciting and instantaneous

[22:19] - Information about the new Designing With AI Conference

[23:33] - Some of the jargon around AI and IA

[24:16] - Introduction to Lou’s Chat Bot, the Rosen Bot

[24:39] - The importance of training bots on highly curated information

[28:34] - The tricky balance of curated and less polished content

[30:26] - The human side of things

[31:55] - Different interaction models

[37:58] - The biggest surprise working in the industry

[38:30] - A Gift For You

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:

Peter Van Dijck Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petervandijck/

Peter’s Company, Simply Put: https://www.getsimplyput.ai/

Information Architecture for Designers: Structuring Websites for Business Success https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YDJPPCM

The My Climate Journey Podcast: https://www.mcjcollective.com/media/podcast

In a time of massive layoffs across the tech industry, and with the inevitable advancement of AI, is it time for tech workers to organize — as in, unionize? I know, I know. You thought unions were for 1950’s factory workers. Not so. Ethan Marcotte, author of You Deserve a Tech Union (and coiner of the term “responsive web design”) thinks it’s high time for tech workers to protect themselves by coming together and deciding what’s most important to them as a collective.

Certainly, tech workers don’t face the same kind of potential life-threatening working conditions of industrial America, but they still deserve a seat at the table when important decisions about their work are being discussed. With issues related to equality, transparency, workplace harassment, and how AI is shifting roles and affecting how work gets done, there’s a lot to talk about.

Ethan will bring his perspective on tech workers and how they’re being impacted by AI to the upcoming Designing with AI virtual conference in June.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

- What’s attractive about unionizing for tech workers of the 2020s

- What tech workers would change if they could

- About tech walkouts and unions that have already happened

- Helpful resources for starting conversations with coworkers

- The potential relationship among AI, reskilling, and worker unions

Quick Reference Guide:

0:20 - Introduction of Ethan

3:35 - How Ethan became interested in the idea of tech unions

6:04 - “Weren’t unions for the manufacturing industry in the 1950s?”

9:32 - The things tech workers would change if they could

11:14 - Conversations among employees – are they safe? Are they protected?

13:28 - On organizing for the greater good of humanity

17:11 - Plug for Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions by Harry Max

19:06 - How we should feel about AI

22:36 - AI, reskilling, and when workers don’t want to leave mundane tasks behind

31:08 - Employees “voting with their feet” is costly for organizations

33:24 - How future workers may organize as it relates to AI

36:30 - Ethan’s gift for listeners

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:

Designing with AI virtual conference, June 4-5, 2024 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/events/futures/

You Deserve a Tech Union by Ethan Markcotte https://www.amazon.com/Deserve-Tech-Union-Ethan-Marcotte/dp/1952616603

WorkerOrganizing.org https://workerorganizing.org/

Tech Workers Coalition https://techworkerscoalition.org/

TheFutureIsLikePie.com https://thefutureislikepie.com/

Dan Hill is the director of the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne, and author of Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary and Designing Missions. And he’s the opening speaker at the inaugural Designing with AI conference, where he’ll be presenting “Designing for the Infrastructures of Everyday Life”.

Like it or not, AI is a growing part of our infrastructure—not just the infrastructure of our phones, our computers, and the internet—but that of our physical world. It’s increasingly used to support the very fundamental systems that maintain our cities, hospitals, utilities, and educational systems. On some levels, this is cause for concern. After all, we’ve seen other implementations of AI (think riding-sharing services) that have not lived up to their promise but have instead aggravated some of the problems they sought to address.

Dan is a big-picture guy with an ability to draw principles from history and other sectors. He understands that utilizing AI is inevitable. The challenge is recognizing the interconnectedness of our various systems and working together to build infrastructures that truly create better life experiences for all.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

- The many facets of infrastructures

- How AI is currently being used and how it might be used in the future to support our infrastructures

- Why ride-sharing is not exactly an AI model worth repeating

- Why the Japanese and Finnish models work well in those environments but aren’t necessarily transferable to more diverse cultures

- Why quality of life will only improve with a more holistic, integrated design approach

Quick Reference Guide

0:37 - Introduction of Dan

3:49 - AI as infrastructure

8:30 - How AI might be used to further support infrastructure systems

12:09 - Will the impact of AI actually make life better?

18:59 - Plug for Managing Priorities by Harry Max. Get 15% off!

20:15 - The metaphor of designing looking through a lens and technology’s impact on the material world

26:16 - Helpful models – the Japanese and Finnish cultures

31:52 - Dan’s gift to the audience

Resources and Links from Today's Episode:

Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary by Dan Hill https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Matter-Trojan-Horses-Vocabulary/dp/0992914639/

Managing Priorities: How to Create Better Plans and Make Smarter Decisions by Harry Max https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/managing-priorities/

Designing with AI Conference, June 4-5 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/events/futures/

Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh https://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Ashes-Opiums-Hidden-Histories/dp/0374602921