The next wave of UX Designers is out there. They expect things to be simple, powerful and user-focused. There is just one problem. Most of them don’t know what a UX Designer is. Today, Maya Patterson joins us to talk about the challenge of preparing for a career in a field you probably don’t know exists. The solution? While traditional academics is failing to prepare digital professionals, they are creating great thinkers and problem solvers. So, as an industry, we have a responsibility to reach out to give this next wave insight into their potential and a path to see it realized.

What is design leadership? A new term that's swept through the industry, it's really just leadership. But now that design has a seat at the table, the issue becomes how does a design leader learn and cope when they are making huge decisions every day? From operationalizing design to creating a culture of continuous improvement, design leaders are tasked with defining the path for themselves and the design leaders of tomorrow. Aarron Walter joins us on the Bureau Briefing to talk about his journey and thoughts on how design leaders are approaching these challenges.

Most of us are just now getting back into the swing of things after taking a break the last couple of weeks of 2016. As we get back to work, let's enjoy a another Bureau Briefing on taking sabbaticals. In his first week back from a month off, Ben Callahan sits down with Carl to talk about the how and why of taking time off. From preparing yourself and your team to setting expectations and the eventual re-entry into daily life.

Life is hard. For over 30 million people in The United States, these difficulties can manifest themselves in an eating disorder. In the web industry, it's really easy for this to go unnoticed because of the increase in distributed teams and popularity of alcohol at social events and conferences. Justine Arreche has suffered immensely with these issues and today she's speaking out to help others know they aren't alone.

For those of us who manage digital projects, we have a good feel for what will go right and what will go wrong. The team often falls into the same traps, and the clients often get worried about the same issues. Some of us hold postmortems to see what went wrong. But even the term implies the project was DOA. To make it less dreary, we change the name of the process retrospectives. But that still implies we can only look backwards. On this week’s Bureau Briefing, Caitlin Sheaffer shares a better way to improve projects. Introducing Learning Reviews.

Scope, schedule and resources, aka the project triangle, are important … but ultimately the difference between success and failure comes down to the relationships we form. Elizabeth Michaka shares how she became a DPM in higher education where budget was never a factor in projects. While she was attending a Digital PM Workshop she realized something. The focus on budget was so strong, it seemed to have overshadowed the importance on relationships.

From the beginning, the Bureau has been about strong connections. In this episode, Carl shares the direction the Bureau is heading to make those connections even stronger. While events will always play a central role in how the Bureau community comes together, a new community site will provide new levels of collaboration, education, and support.

There you are. In the middle of the client and the team. Trying to control the uncontrollable. Forcing a smile as you give bad news to your coworkers. Or pointing back to a document as you tell the client no. So how do you get through a bad day? Especially when you've got the added pressure of managing multiple projects? Although we try, it can't be solved with process, tools or methodology. So how can we maintain our sanity? Listen in as Carson Pierce shares his thoughts.

Developer turned Agile Coach, Natalie Warnert joins us on the Bureau Briefing today. We talk about the need for flexibility in agile and moving from a prescriptive to an effective approach. We touch on how design fits into an agile process and how the language we use can make all the difference in keeping a project moving forward. We'll also address the question, why aren't more women involved in agile? For more information on women in agile, go to womeninagile.com or nataliewarnert.com.