All over the world UX and design professionals get the job title of senior within 3-5 years of starting; there is no wonder that after a couple of years, they start to consider what’s next. So how to you as their leader help them move to the next level? Mags Hanley will provide design leaders with a 5-step process for developing their seniors that gives the seniors autonomy, and continue to build a cohesive design team.

1. What to do when your
senior designer wants
to be more…
Mags Hanley
Design Leadership, UX Australia, 14 May 2020

2. Imagine this…

3. What do you do when
this happens?
Put it into the chat box

4. Five steps
1. Understand what ‘more’ means to the person
2. Determine which role is the best for each person right now, and
to help them identify potential ways forward
3. Find the right place or project for them to grow
4. Change your organisational structure to support growth of your
team
5. Teach them to skills to grow

5. Firstly three
career paths
forUX
professionals
Practitioner / Individual contributor
• Focus is on practicing, strategy and doing design for a
product or service organisation
• Progression is Junior, Mid-weight, Senior, Specialist, Lead,
Principal
Manager
• Focus on developing people and the practice, and achieving
business goals
• Progression isTeam lead, Manager, Director,VP / GM, CDO
Consultant
• Focus on providing expert skills into organisations
• Progression is Freelancer,Consultant,Thought Leader
Photo by Davide Baraldi on Unsplash Photo by You X Ventures on UnsplashPhoto by Christina @
wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

6. Cornerstones
ofUX work
Business
People
Technical

7. Step 1 –What
is more?
 Use your research skills to dig deeper into what ‘more’ means?
lead people
develop new skills
creative direction
create the strategy
new projects
more autonomy
clientprojects
productmanagement
lead projects
more experience
coach people develop the practice

8. Questions for
understanding
more
More…people management
 Do you want to:
 Coach and mentor people
 Develop people’s skills and careers
 Review and critique work
 Help with recruitment
 Grow a team
 Lead a team of specialist
More…project leadership
 Do you want to:
 Set the direction for the project
 Create proposals for work
 Scope the work for projects
 Work more closely with development/ project management/ test / the
business
 Assign work to the team
 Help the team get work done on time

9. Questions for
understanding
more
More…strategic work
 Do you want to:
 Set the direction for the practice
 Work across channels
 Expand into Service Design or Customer Experience
 Create the strategy for products
 Create the design strategy
 Set the creative direction and vision for projects
 Teach your specialism
More…autonomy
 Do you want to:
 Set your own deadlines
 Decide on your own work
 Scope and specify the work your design discipline does in projects
 Lead a team of specialists
 Develop your design discipline more in the organisation

10. Questions for
understanding
more
More…experience
 Do you want to
 Have more exposure to clients
 Work on different projects
 Use different skills when practicing design
 Work in a different product or group
 Work in a different channel

11. What do you
do with this
data?
Rule ofThumb
People management  Managerial
Project leadership  Consulting or Practitioner
People management and Project leadership  Managerial
Strategic and People management  Managerial
Strategic and Autonomy  Practitioner
Strategic and Project leadership  Consulting
Autonomy  Specialist
Experience  Consulting or Practitioner
Use the answers to work out which UX career path will suit them the
best.
PLUS you know them – what does their personality and the way
they work demonstrate?

12. Step 2 – Right
now vs. the
future
Determine which role is the best for each person right now, and to
help them identify potential ways forward
Career vision
 A combination of life circumstances and what they enjoy at work
Direction
 Many directions a person can go
 Explore what each Manager / Consultant / Practitioner career path
could look like based on their vision
 For the next 6 months, what will get them on that path?

13. Step 2 – Right
now vs. the
future
DO say, “Let’s find opportunities in the business that can help you
towards being…”
People can see you want to keep them, and help them move
forward.
DON’T say, “Stay where you are for 6 months and then we’ll
consider your options.”
People can see through it – they know nothing will happen. IT IS
STALLING!

14. Example 1
Goals Directions Step 1
• Develop and grow
people in UX
• Teach and
communicate UX
• Develop the practice
of service design
Direction 1 -Teacher at
GA or at a university
• Teach UX skills to
juniors in the
organisation
• Teach a workshop
externally
Direction 2 - Manager or
Director of CX/UX at a
bank or retailer
• Line manager/ coach
responsibilities for a
junior member of the
team
• Teach service design
to the business
Direction 3 -Thought
leader in Service Design,
coaching people
through projects
• Teach service design
to the business

15. Example 2
Goals Directions Step 1
• Work on many and
varied UX projects
• Develop tools and
methods for doing
content strategy
• Lead projects
Direction 1 –
Independent Content
Strategy Consultant
• Ensure content
strategy work is
world class in the
organisation
• Lead one full UX
project
Direction 2 - Specialist
in the organisation
• Develop or find
specialist roles in
projects
Direction 3 - Author of
content strategy book
• Ensure content
strategy work is
world class in the
organisation
• Get them writing

16. Step 3 – Find
the right place
for them to
grow
Six month plan
Work on a plan to move them towards the direction they want to go
If you have no opportunities, consider working with them to find others in your
organisation or in another organisation.
It is OK to suggest that your organisation does not have opportunities for
growth.
Develop skills in…
Project leadership • Lead a design workstream in a project
• Scope and plan UX projects
• Write proposals for projects
• Allocate people by skill and temperament to a project
People leadership • Watch you run a UX team meeting and then run the next
one
• Assign them a junior member of the team to mentor/coach
Practice
development
• Document the existing UX practice
• Identify new ways to make the practice work better
• Lead project retros to understand where the process
worked (or didn’t)
Technical skills • Identify where they are missing skills and invest in training
• Write and teach their skills to the rest of the team

17. Step 4 –
Change your
team
Consider changing your team to allow for growth in the practitioner,
managerial and consultant
Career Path Current Changed
Practitioner Junior
Mid-weight
Senior
Add…
Specialist
Lead
Principal
Managerial - Team leader (if large enough team)
Coach or buddy
Consultant - Practice lead
Workstream lead

18. Step 5 –You
teach them to
grow
To grow need to develop skills in
 People – working with people, managing them, and managing
stakeholders
 Business – understanding the language, developing OKRs and KPIs,
developing business cases and strategy
 Technical – more sophisticated methods, defining the organisation's
practice, and learning more about technology
But who’s going to teach them…

19. Step 5 –You
teach them to
grow
Mentor them in business
 Provide examples of:
 Strategy
 Business cases
 OKRs and KPIs
 Talk analytics and measurement (quant and qual)
 Show them how you scope projects and write proposals
Mentor them in people skills
 Model behaviours with your team and talk to them afterwards
 Get them to shadow you doing allocation
 Show them how to effectively set expectations

20. Step 5 –You
teach them to
grow
Mentor them in technical and practice development
 Show them how to codify the practice – process mapping and
methods documentation
 Feedback on work – reviewing work, critique, and people skills
 Teaching a skill to more junior members of the team

21. Wrap up
1. Understand what ‘more’ means to the person
 Ask the right questions
2. Determine which role is the best for each person right now, and
to help them identify potential ways forward
 Identify their career vision and possible directions
3. Find the right place or project for them to grow
 Create a plan for the next 6 months to get them on their way
4. Change your organisational structure to support growth of your
team
 Consider changing your group to provide growth opportunities
5. Teach them to skills to grow
 As a leader teach them the skills by showing and mentoring

22. Questions

23. My services
 For senior UXers who want to grow their careers, I have a
community UX-CLC with
 Coaching (group and one-to-one),
 Learning (2 webinars per month) and
 Community (Slack)
 One-to-one leadership coaching
 Need more help, you can talk to me for 30 min about developing
UX leaders,Women in UX or your career. Please email me at
mags@magshanley.com

24. Contact Mags
 Email:
mags@magshanley.com
 LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/
magshanley/
 Twitter: @magshanley
 Website:
www.magshanley.com