Commentary

Businesses that fail to address their customers’ needs will fail. Businesses that fail to integrate their customers’ needs into their business strategies will lose to companies that do. These maxims have been a standard part of annual reports and marketing hype, yet very few companies successfully execute them. How puzzling it is so many companies fall short serving their customers even as they herald the customer as royalty. By applying a little design research and thinking, companies can focus on the key issues that make a difference. How odd companies aren’t falling over themselves to get design right, especially given how easy it is and how little it costs.

On reflection, maybe it isn’t so puzzling or odd: several generations of business leaders throughout the 20th century were groomed by B-School models and theories that paid no attention to the business value of design thinking.  Although the situation is changing, the challenge we face as practitioners is to effect change in our own organizations in advance of and anticipation of a more enlightened management.

Insinuating ourselves into the current power structure is a difficult task. As with most incumbents, business managers need do nothing to maintain the status quo. Whether they are unschooled, untrained, or unaware of the value to their business of user experience, or whether they consider the cost of bringing user experience “online” unwarranted, the result is the same: it is easier to leave it out than make room for it.

In all fairness they have a point: changing an organization’s processes, roles and responsibilities to incorporate user experience seems like lot of work—it’s certainly a lot change and change means risk. On the flip side, until they have seen the value of user experience to their business, managers can’t calculate its value. Without a perceived value, and with only perceived risk and cost, to ignore user experience makes good business sense. Until their tried and true strategies fail to work, incumbents will behave rationally and maximize their comfort: they’ll do nothing differently today from what they did yesterday.

How do we shed light on the value of user experience as a strategic part of the business?  How do we get management to open up before the business is in crisis and it’s too late?

As with any change, there are several courses of action:
· political activism
· education and
· waiting it out

Political Activism–Sing songs of protest!

All of the forms of political struggle are available to us: civil disobedience, peaceful protest, even violent revolution, I suppose. We must start with an understanding: corporations are dictatorships not democracies. Within dictatorships certain political mechanisms are more successful than others. Too, if we want to keep our job at the end of the struggle, we must choose our political action with care. Although there are times when sacrificing one’s position for the greater good is just, few causes inside the walls of Corporate America are that just.

The two forms of political activism I’ve found to be most successful are: alliance building and subversion. Each are opposite sides of the same coin: they both require cooperation among a group of people; they both employ indirect means of accomplishing their ends, but where alliances are generally above-board and open, subversion is usually underground and surreptitious.

Building Alliances

Within our organizations, we can link up with individuals who are part of the power structure. I’ve had the good fortune of finding individuals, whether in marketing or engineering, who truly understand the benefits of improving user experience’s influence. They’ve realized UX will make their job a lot easier if it’s given more budget, more attention and more deference. 

Building alliances with individuals higher up the political ladder than your own management is a riskier strategy but with greater potential for success: if we can win the heart and mind of a senior vice-president, not only will we have a better perspective of the political landscape in general, we will likely gain key insights into the workings of our own management—invaluable information to assist in moving our agenda forward.

Whether with our peers or with managers, we are going to be asked to give up something in return for their help. In some cases the deal is a no-brainer (we would have done whatever it was without their asking)—these quid-pro-quo are the ones to look out for. In other cases, we might be asked to do something against our better wishes (even if it is ethical, we may find it distasteful, unexciting, or unsuitable to our skill set). As with all things political, there are times when we have to question whether what we’re getting is worth what we’re giving up.

Alliance building isn’t limited to associates within our company. Outside the organization, our involvement in professional societies such as CHIFOO helps strengthen the discipline of user experience in general. Establishing a vision for the discipline other practitioners can share helps all of us better communicate back to our own organizations.  In the relatively neutral context of professional meetings we may discover similar problems to our own, potential allies who can offer objective or successful strategies, and a range of possible approaches more broad than our own.

Subversion

“It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission” is one of the least punishable forms of subversion, especially if the results prove worthwhile.  If we can find teammates who are equally interested in the challenge and who are willing to risk a little scrutiny by their managers, we can build a small “resistance underground.”  Good judgment must still prevail if we want to keep our jobs, but managers actually like the plausible deniability that comes from a group acting independently—assuming the risks are acceptable.

Education–Sing songs of praise!

We must continue to educate: ourselves, our peers, our managers and the folks just entering the profession. Attending seminars, conferences, reading papers, magazines, writing articles - all of these help improve our own skills and the skills of others.

Harvard Business school (to use the canonical icon) is starting to understand the importance (and current lack) of design in business. “D” schools are popping up all over (Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, California College of the Arts, to name just a few) in which you can get an MBA in Design, or in which MBA students can get educated in design.

Inside our organization we need to call attention to the good research we run across: send management links to relevant articles, host brown-bag lunches, give presentations at engineering events, start a “champion council.” The more we keep user experience in the forefront, relevant and top-of-mind, the more likely a manager will make an opportunity available.  Evangelizing inside the organization is perfectly okay, as long as it doesn’t sound like preaching—it has to make good business sense, because that’s what we’re ultimately striving to do: become part of the business. 

Over the past couple of years, several CHIFOO presentations have underscored the importance of speaking in terms of the business and making business cases for promoting user experience. In Understanding the Business Leader’s Perspective Tom Herceg presented the business manager’s perspective of “the problem” and how designers must reframe the conversation to be heard. In Making the Case for User Centered Design Strategically David Siegel discussed specific approaches to defining the benefits of design (such as changing the conversation from ROI to risk-reduction). In changing the way design is discussed, designers improve their chances of being heard.

Patience–Sing songs of the chain gang!

There is a saying (I first heard it from friends and family at IBM): “You can always outlast bad management.”

If our job was ostensibly to do user experience and we now find ourselves doing project management, the situation can be excruciatingly painful. It may be so painful we simply have to leave. But if it hasn’t gotten to that point, our best action may be to simply wait a little while and see if things improve.

If our job is at risk, we’ve got nothing to lose: we’ll likely be working somewhere else sooner than later. If our job isn’t at risk, we can continue to do what we’re being paid to do and simply wait for the tides to turn. One of several things may happen: managers will discover the business is at risk after all and will search for something different to make a difference; our manager may move on giving us the chance to engage a new manager; our manager may be forced to consider user experience because of pressure from above or competition from another manager in the company, giving us a chance to make him or her shine.

We must stay vigilant, the world can change in a heartbeat. Meanwhile, we must take each opportunity as it arises to promote our skills and the benefits of UX, to maintain the drum beat of our hard work and all that it has accomplished.

Outside the organization, we can continue to look for other opportunities—in other words, make our own change. If the situation inside isn’t improving, the time we’ve spent looking elsewhere won’t be wasted—we might be delighted and relieved to find ourselves in a new environment that actually supports UX! (Or, more cynically, we might learn that our current situation is actually better than what we’re finding outside!)

Exemplary Service–Sing songs of cheer!

While all of these strategies are useful, and any or all can be used independently or simultaneously, in some organizations the most effective means of creating change is success. We need to seize whatever opportunity comes our way to demonstrate how user experience brings a project in faster, or with less rework, or with greater customer satisfaction than projects that didn’t have user experience.

Making our manager look good is the prime rule of corporate life. If we’ve been given a chance, it’s often because our manager is going out on a limb. It’s our responsibility to find out how our manager is being measured and work hard to make those metrics a part of our deliverables. Time is always of the essence, so finding ways to get to the solution faster is key to success.

If we’ve been given a chance to excel, and we’re on the same page as our manager, we can’t be shy about calling attention to our good work. Others may be just as unaware of the benefits of user experience as our manager was—demonstrating how a project made a key difference is the best way to get awarded the next one.

Whether our work is ever promoted to the level of user experience architecture (ultimately influencing strategy) depends on several factors, many of them out of our control. In the end our successes may be dependent as much on luck as on our expertise.

Conclusion

In this last article of the first section, I’ve come full circle: not only is Architecture inherently political, we must engage the political process to prove the value of Architecture. Regardless of the political action we take, one thing is common: we have to make noise (or sing, if you prefer) to make ourselves heard. 
 
In the next set of articles, I’ll describe user experience architecture more specifically, possibly even providing a definition. In addition, I’ll describe the components of a user experience architecture and how user experience architecture fits (or doesn’t fit) with Agile software development.