#visualdiary14

[laurennbradford-blog]

Design Leadership Project: Reflection

Going forward, I would like to take with me, the essence of effective collaboration. The exchange of ideas between two departments, that could have been previously been at odds, is priceless. I would like to continue to use the tools that I have discovered for collaboration, to engage teammates and make a more positive work environment.

[creativecollectionnk32-blog]

Visual Diary #14 | Design Leadership Project Highlights

One of the most impactful pieces of my project was the Ethnographic Research portion. I feel I will carry this with me into the future because it is my goal to design for the users and not for individual gain. I really liked the process of the research and what it brought to the table for starting ideas and taking you through the design thinking process. 

Ethnographic Research had a positive impact on me as a designer and as I take my career forward in Design Leadership, I will remember its usefulness!

[nice-lines]

Visual diary #14 | Blog updates

Trying something new

I had never regularly written blog updates or posts before this class. Doing the weekly visual diary became easier and easier as more posts were written, giving me the confidence to not worry so much about the details in each and every post. I don’t know if I will continue publishing Tumblr posts after this class, but I do plan on contributing more to my Medium account, which is linked to my design portfolio.

Regularly posting allowed me to focus more on the content and not stress about the details that may not matter as much to readers.

[insowmnia]

Simplicity - The world seems complex. The idea of design can seem daunting. But if you strip back what you want to accomplish, strengthen what you believe in and streamline your vision - you can simplify the end input. The change you wish to seek can be as kind, or as daunting as you visualize it. 

[laurennbradford-blog]

Design Leadership Project: Reflection

Another danger of work silos is that it helps create distrust among leadership. One of the most important ways that I’ve found to combat that is through transparency. While I’ve found that employees don’t need, nor desire, to know everything going on in a company, they should still be aware when things are changing that affect them. Transparency builds trust and trust builds relationships. 

[insowmnia]

The idea that design leadership means to hold responsibility in what you are putting out into the world. That each product, structure and value behind what you create can effect hundreds and thousands of people. 

[creativecollectionnk32-blog]

Visual Diary #14 | Design Leadership Project Highlights

I feel it is important to note the specific things I have learned from this class and how they effected the outcome of my design leadership project. I felt there was a turning point for me over the course of this class that really helped me clarify and come up with substantial ideas for my design leadership project. 

The Gift of Parameters. It’s real. Separating the tangibles from the intangibles really helped me clarify what to look for when designing solutions to my wicked problem. I realized my wicked problem approached a lot of the intangibles to consider in design leadership. Once I realized it was okay to separate them out I was able to come up with ideas a lot more easily fro my project. 

I now understand why they are a gift because it can really help you take a huge step in the right direction for your project when you may be feeling unclear or confused about possible solutions. When we learned about parameters I had a “breakthrough” in my thought process and it made me feel much more confident in my design leadership project. 

[nice-lines]

Visual diary #14 | User Interviews

Conducting user interviews in a relaxed, casual setting

Conducting user interviews has always been an exercise that I’ve had low-confidence in. I believe this is because most of the user interviews I have been a part of in the past have been very high-stakes and costly for the companies I worked for. Because of this sizable investment, many measures were taken to make sure we were using our time and resources thoughtfully.

This wicked design problem allowed me to conduct user interviews in a low-stakes environment, giving me the confidence needed to ask the right questions. As I conducted more and more interviews, I felt more confident in the pacing and line of questioning which I believe allowed my participants to answer casually and honestly.