Back from hiatus! What have I been doing??
I make a glorious return with a lot to tell and no Youtube video links
Long time no see! I’m about to go to sleep, but I felt it’s been too long since a weekly newsletter - 4 weeks in fact - and an update is due. One of the reasons I didn’t prioritize the newsletter was because I had a lot to think about.
Previously on Sunday Secrets
When we last left me, I wanted more support at work because I had to decide how to collaborate with several product teams. I felt a lot of pressure because I had not done something remotely similar before. The stakes were high as one misstep would mean a waste of time for a lot of people.
Getting Guidance
I started talking to several people to find support; my product owner, the previous UX lead, a cross-product coordinator, agile coaches, product design leads, and the head of experience design. This resulted in a new problem - contradictory advice. Some said I should do discovery on my own, some said I should do a design sprint with all the designers, some said I should do a 2-day design sprint. Who do I listen to?
I decided to go with a full design sprint with select people from my team, the brand team, and two product design leads during select times. It felt like the minimum we could do to get enough perspectives and buy-in. It felt manageable.
The agile coaches, however, insisted I have all the designers on board for all the days - and I suddenly felt stressed again. How are we suddenly going to get all of those people free for an entire week - in two weeks?
Shifting Gears
Until this point, I had a beginner’s mindset. I wanted to learn from others how to tackle this huge problem, but I started to realize that nobody really knows what the best course of action is - and why should they? My product team is the first of its kind at the H&M Group. We haven’t done cross-product team development like this before. Also, because I had the most context out of everyone (by working on the product full time) I have knowledge and insight others don’t.
I told them we couldn’t go through with the plan because there is no way we could free everyone up in time. We had a long discussion and we ended up postponing the decision until after Easter. I’ve never needed the Easter holiday more in my life to energize and be in deep thought.
Post-Easter Pitch
After Easter, I came prepared with a pitch. Instead of a rigid idea of the who, what, and when that would be difficult for others to commit to, we need to be flexible. I suggested that we do the two first days of the design sprint with whoever is free. I’d do the prototyping and testing by myself, but if anyone was free, they could assist. And then whenever testing is done, we’d schedule a meeting to present the results. Additionally, we’d schedule an actual design sprint 5 weeks from now during our innovation period.
The agile coaches were hesitant with the idea, and insisted that I have at least 2 key designers on for the prototyping and testing - we compromised and I started letting everyone know of the plan. However…
The last pivot
One of the key designers couldn’t participate at all. She wanted to but her team has too much on their plate. This leads us to make the decision to scale the event down even more to just an innovation workshop to create concepts for me to prototype and test on my own, and then aim to have the full design sprint in the future. This actually felt great because it is very manageable.
Takeaways
Figuring out a new way of working is exhausting; the only way to figure it out is trial and error. Things may be a pain now, but we’re paving the way for future teams to be more successful. I kept reminding myself of this fact to help me push forward - I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.
The workshop will be this Tuesday - wish me luck!
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