What I Learnt At UX Australia: A Change Manger's Journey
I really enjoy learning new things and when I saw that User Experience designers in Australia have a conference each year, and they talk a lot about people and behaviour, I thought this could be a great learning opportunity and a lot of fun. If any of you have read my previous post Finding Design Thinking: A Change Manager’s Journey, then you would know that I’m already interested in design led strategic thinking and its relationship with change management. So off I went to Melbourne to UX Australia 2016 at the end of August, slightly nervous but also excited about what I might learn and who I might meet.
Any conference that starts with a key note speech about creativity and ends with one about designing for inclusion, dignity and autonomy was always going to be a winner for me. Towards the end of the two-day conference I started to think about what I had learnt and so I thought this is what I would share with you. Here are few things:
The first thing that comes to mind is that we could learn so much from each other. Change Managers and UX Designers are both undertaking ethnographic research at the commencement of their projects and the techniques used by both are complimentary as we both want the same outcome, to deeply know our stakeholders or end users. The visual tools UX Designers use such as journey maps, videos and sketches for storytelling really bring to life the content they are collecting which goes far beyond the illustration I’ve seen lately as a visual representation of a business discussion.
Similar to change management, UX design is grappling with how to demonstrate ROI to clients and senior management to justify the in-depth human centred process they take to deliver excellent results. Like change management, the sum of the inputs which we traditionally measure do not adequately represent the outcomes that can potentially be delivered.
The use of digital tools in organisations is increasing and HR & Employee Engagement tools are becoming more prevalent. I now understand a lot more about designing the digital experience and interface for these types of tools and seamlessly incorporating them into more traditional change methods. The use of digital tools whether complex, expensive, simple or cheap all provide an opportunity to support change projects in conjunction with other tools
I learnt about the psychology of waiting thanks to Freya Elliott who was speaking more about waiting when visiting a service centre or calling a service line but I can use some of that insight to improve on how and when I give stakeholders feedback during change programmes. It is always good to have the science to back up your intuition especially when talking with Sponsors.
From the YouTube team I learnt how to craft a user story (screen play) and then produce a two-minute video in one week using readily available and inexpensive tools. I see many applications of this tool for communication and engagement purposes on large scale transformation projects as part of a co-creation process
The two talks however that really made the conference worthwhile for me were related to social impact. Dr Ruth Mirams from PwC Indigenous Consulting and Gillian Vogl and Andrea Brown from ReachOut talked about their experiences with projects that are aiming to improve community outcomes through changes in behaviour, thinking, and service delivery using practical methods and co-design. This is an area of real interest to me and was where I could see the intersection of design and change management to deliver transformational outcomes in complex social systems.
I came away from the conference feeling inspired with a lot of topics to further research and information to continue processing. I’m glad I made the decision to attend and open my mind to different processes, tools and ways of thinking. The conference attendees were very friendly and equally curious about my work and how it supports what they do so I am encouraged to attend similar events in the future.
