Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A company/product/organization isn’t doing well, they realize the customers are furious. Their solution? spend money on a UX team and have them do production work. The UX team is engaged at the last minute after all feature decisions have been made with requests like “Can you guys just UX this a little bit?”.
This example is very common in a Developer-Centered environment. The Nielsen Norman Group would rate this setting as a UX maturity of 2. In this post, I’d like to talk about some tactics I’m using to aid the cultural transformation to get the environment to the next level.
• The 1 vs 1 (Negotiation, consulting)
• The 1 vs 100 (Campaign, presentation)
• The 1 vs 1, 100 times
In an environment where everyone is doing their job correctly but somehow not gain any traction, coordinating these 3 conversations tactics can help provide a North Star for everyone involved.
The 1 vs 1
1 vs 1 is by far the most effective way to influence change. Problems and solutions are contextualized to the every day experience of the people engaged in conversation. Negotiations take place, agreements are made, people generally leave with a hopeful disposition. It is imperative that this opportunity leads to trust through delivery on promises made.
The 1 vs 100
1 vs 100 is a campaign. It is a presentation of an idea made over and over again to an audience. It is the fastest way to spread a message to large numbers of people. While this tactic is strong in speed, it is weak in effect. However, the goal of the 1 vs 100 isn’t to convince everyone in the room, its to find the handful of people out of the audience who had resinated with your idea. This select few is who will help with the following stage of this campaign.
The 1 vs 1, 100 times
It is simply impossible for a person to have a 1 vs 1 conversation with enough people to promote grass-roots cultural transformation. This is where the allies found from the 1 vs 1s and the 1 vs 100s need to help spread the message as a team. With this model, the message of positive change can spread like wildfire leading to the changes the visionaries hope to see.