This was originally a talk given to Upright Bootcamp students in March 2023. Designers like to opine about what it means to be a designer — the mindset of a designer or the methods used. Often the definition revolves around outputs, like a wireframe, a mock-up, a journey map, etc…

It began with, “Would you have some time to lead some discovery meetings in Florida in 2 weeks?” You have to understand: I live in Madison, Wisconsin. It was late January. I would have gone to Florida even if the job was to be a coffee runner. So naturally, I…

Expand the imagination during ideation and helping everyone bring their best. — As a facilitator during any ideation there’s a fine line that I have to discern– when do you leave things vague and open so that creativity can really abound, and when to give people some practical handholds so they can keep ideating? The fact is framing and anything you share…

Part 1 — To a user, what goes on inside a company is a black box. And when they ask questions about the experience they’ve had with your company they don’t care that so-and-so made a decision, or there was a hiring freeze, or whatever dysfunction you’re experiencing. …

I remember realizing at some point in my career that design was about design…but perhaps the most important part of the job was discovery and managing clients. Imagine with me: you meet a person, and they have a problem they want you to solve. Great! You love solving problems! Here we go: “I…

I’ve been running an internship program for 4 years now and was wondering how I could better prepare an intern during their onboarding for how to make the most of their time. …

As I continue to grow as a manager, something I’ve been pondering quite a bit is managing different designers’ personalities, particularly the extroversion/introversion spectrum. My team is fairly diverse on the spectrum. I (like to think) that I am an ambivert according to the MBTI test, with 56% extroversion and…

At this moment in time, there’s some chaos out in the ‘Design’ industry about titles, who does what. As I’ve continued to learn, my thinking around what certain titles and scopes should be has changed a lot, and I think the industry is slowly moving towards settlings some of these…

While there are tons of articles out there about remote work, I haven’t seen any get really specific and practical. …