Given at UXDC
From Starchitects to Design Gurus, the lone designer-hero has been our model for creating impact. But it’s a complete lie. The complex software, smart devices and connected information environments we create require multidisciplinary teams. So we must spend a lot of time getting teamwork right, right?
Sadly, no.
Instead we rip job descriptions off the web, throw people together without preamble, simmer in passive-aggressive discontent until we eventually fire the person we’ve all been rolling our eyes at. Or worse, we avoid firing him until everyone good quits.
It’s time to give teams the same attention and craft we give our products. Christina will share the lessons from top companies in the Silicon Valley for you to take back to your teams. It doesn’t matter if you are a manager or a peer leader, these approaches will make your team thrive. Awesome products come from awesome teams, so it’s time to stop doing business as usual and design a team for impact.
1. Design the Team you
Need to Succeed
Christina Wodtke
Author of Radical Focus and more
Associate Professor at California College of the Arts and Stanford
Continuing Education
13. Not all efforts need teams
Characteristics of a Work
Group:
• Strong, clearly focused
leader
• Individual
accountability
• Individual work-
products
• Measures its
effectiveness indirectly
by its influence on
others (e.g financial
performance of the
business)
• Discusses, decides, and
delegates
The Wisdom of Teams
Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith
17. What is a team?
• Common PURPOSE
• Performance GOALS
• Complimentary SKILLS
• Mutual ACCOUNTABILITY
The Wisdom of Teams
Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith
20. O: Book is available and generating
buzz
•Kr: Review copies out to beta customers
and 100 influencers resulting in 5 reviews
of 4< stars
•Kr: Sales of 1K
•Kr: 5 cold leads for talks/workshops
from book
25. Characteristics of a Collective:
• Shared leadership roles
• Individual and mutual
accountability
Specific team purpose that the
team itself delivers
• Collective work-products
• Encourages open-ended
discussion and active problem-
solving meetings
• Measures performance directly
by assessing collective work-
products
• Discusses, decides, and does
real work together
The Wisdom of Teams
Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith
37. Norms Exercise
• Think of a great team.
Write down three things
that made it great.
• Think of a dreadful team.
Write down three things
that made is horrid.
• Get in groups, and share.
• Make rules for how you
wish to work together