Your success in business often comes down to how capable you are at managing new product development, running successful programs, or executing on projects. But this success is all too often dependent on product or program managers learning from past experience to improve future performance. At Managing Design Projects, managers from creative organizations will share their knowledge and gain insights on how to best manage creative teams, ensuring product or project success.
Who Should Attend?
If you are a product manager, program manager, or project manager for creative teams, this is a prime opportunity to join peers for a day of inspiration, education and networking, removed from the hustle and distraction of your work life.
What Will Be Covered?
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 8:30-9:00 AM | Registration |
| 9:00-9:15 AM | Welcome |
| 9:15-10:15 AM | Keynote, Scott Berkun |
| 10:15-10:30 AM | Break |
| 10:30-11:40 AM | Design is Made of People: Designing Effective Work Sessions, Julia Houck-Whitaker and Sarah Nelson |
| 11:40 AM-12:30 PM | Tools of the Trade |
| 12:30-1:30 PM | Lunch and Giving Good Service, a panel discussion on client relations |
| 1:30-2:30 PM | Conflict Resolution, Lynne Waldera |
| 2:30-2:45 PM | Break |
| 2:45-4:30 PM | Managing for New Methods and Technologies (including agile development, design sprints, prototyping, device interfaces and user research). |
| 4:30-5:00 PM | Elevating the Practice, Brian Cronin |
| 5:00-6:30 PM | Reception |
Confirmed Speakers (more to come!)
Scott Berkun
Scott Berkun is an author and public speaker. He worked on the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft from 1994-1998, and left the company in 2003 to write books and live an indepedent life. Scott Berkun is the bestselling author of the books Making Things Happen and The Myths of Innovation. His work as a writer and public speaker have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, MSNBC, CNBC, Wired Magazine and other media. He worked at Microsoft from 1994-2003, taught creative thinking at the University of Washington, ran an architecture tour of NYC for the GEL conference, is a regular contributor to Harvard Business, and runs a popular blog, at www.scottberkun.com.
Sarah Nelson
Sarah B. Nelson is a Design Strategist for Adaptive Path. With over ten years of experience in interactive media, Sarah has a proven history designing kiosks, mobile and online experiences for clients in a variety of industries. Sarah has a particular passion for practice development, often guiding her research into methods that improve collaboration, support creativity and encourage innovation. Sarah combines a unique blend of creative vision and technical expertise with her research-focused approach to interaction design, which has enabled her to produce successful results for her clients.
Before joining Adaptive Path, Sarah managed the creative team and developed the user experience practice at POP, an interactive design firm in Seattle, Washington. Other previous employers and clients include Federal Home Loan Bank, Home Street Bank, AOL Mobile, MyRide.com, PayCycle, The Metropolitan Opera, The Royal Victorian and Albert Museum, and Vanguard Financial.
A classically trained violinist, Sarah graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy and received a Bachelors of Art degree from Oberlin College in visual arts and electronic music. While completing her Masters degree at the Institute of Design in Chicago, Sarah focused her studies on the definition and design of complex multi-modal systems supporting collaboration and communication.
Lynne Waldera
Lynne Waldera is the founder and CEO of InMomentum, Inc. as well as serving on Adaptive Path’s Board of Directors. InMomentum is a privately held management consultancy founded in 1999, focused on organization strategy, assessment and development, executive development, internal branding and culture change for companies in dynamic markets. Based in Santa Clara, California, the firm has pioneered research on the cultural attributes of innovative, high-growth companies and has created unique tools and methodologies based on that research. Some of the firm’s past and present clients include: AMD, Cadence, Charles Schwab, Cisco Systems, Genentech, eHarmony, Millipore, SAP, Spansion, and Symantec.
Prior to founding InMomentum, Inc., Lynne was Managing Director at Cunningham Communication, a leading technology public relations firm. Previously, Lynne was a partner at the organization and communication consulting firm, Gehlhausen Ruda & Associates.
Lynne is a member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychologists, American Management Association, and the American Psychological Association and is a frequent speaker on the topics of organizational culture and leadership. She moderates various Aspen Institute and Federal Executive Institute seminars, including the Aspen Executive Seminar, Leadership and Global Values and Leading Change programs. As a member of the Future of Work coalition, she serves as a “trend scout,” researching and writing on work environments that are technology-enabled, socially and environmentally responsible, and personally satisfying.
She also serves as an advisory board member for Momentum for Mental Health, the largest community-based mental healthcare provider in the San Francisco Bay area. Formerly, she served as Chairman of the Board of the Alliance for Mental Health and as an advisory board member for ZeroOne: The Art and Technology Network.
Lynne earned a Ph.D. in industrial and organizational psychology at George Washington University and a Bachelor of Arts in psychology, with a focus in existential phenomenological psychology and minors in English and French at Duquesne University. She and her husband, Tom, currently reside in Pleasanton, California.
Brian Cronin
Brian Cronin is a Project Manager and Practitioner at Adaptive Path with over a decade of experience of leading projects in design studios, development houses and enterprise system integrators.
In addition to piloting projects to a successful completion, Brian also coordinates Adaptive Path’s sustainable design practice and practices experience strategy and design.
Brian has worked for a diverse group of clients including: The American Psychological Association, BearingPoint, Brocade, E.piphany, HGTV, Kana, Linden Labs, Nissan North America, Ogilvy & Mather, Patient Infosystems, PayCycle, Plumtree Software, Ubisoft, The Vanguard Group, VERITAS Software and Verizon Communications.
Additionally Brian is a board member for CITY|SPACE an organization asking challenging questions about the cities we inhabit, we hope to deepen our communities’ experience, understanding and stewardship of urban places. He is also an avid backcountry hiker, ice hockey player, and a Neighborhood Emergency Response Team Coordinator.
Julia Houck-Whitaker
Julia Houck-Whitaker is the research & development manager at Adaptive Path. She has piloted several of Adaptive Path’s R&D projects to successful completion. She also facilitates and manages the practitioners’ external speaking and writing engagements.
Before joining Adaptive Path, Julia was the Director of User Experience at Bolt | Peters, a longtime friend and strategic partner of Adaptive Path. While at Bolt | Peters, Julia oversaw their User Experience Consulting business. She managed and led qualitative and quantitative user-research projects for clients such as Oracle, Hallmark, and Greenpeace.
Her interest and passion for user-centered design began while studying at University of California, San Diego, where she studied Human Computer Interaction. In addition to her studies, she worked on Distributed Cognition projects focusing on strategic planning in conjunction with the San Diego Super Computer.
Session Descriptions
Deathmatch 2009: Designers vs. Project Managers
Why has there been so little project management in the world of design and so little design in the world of project management? What wonderful things can happen if we take the right parts of both and get them to hang out together? Here in 2009 its time to carve out some space for people who take pride in both managing and designing well. This talk first outlines why there are natural conflicts between these views of the world, but focuses on a better way to think about the often bloody landscape where the worlds of design and project management collide.
Conflict Maneuvers: Navigating disagreement, politics and emotions to “make things happen”
A problem many PM’s face is the realization that projects can’t be “managed,” only people can. Every tool to define and drive a project to completion works only if the team itself is functional and embraces it. Thus, project management is fundamentally a social activity – requiring the construction of norms, coordination of effort and resolution of problems – so that a collection of people can do their best work. On creative teams, the role particularly depends on negotiating and resolving a tinder box full of potential conflicts: Conflicts about the vision of the project. Conflicts between the “client” and the creative team. Conflicts within the team itself.
Knowing common conflict maneuvers can help project managers keep work flowing and unlock “stuck” projects:
- Personal maneuvers: Do individual styles and personalities sometime coalesce into factions that make team members miserable and threaten project success?
- Power maneuvers: Do people sometimes intimidate you into conceding, through overt bullying, political or emotional tactics?
- Policy maneuvers: Are you sometimes forced into playing by someone else’s rules, even though they aren’t relevant to project success?
- Position maneuvers: Are you ever backed into fighting your corner by people who misrepresent your position?
Whether intentional or not, people often use these maneuvers and strongly influence project outcomes. Usually they will work to your disadvantage unless you recognize them and use specific approaches to dealing with them.
Design is Made of People: Designing Effective Work Sessions
In this workshop, you will learn how to:
- Plan work sessions for maximum effectiveness
- Design effective work session activities
- Select appropriate materials for your activities
- Choose how to find a good location and then how to set it up
- Compose groups to encourage collaboration
- Decide when you should and shouldn't collaborate
- Encourage participation
The role of the designer has always been fluid, but now, more than ever, our profession is evolving. Increasingly, designers need to work closely with content experts, business stakeholders, developers and others who, while not necessarily trained designers, have a critical role to play in the design process. Skills in facilitation, visualization and work session design are therefore a powerful compliment to your core design skills. This workshop will introduce you to these basics skills and prepare you to design your own effective work sessions.
Because there is no better way to learn effective work-session design strategies than by experiencing them yourself, this workshop will provide you with an intense immersion into work session design and facilitation. You will first break into groups to tackle a design problem. This will be followed by a discussion period where you and your colleagues will talk about what you learned and your presenters will share a primer on basic work session design. Finally, you will break into groups and design your own activities.