Week 3 Week 3 Week 3
So for my 3rd (and 2nd last) TWIT for this month, I thought we could talk about stakeholder interviews. In particular, how to use them to inform what your “current state” looks like. What do people love, loathe and long-for when it comes to the service you provide?
I like to involve end users at every stage of a project, and interviewing them (whether as a focus group or 1:1) is one of the first steps that should happen so that you don’t waste time on things that aren’t wanted or needed or won’t get buy-in when you launch them.
How do you know what you need to fix if you haven’t asked the people that engage with the service you offer what they want? You GOTTA ask the PEOPLE!
This can be quite a confronting experience because asking for feedback like this is hard and scary. There might be some truth bombs in here that you’re not mentally ready for. But it’s so important to involve the right people at this stage so you can get a true understanding of common “themes” people encounter when utilising your talent or people process. Yes, that means involving ol’ Greg from accounts who yells at you when your process takes too long; and the new starter that had a clunky/cringe-worthy recruitment and onboarding experience last week. You need their juicy insights to make changes.
Talking to your end users is also a fantastic way to test assumptions you might have.
While at LX I worked on a project attempting to solve the issue of corporate knowledge transfer within the organisation, and how we could easily and effectively capture all the things that people know before they leave their roles to move internally or resign from LXRP altogether. We wanted to ensure knowledge that employees gained while with us was shared, lessons learned were documented and instances of ‘reinventing the wheel’ were lessened.
The obvious immediate answer in my brain was “we should purchase a funky new tech system that encourages and rewards people for documenting stuff all the time”. This is because I (personally) love fancy new tech, and I incorrectly assumed that others would also love some sort of fancy new tech.
When we actually spoke to people in the organisation, across all seniority levels, one of the key themes that emerged was that people didn’t want more systems.
“PLEASE, no more systems” was a common quote from our focus groups, which really challenged my thinking because I thought a system was the way to go. I was actually … a tiny bit disappointed.
Instead, people wanted time to use what we already had access to more effectively. They wanted more person-to-person interaction, more knowledge-sharing sessions, and more job shadowing opportunities to learn by osmosis. It was so SIMPLE, and yet my brain had immediately gone to the fanciest (most difficult) tech solution straight away because I’m a bloody people pleaser who gets distracted by shiny things and likes to make life difficult for myself.
There is a saying called MVP – Minimal Viable Product. To get from A to B, you don’t always need the brand-new pastel blue VW Buggy convertible with the Gerbera in the little vase on the dashboard. Sometimes you just need a skateboard, and people are more than happy with the skateboard. Oftentimes they PREFER the skateboard – and the key is to understand what the end user’s “skateboard” looks like.
When it comes to this year’s ATC event though … you can expect to see multiple (metaphorical) shiny, blue VW Beetle convertibles WITH skateboards in the boot and 10 Gerberas on the dash. Cause that is the level of effort the ATC team put into making sure the event includes all the bells and whistles, and that everyone has a fab time.
You know how they do that? Because they ASK us what we want every year, and then they deliver. The perfect, human-centredly designed event (yes, “human-centredly designed” is a term I have just invented. Copyright: me).
Last chance to buy your tickets here ASAP, or else miss out on this glorious ‘Beetle x Skateboard x Gerbera On The Dashboard’ event. You also won’t get to see ME, cause I’ll be there hosting the ‘Think Again’ stage and I want to see all your faces!
PS- Jo tells me that ATC is turning off the ticket invoice option next week and will move to credit card only for ATC2024 tickets. So if you need an invoice, get on it!
What caught my attention this week:
Miro – Stakeholder Interview Template
Miro is a tool you should not be snoozin’ on – they have so many fab tools and templates to use in your HCD endeavours. I like using Miro for process map templates, but you can really create anything in here from scratch super easily.
MURAL
I also really love MURAL templates. I actually prefer using MURAL for virtual focus groups and whiteboarding – I find the UI much easier to navigate for people who potentially haven’t done something like that before.
A Handy Cheat Sheet of Stakeholder Interview Questions for UX Designers
As the name suggests. Replace “UX Designers” with “Talent Project Leads” and you’re good to go.
User Interviews 101: A Practical Guide to UX Research Interviews
Some really great tips here on how to prepare for and run a good user interview. Some of these tips could apply to general job interviews too.
