Is it an anthropologist? Is it a designer? Is it an executive coach? It’s all of them. Dr. John Curran’s mind is a fascinating place. Why? Because I always find the concept of applying knowledge/methodologies/etc to fields and situations beyond those of our academic training an intriguing and creative process.
Designing for Conflict: What an idea! Conflict is inevitable; healthy tension and conflict are almost encouraged and desirable. Conflict is a key part of being human, being a part of a community. However, it is critical to understand what “conflict” means and where the key points of conflict are. Dr. Curran suggests an easy health check of this understanding- do different teams/functions see their part in a project without feeling devalued or fighting to be heard?
KPIs- Are we doing them incorrectly? It’s been my observation at many organizations that KPIs or whatever other metric structure is always defined by function, and not form. I mean that marketing has marketing metrics, engineering has ticket/velocity metrics, etc. But at no point does a metric that applies to all functions come into play.
Dr. Curran poses a question and how changing one word changes the conversation it generates: “WHAT are the barriers?” vs. “ARE there any barriers?”. The former generates active exploration and naming of existing barriers whereas the latter encourages a binary answer, one which almost results in “no, there are no barriers”.
Maybe this question serves the KPI conversation well- what are the barriers to defining holistic, function-agnostic metrics?
Why is it important to have holistic KPIs? In my mind, it’s simple- holistic, cross-functional KPIs breed the form of conflict that’s critical for the user-centric growth of an organization.
How do you foster healthy conflict? What role do KPIs play in your organization?
“TLDL:” is a weekly podcast summary/thought exercise series about UX, HCI/D, strategy, skills, communication, and more.
Hello there! I am Vi, an experience designer who claims her superpower is to ask questions relentlessly :) Fueled by none other than the greatest liquid of them all- coffee.
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