Hiring great UX leaders has taught me to be a better Product leader. 

Co-locating UX and Product into a single organization has taught my product teams be better product leaders.  Not always comfortable for product leaders.  Seems that UX’ers speak truth to power whether you want to hear it or not.  Thank goodness.  Reminds me of a general surgeon I used to work with at McKesson.  Brilliant. Plain. Straight. Shooters. Maybe plumbing the depths of software, or people, creates a proclivity for honesty?

To be clear.  The product lead owns the embodiment of the product.  But you better listen to your UX’er.

Friend of mine is a big wig engineer at AMD. He travels around to Dell, Apple, etc. He tells a story that at Apple the “designers” sit at the table, the engineers sit in chairs along the wall.  At other firms it was reversed. 

I aspire to have my “designers at the table” on my teams.

I really want to brag about my great UX experience.  I’m a fair hand at Sketch, Balsamiq, and Figma.  I have an “eye for design.”  Bad user experience makes me nuts.  From elevator controls (I take pictures), settings panels on software, or my SUV entertainment system. I notice and critic every user experience I encounter.  But the truth is, while I can navigate the software, create my own wireframes, and medium fidelity prototypes, it pales in comparison to what a UX pro brings to the team.

You can’t be a strong product leader without UX.

I’ve been most successful as a UX leader when I, 1) hire the right leader with the right expertise, 2) stay out of her way, and 3) give her the resources needed to get the job done. 

One of my hardest lessons as a leader? Stay out of my team’s way.  Maybe a topic for another blog?

On other posts I’ll share some aha moments UX created for my products.

Examine how you are using UX.  Are they at the “table?”

Be brief. Be bright. Be Done.

Rob