Solutions are the death of a product design. Learn how a growing internal team helped to disrupt a large, product-focused organization with design, not only through educating product owners, but also including them in the exploration to define problems instead of solutions. A small but growing internal design team within a large product-focused organization has had a strong, strategic voice in the development process of our company’s client-facing products. Instead of making cosmetic changes to old, unvetted solutions, we challenged our team to find problems that needed solving in order to create a better overall product. We introduced research methods, design studio, and rapid prototyping into our colleagues’ vocabularies early and often. Even through a series of discouraging review sessions and a multitude of poorly worded email critiques, our team came to trust and understand that our design strategy got us to the heart of our users’ needs. I talk process—the team, communication, and validating big questions and ideas; failures—mismanaged Agile processes and unactionable critique; and how we are moving onward and upward—team sketching sessions and other design studio methods, communication improvements, and productive sprints. Presented at IA Summit 2014.

1. 👤 Tami Evnin
🏢 Product Designer, NASDAQ OMX
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What’s your problem?

2. 👤 Tami Evnin
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3. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Problem
Solution

4. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Solution

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Solution

6. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Solution

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Problem

8. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Problem

9. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Problem

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➡

11. 👤 Tami Evnin
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➡

12. 👤 Tami Evnin
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➡

13. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Solution
Problem
⬇

14. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Problem
Solution
🔀

15. 👤 Tami Evnin
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So, what’s your problem?So,

16. 👤 Tami Evnin
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The Beginning

17. 👤 Tami Evnin
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19. 💬 📢 💰Communications Public Relations Investor Relations

20. 👤 Tami Evnin
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21. 👤 Tami Evnin
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For Example

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25. 👤 Tami Evnin
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26. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Win!

28. 👤 Tami Evnin
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29. 👤 Tami Evnin
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30. 👤 Tami Evnin
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31. 👤 Tami Evnin
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32. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Sigh.

33. 👤 Tami Evnin
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34. 👤 Tami Evnin
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“This is terrible.”

35. 👤 Tami Evnin
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36. 👤 Tami Evnin
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“Today, I’m more direct.
It’s terrible.”

37. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Making it better

38. 👤 Tami Evnin
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39. 👤 Tami Evnin
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40. 👤 Tami Evnin
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41. 👤 Tami Evnin
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42. 👤 Tami Evnin
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43. 👤 Tami Evnin
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“This is terrible.”

44. 👤 Tami Evnin
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45. 👤 Tami Evnin
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So what?

46. 👤 Tami Evnin
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47. 👤 Tami Evnin
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48. 👤 Tami Evnin
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The Sequel

49. 👤 Tami Evnin
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More Stakeholders
& Sticky Notes

50. 👤 Tami Evnin
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51. 👤 Tami Evnin
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52. 👤 Tami Evnin
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53. 👤 Tami Evnin
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54. 👤 Tami Evnin
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55. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Sigh.

56. 👤 Tami Evnin
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⏲ 🌎 👎Deadlines Distributed Teams Strong Personalities
Constraints

57. 👤 Tami Evnin
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58. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Moving forward

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Problems ➡ Solutions

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➡

61. 👤 Tami Evnin
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Time & Effort

62. 👤 Tami Evnin
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63. 👤 Tami Evnin
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*There’s no magical process

64. 👤 Tami Evnin
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65. 👤 Tami Evnin
🏢 Product Designer, NASDAQ OMX
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Thanks!