Leading a Team of IAs

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Leading a Team of IAs

• ASIST IA Summit, Montreal
• March 6-7, 2005

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Agenda

• Getting Hired
• Designing Your Skill Set
• Managing Your Performance
• Next Steps

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Getting Hired

• Neil Wehrle

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Neil Wehrle Background

• Currently manage a User Experience team for
  Yahoo! in New York and Sunnyvale, California
• Previously managed teams for Razorfish in New
  York and for Morningstar in Chicago
• Taught at SUNY-FIT and currently at The New
  School in New York
• Masters in Interaction Design from Carnegie
  Mellon University

Getting Hired
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Hiring/Getting Hired

• Key Themes
• Where to find what youre looking for
• Constructing/Deconstructing resumes
• Portfolios
• Interviews and presentations
• Offers and negotiations

Getting Hired
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Where to find what youre looking for

• Know what you want - define skills,
  responsibilities
• Give yourself plenty of time if possible
• Use multiple channels
• Job boards national, local, niche
• Alumni associations educational and employer
• Groups - online and in-person
• Social networks
• Conferences, associations
• Headhunters

Getting Hired
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Constructing/Deconstructing Resumes

• Resumes should be relevant and up to date
• Show restraint but communicate accomplishments
• Use keywords and software apps judiciously
• Dont list every job you ever had
• Be ready to explain job-hopping
• List recent, but not all, papers

Getting Hired
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Portfolios

• Use the medium
• Keep it simple, and bad IA is...bad
• Show process, not just final outcome
• Be clear and honest about role and contribution
• Create a narrative if possible

Getting Hired
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Interviews

• Relax and be natural
• Interview should be two-way
• Learn something about the person or company
• Have good questions prepared
• Work on presentation skills

Getting Hired
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Offers and Negotiation

• Consider the value of the entire package, not
  just salary
• Carefully explain how the offer is constructed
  and what lead to the final decision
• Be prepared to negotiate
• No harm in trying if you feel is not right
• Some companies have more flexibility than others

Getting Hired
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Designing your skill set Victor Lombardi
Management Innovation Group
IA Summit
6 March 2005
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Me
Principal, The Management Innovation
GroupPresident, The Information Architecture
InstituteManaged IT or IA people at AIG,
Razorfish, Republic National Bank, Medscape, SCP
Communications, and DDB NeedhamTaught at the
Parsons School of Design
IA Summit
6 March 2005
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Research
IA Summit
6 March 2005
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Skills Students Should Have

• Most Cited
• Navigation Systems
• Labeling Systems
• Blueprints Wireframes
• Collaboration Skills
• Client Relationship Skills

• Next Most Cited
• Audience Modeling
• Behavior Modeling
• User Interface Design
• Interaction Design
• Search Engine Technology
• Metadata
• Indexing
• Search Systems
• Conceptual Maps
• Content Analysis
• Content Strategy
• Writing
• Ontologies

IA Summit
6 March 2005
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MDS Diagram
IA Summit
6 March 2005
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Experiment
IA Summit
6 March 2005
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Collaborate
IA Summit
6 March 2005
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Invent
IA Summit
6 March 2005
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Books
IA Summit
6 March 2005
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Managing Your Performance

• Karen McGrane

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Karen McGrane

• Currently manage the User Experience department
  for Razorfish in New York, a group of 30-35
  information architects, content strategists, and
  user researchers
• At various times have been the hiring manager in
  New York, Boston, Atlanta, DC, Florida, and Los
  Angeles
• Have a masters in Technical Communication from
  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Managing Your Performance
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Managing Your Performance

• Performance management is the process by which
  IAs work with their manager and their company to
• Set expectations for their position
• Measure performance against objectives
• Reward performance with salary increases and
  bonuses
• Correct performance problems
• Key Themes
• Goal setting
• Annual reviews
• Salary reviews
• Performance problems

Managing Your Performance
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Goal Setting

• Take responsibility for your career planning by
  identifying areas for growth
• Work with your manager to identify measurable
  (and achievable) objectives for the next 6-12
  months
• Many companies document these goals as part of a
  formal review process, but you should write your
  goals down even if they dont
• Check in with your manager on a monthly basis to
  follow up on your progress

Managing Your Performance
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Annual Reviews

• Most companies have a structured review process
  and a standard form on which you document a
  review
• Maintain a record of your accomplishments along
  the way, so you dont have to remember it all
  when your review comes around
• Consider preparing a portfolio of deliverables
  and a presentation, and soliciting feedback from
  peers
• Show how you accomplished your personal goals,
  but also show how your work benefited the
  companys goals

Managing Your Performance
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Salary Reviews

• If an increase is important to you, dont just
  hope for it know what is achievable, and make a
  persuasive case for yourself
• Larger companies (especially public companies)
  have a set amount of money in the budget they can
  use for salary increases (usually 3-4)
• Dont be afraid to be specific about what you
  want
• You may need to be promoted into another position
  (or take a position at a new firm) in order to
  get a significant jump in salary

Managing Your Performance
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Performance Problems

• Managers need to make you aware of situations
  where your performance is not meeting
  expectations, so you can have a chance to improve
• Though its natural to be emotional about
  receiving feedback, try to listen objectively
• Ask for specific examples of problems, and
  specific ways to resolve the issue
• When providing feedback on your co-workers, make
  sure your input is specific and objective no
  one wants to mediate interpersonal conflicts

Managing Your Performance
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Next Steps

• Liz Danzico

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Liz Danzico

• Have managed experience professionals for
• Product development team at Rodale Interactive,
  overseeing information architects and designers
• Information architecture team at Barnes
  Noble.com, overseeing information architects
• Information architecture team at Razorfish New
  York, overseeing information architects
• Taught at SUNY-FIT and currently at The New
  School in New York
• Masters in Professional Writing from Carnegie
  Mellon University

Next Steps
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Next Steps

• Building task forces
• Training in-house
• Continuing education
• Crossing disciplines
• Networking
• Moving locations
• Entering management

Next Steps
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Overview

• You control your next steps
• Build on your strengths and areas of interest
• You can communicate your ideal project type to
  your skill lead or resource manager
• What kind of worker are you?

Next Steps
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Building task forces

• Builds skills in complementary areas
• Ensure that the task force area you engage with
  is clearly defined and manageable with your
  current schedule
• Opportunity to learn from others with different
  skills, doing on the job training in a risk-free
  environment
• Can explore new areas
• Difficult to keep momentum going without an
  incentive

Next Steps
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Training in-house

• Outside teacher or moderator
• Intra- or inter-department topics
• Department knowledge-sharing, guerilla style (and
  free!)
• Can be more cost-effective than external training
• Leverages coworker skill sets and builds
  camaraderie (good for networking and career
  growth)
• May not seem as official as learning outside
  the company

Next Steps
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Continuing education

• Education reimbursement from your company
• Full university programs while working full time
• Single coursesmany choices, whether directly or
  loosely related
• Public speaking courses
• Technical writing courses
• Design courses
• Statistics courses
• Library science courses
• Acting courses
• Business courses
• Contained and discrete workshops and seminars

Next Steps
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Crossing discipline boundaries

• Roles in your organization overlap with
  information architecture skills
• Business analysts
• Project managers
• Functional leads
• User researcher
• Product manager
• Apprenticeships with senior members of the team
  or other departments
• As an insider, you have an advantage As an
  insider, you may have to work harder

Next Steps
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Networking

• Internal
• Start with people from other departments on your
  project
• Learn about their vocabulary and business needs
• Builds relationships
• Gives you a more well-rounded approach to
  experience design
• External
• Get insight from IAs at other companies, exposing
  you to new ways of doing things
• Make connections/get introductions to skill sets
  that you can use on future projects in your own
  company

Next Steps
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Moving locations

• National and international offices
• Office history
• Part of merger or acquisition
• Recent successes or setbacks
• Cultural considerations
• New job approach
• Prove yourself, despite your reputation

Next Steps
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Entering management

• Explore your skills and type of management
  position
• People versus technical
• Department versus project
• Investigate the type of team
• Build versus inherit
• Train versus manage
• Be prepared for change in role
• Understanding of business goals
• Managing feasibility and political relationships
• Position own career goals around business success
• Comfortable enough with leadership to allow
  others to lead
• Encourage learning in others

Next Steps
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Thank you