Riley Gerszewski
OneScreen.ai is a B2B Out of Home marketplace platform where media planners connect with media owners. The media planner searches the platform for billboards and then requests pricing info from the billboard owner.
The methods of coaching-up in a start up are not that different than a large organization - educate and deliver value. The difference is the passion of the person you are coaching. The founders of early stage start ups (that you should take a chance on) are strong business leaders, often subject matter experts, and are giving their all to the company they are trying to create. In short, founders are confident and protective.
They have an idea what “UX” means but it’s often framed up as reducing clicks. Start small, talk UX principles and use analogs. I chose consistency. Nobody has walked into this house before, we need to make sure the light switches are the same shape, color, and location from room-to-room.
Read: Educate simple, deliver more value.
-VP Finance
Collaboration is key to any successful design team and working remotely presents significant challenge to connect. There are no “can we talk for a minute?” knocks at the door or “…meet you at the whiteboard” moments. My approach is simple but provides results if adhered to.
Direct reports - Make extra effort to connect with direct reports. Never rescheduled 1:1’s because remote does not allow for ad hoc conversations. Setup a Tuesdays at 10 meeting (a random 1/2 hour meeting) where you can collaborate on something simple, something big, or nothing related to a current project. It’s more about connecting designer to designer.
Team - As a group we found success making sure to setup more time to cross-polinate. We always kept our cameras on and helped each other provide feedback.
As much as I would like to be at a white board or even a Zoom call with the cameras on there are often times when design work needs to be available for review. There are countless online whiteboard platforms and shared docs, but our collaboration tool of choice was FigJam. We found it easy to copy/paste work in progress into a FigJam file and solicit feedback asynchronously.
The asynchronous feedback was always the 3rd or 4th review session so people had a strong understanding the problem to be solve, where we were at in the project, and what the iteration should be. The outcomes of the feedback session helped move the project forward, never as much as in person or a remote zoom call, but it helped.
As a UX practitioner you’re trained to remain unbiased and let the solution reveal itself. Too bad, no time. Keep in mind that you are speaking with the people who have the problem you are trying to solve. So every time a user speaks you’re collecting data, take what you can get.
Do not expect a 45 minute 1:1 session with end users. You’ll get 3 questions at the end of a product pitch. Make sure they count.
Influence the people leading meetings. Next time you ask that question, phrase it like this (open ended) and give them space to answer their own way.
Extrapolate and take a chance on a design. Startups are risks and pivots. You’re design will follow that paradigm.