“How to Talk to Clients, Stakeholders and Teams”

Session Summary

Putting great products and services into the world involves aligning the whole team with the importance of User Centred Design. As we work in ever more diverse formats and streams, effective team communications across disciplines and UCD leadership are vital. Increasingly, it’s our job to introduce people to the craft of UX and steer them through the design process, while they may misunderstand or disagree with us.

This interactive session will help you learn actionable techniques for engaging and communicating with stakeholders and cross-disciplinary colleagues. You will take away a better understanding of how to:

• give positive signals of engagement to build trust with your team
• read your co-workers and stakeholders and probe their motivations
• create shared understanding and language to keep communication efficient
• combat bad ideas without hurting feelings
• debate ideas based on the merits of a proposal, not a stakeholder’s ego
• structure and introduce your presentations for maximum success even when new stakeholders need to be onboarded fast
• communicate design goals and principles to non-designers without coming across as patronising
• keep discussions on point and productive even when passions come to the surface

This session is aimed at anyone who wants to improve their communication skills.

Martina and James, authors of the Morgan Kaufmann book, Communicating the UX Vision, have spent years identifying interpersonal anti-patterns – the gaps in communication where confusion and hostility lie – and formulating positive patterns that can replace them, and make your team happier, more cohesive and more effective.

James O’Brien – @13antipatterns

James has spent much of his career as a freelancer, working with over 30 teams to produce new products and services for clients such as Disney, Channel 4, Aardman Animations, ThoughtWorks, AutoTrader and Royal Mail. He has spent the last six years of his career specifically working on UX Enablement and Organisational Change and has particular awareness of the importance of communication and the need to bring non-”creative” colleagues along on the journey. He regularly speaks about UX and related topics.