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VMware Design Org Team
Being part of the global Design Org Team meant I could participate in internal research projects, support conferences and team collaborations and have some additional involvements beyond my standard product work.
Here are 3 examples from this period - 2 supported conferences and 1 internal research project
2021 - 2023
VMware Shape Design Conference
October 2022
​​In 2022, I got the chance to participate in the VMware Shape Design conference as a speaker and co-host for EMEA conference opening.
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This was an internal design conference hosted by VMware to bring together our global design team and share our project and insights.
This was the last edition on the "Shape" conference before merging with the broader VMware Explore conference.
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The conference theme was "Design for Change" and sessions were for 2 days in both American and EMEA region.
Conference Responsibilities:
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I co-hosted the opening slot for both days for the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Asia) together with Senior UX Designer from my local team in Sofia.
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Apart from kick-starting the conference, we also introduced the themes about change and impact for this year's edition and we also gave practical advice to paricipants how to best enjoy the event.
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During the first day I also had to moderate some sessions. I did tasks like time-keeping and introducing the speakers.
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I also had the chance to be a speaker for an "ignite" type of session. I picked the topic of "Thinking like a UX designer" and talked about how the design thinking process could help us with real-life tasks.
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Check the deck from my presentation
VMworld Conference
October 2021
During the 2021 online edition of VMworld global conference, I was a support to the main design facilitator for 5 design studio sessions.
The sessions were lead by either a Design Manager or Senior UX Designer colleagues. This experience helped my professional growth as I was supporting them in a real "design studio" research environment with real business clients.
Afterwards, I also assisted in collecting the written data to assist in drawing insights about our customers' experience and attitude towards our VMware products.
Internal Research and Service Design Project
"Better online collaboration within global design team"
2022 - 2023
This internal project was collaborated with my mentor over a period of 2 years. What started as an idea for just an exercise, quickly became a service design project to improve online team culture in our global design team "VMware Design Org".
Through weekly sync-up meetings and rapid internal research and ideation from my side, we managed to conclude actionable suggestions for improvement of the design team culture.
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Problem statement
How to make team meeting events more engaging?
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Use of factors:
Improve feeling of relatedness within the global design team. Secondary end goal of the project was to make this online events more memorable.
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Location:
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USA team is spread across the country whereas EMEA offices (like Sofia and India) are concentrated in one city.
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Environment - online mainly, in-person if needed
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Time period:
2022 - 2023
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SERVICE DESIGN PROJECT
WORK PROCESS
1. RESEARCH
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Our basis for our problem statement was the feeling of disconnect between the global design team which could be summarised with the following statement:
"When there are "connecting" events it doesn't feel meaningful."
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FInal problem statement:
How to make team meeting events more engaging?
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In addition to the main Problem statement, we also wanted to find suggestions from the team how they would imagine a solution would look like. This made the research more ethnographically focused and set the tone for a broader UX solution.
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Research Phase 1
It consisted of desk research and ethnographic interviews with UX designers and UX researchers colleagues.
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Main Goal Research Phase 1:
Check credible sources to lay foundation for the projects, sync-up with current internal research and ask the most experienced UX researcher colleagues for their hands-on experience and "quick win" suggestions for this problem.
​Refining Research Scope
Design Directions after Research Phase 1:
YES: To get some qualitative research data about the team atmosphere and what the upper management and management do to keep the team culture good.​
YES: To get mainly quantitative data from the participants and show it in in the interviews with the management.​
NO: To not focus only on interviews to get research.
NO: ​ To not focus on improving the feeling of relatedness in the design team through online calls and meeting.​​
Research Phase 1 Artifacts
Research Phase 2
This second phase was focused on collecting actual data from current online global monthly team meetings and team-building events. The goal was the collect data for a synthesis so we could extract insights and further define the project scope and problem statement
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​Used methods:
1. Online surveys (polls) in team chat,
2. Observations - type "fly-on- the- wall" for recorded old online team-buildings in combination with Customer journey map to highlight participants' engagement levels throughout the meetings
3. Self-reporting on prompt for 3 participants during latest team-building call​​​​​​​​​​​​​
4. Ethnographic interviews with managers and senior leadership (stakeholders and with most experience on this design problem)
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Results and Research Artifacts:
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1. Online surveys (polls) in team chat:
Only 1 question was used, but it good only 6 results.
Low participation, not a good pool to draw insights.
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Decision: Use the next team-building call to ask directly about the team's opinion to draw more useful insights
2. Observations from the type "fly-on- the- wall" for recorded old online team-buildings in combination with Customer journey map to highlight participants' engagement levels throughout the meetings
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Wrote summaries and created "Customer journey map" adapted for participants for 4 recorded team-building meetings​
Online Meetings Observation and Journey Mapping
Observing and summarising engagements levels for each agenda point
Insights: ​
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Lots of useful insights came out from these meeting recordings. By following both the qualitative metrics (objective team engagement levels) and quantitative metrics (chat participation or vocal participation by talking during the call)
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Example of one of the main insights:
"The (meeting) activities should either be playful or meaningful.
Some meetings have interactive activities which are just playful and some are more meaningful.
So a good activity is a combination between those 2 elements. Or
just a deep focus on one of the 2 elements"
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3. Self-reporting - using this technique and predetermined supporting questions and prompts to allow 3 participants to write their real-time attitude and engagement during one of our online team-buildings
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Results showed which parts of the agenda and sessions had high and low levels of engagement.
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4. Ethnographic interviews
Strategic 4 interviews with senior level designers and managers who have a lot of experience in collaborative events and team-buildings.
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Main interview questions:
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Do you like the current team dynamic between them?
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What are some opportunities you see to improve team culture?
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How do you create an environment for high-performing teams?
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What are, in your experience, the most effective ways to have engaged and motivated teams?
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Additional questions during each of the 4 interviews were also a big part of the interview process. These questions followed a laddering- type of question topics as I was asking for more context based on their answers.
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Questions topics and answers mapping of the 4 ethnographic interviews
*Additional*
5. Opinion questions during online team call (group survey)
Since the online polls didn't produce needed quantitative results, I followed with some quick questions to the global design team during one of our monthly design team-building meetings
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Questions:
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What is your initial reaction towards seeing an invite for a team- building/networking event?
Put your answer on the scale:
It's a sure thing / Maybe / No chance -
I feel connected with people at work when...
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I feel disconnected from people at work when..
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Can you think of a "wow" moment at work? Can you describe it?
The result from this group interview during the team-building meeting
Using a Miro template format to capture visually their answers.
After collecting the results from all Research Phase 2 methods, it was to time for the "Synthesis" phase to draw general insights and redefine the ideation scope of our design problem.​​
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*Additional*
6. Quantitative research manager survey
When reviewing our data, we found out we are still missing a big amount of quantitative research data from our design managers.
So we decided to send a survey to them with opinion questions about the team-building meeting's structure and each segment's content. ​
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Results:
Good representation with 7 design managers who gave their opinion.
Most of them had extensive years of experience and have managed a lot of people.
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Analysing design artifacts and defining insights from the manager survey
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Main Insights:
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There isn't a need for a big change. We can just find a way to fine- tune some details to make the managers more satisfied
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A theme is observed how teams can supplement online for in-person activities and events
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Need to feel like your work is relevant and meaningful. Most common ideas were buddy programme and giving ownership to projects.
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Find ways to encourage local in-person meetings.
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Whatever we come up as a proposal should be included in the onboarding framework for the new designers in the team.
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2. SYNTHESIS
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The Research Phase 2 concluded with all these 6 different research methods.
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During the Synthesis, we defined 3 themes (problem statements) that will offer actionable foundation for ideation. Each of these 3 themes is showing a different aspect of online collaborative work and offers a possible solution to the main design problem.
Defining problem statements based on research synthesis
3 design problem statements (themes):
Theme 1 - Online events
How can we supplement online for in-person activities and events?
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Theme 2 - Meaningfulness (emotions)
How can we make designers feel like their work is relevant and meaningful?
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Theme 3 - In-person events
How can we encourage local meetups or in-person events and activities?
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3. IDEATION
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Using these 3 defined design problem statements, the final part of this project was to organise a formal ideation phase. The chosen ideation method was to use co-creation sessions and have 4-5 UX designers from the team join them.​
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3 organised co-creation sessions, each focused on one of these 3 design problem statements (themes)
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Goals for the co-creation sessions:
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To put focus on group ideation from within the team
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Use the group ideation to have concrete ideas or concepts at the end of the session as potential solutions to each of the 3 design problems statements (themes)
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Introduce the participants to the co-creation dynamic environment from the beginning of the session. (ice- breaker activities)
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Factors for the participants recruitment
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Mix seniority (junior, mid and senior level product designers)
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People who don't work often together
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Not having a specific theme assigned to anyone
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Co-creation Session 1 structure and results
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Theme 1 - Online events to feel like in-person events
Topic: How might we transfer the in-person event experience into online events and activities?
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Agenda
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Activity 1: Personal Items - Show and tell (5 min)
Objective: Generate a diverse range of ideas for innovative features and activities in online events.
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Activity 2: Ideating on the topic on your own - Online Event Features (7 min)
Objective: Generate a diverse range of ideas for innovative features and activities in online events.
Question for ideation:
"If you had no technical limitations, think of the coolest, craziest, most fun ideas for virtual events/hangouts/meetings that would make you feel like when you meet up with others in person."
Activity 3: Concept CRAZY Mashup - diverging on ideas (15 min)
Objective: Stimulate creativity and generate original event concepts by combining elements from different ideas and perspectives.
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Activity structure:
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Divide participants into pairs.
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Provide each group with a set of idea cards (prompts) representing different aspects of an online event (e.g., networking, interactive sessions, gamification, virtual environments). The group can mashup their own ideas and to also use the prompts to mashup with other online event ideas or aspects of an event.
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The idea is for them to think about events without limitations, to get really crazy creative about the ideas
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Encourage the groups to combine the selected cards and create 3 new original ideas for events.
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Allocate 12 minutes for discussion in pairs and thinking of their ideas
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Activity 4: Elevator Pitches and Feedback - converging to concepts (7 min)
Objective: Sharing ideas from both groups or participants. Then choosing one and refining it furthermore in Activity 5
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Activity 5: Concept Refinement and Storyboarding (12 min for each participant to create and present their storyboards)
Objective: Refine and visualize the selected online event concept through storyboarding.
Each participant make a storyboard about how they would imagine such a session would go as flow and structure. They can write it down or just show it visually. Topic for this activity: "If you now have to lead this activity within the VMware context, how would you imagine to session would go as flow and structure"
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Closing remarks and summarising what was the goal of the co-creation session.​
