Attending this course and passing the exam earns 1 UX Certification credit, which also counts towards the optional UX Management Specialty.
Learn more about NN/g's UX Certification Program.
Working Effectively in Cross-Functional Teams
Achieve synergy, not infighting, when collaborating with colleagues from other UX disciplines and with non-UX team members.
What You'll Learn
What You'll Learn
- Unique communication best practices that have been customized for User Experience Professionals
- Strong influencing techniques specifically targeted for use by User Experience Professionals
- Quick ways to assess and ramp-up within a cross-functional team
- How to avoid common mistakes made by UX Professionals in building trust and credibility within cross-functional teams
Topics Covered
Topics Covered
- History and future of cross-functional teams (CFTs) for User Experience (UX) Professionals working in both large corporations and small companies
- Case studies and analysis of User Experience Professionals working within successful (and not so successful) cross-functional teams
- UX facilitative leadership: Practices for providing User Experience leadership within cross-functional teams
- Creative cognition: The diversity of problem solving styles and their impact on CFTs
- Group dynamic knowledge, skills, and savvy
- Ten best practices of successful CFTs
- Common mistakes made by CFTs
- Collaboration & cooperation: Myths and truths
- Confrontation & resistance to change: Use it to make solutions better and gain buy-in
- Recognize competing loyalties and practice methods that build CFT unity
- Managing up: Engaging stakeholders and executives
- Unique communications skills for use in conflict resolution
- Learn to fall in love with the problem; not just your solution
Format
Format
Short periods of lecture will set the context for hands-on group exercises and micro-projects.
UX Certification Credit
UX Certification Credit
Participant Comments
Participant Comments
"Brilliant overview of the daily inter-human issues we encounter in our daily work and more importantly, how to deal with them!"
Harry van Mierloo, Fox IT,
"Love the time set aside to reflect on your own situation/workplace paired with sharing in the group for feedback and realizing others are in the same boat."
JJ Danielson, Sony Mobile Comm
"Very useful input! Very fun with the exercises and test. Nice flow with the three personas/profiles that were used through the class."
Fredrikke Kvam, Accenture
"So much useful info, course deck is like a manual in navigation x-functional teams effectively. Superb!"
G Vucems, Vision Direct
More Participant Comments
"I pretty much liked all the real life examples and stories that often matched with my actual situation. The course also showed me another perspective on how to find solutions for cross functional interactions."
D Albanesi, JobCloud AG,
"I really enjoyed her enthuasium for the course. You can tell that this is something she is extremely passionate about."
Allie Etcoff, Zappos.com
"Great topic! This was definitely a new set of soft skills that I took away with me back home. This workshop actually crosses the border of UX and in my opinion it should be a part of the foundation on every different aspect of a company (perfectly fits many of an HR department's concerns)."
Norbito Henriques, Wedo Technologies
"I thought this was organized very well. good mix of planning and psychology. I learned so much about organizing, goal setting and managing my team. Empathy goes along way in getting others on board with your agent. When you understand others' motivations, it makes it easier to work together."
Jen Krepelka, PMMI Media Group
"It was amazing, Nancy is such an energetic and knowledgeable person and I've learned so much, especially in communicating with my teams and interpreting their communciation styles. Definitely recommend!"
Raquel Ferreira, Visha Software International
"Loved the survey around communication styles. It helped with understanding myself better."
Joe Lin, Texture
"I really enjoyed learning the differences and key characteristics between leadership vs. management. My mindset has been permanently changed! (in a good way)."
Carly Chiao, Auto Gravity
"We discussed the importance of working to understand each other in teams and how critical it is to maintain interpersonal relationships. A lot of the common mistakes and approaches to dealing with them provide good adivce on dealing with all kinds of work relationships, not just in cross-functional teams. I had a lot of "aha" moments."
Michelle Larsen, Aquits, Inc.
"This course is a must for every UXP who wants to become an efficient leader and facilitator on any CFT."
JC, Legal Zoom, Los Angeles
"Great course for understanding team dynamics and communication methods/skills."
Sam Barber, Rockwell Collins
"I would take this course again! It's highly actionable content."
Edgar Anzaldua, SSB Legal Tech
"Great course. Nancy was very engaging and the day went by really fast. I really appreciate applying real world/life experiences to the concepts. Two thumbs up!"
Jodi Heidner, ICBC
"Nancy's 3 courses on UX management have been the most helpful classes of my professional career."
Severin Kibby, Fluke, Seattle
"A very insightful and practical course for a very difficult and yet critical topic."
Maxine Delavergne, Cisco
"When transitioning from IT consulting to UX within my company, I switched from colleagues with a similar background to various profiles. It was a big challenge. This course helped me dealing with that and improved projects."
David Duchesne, KPMG
"Wow! So good! I learned things that will help in all communication in life, not just CFT. Thanks!"
Nick Hopkins, CDK Global
"Nancy is a phenomenal instructor ands a deep understanding of group dynamics and individuals in those groups and how they relate to one another."
Jessica Dufour, Brigade
"I gained instant insight on how to improve collaboration and communication with my team while getting implementable strategies and tactics."
Raven Moore, CDK Global
""I would follow Nancy into war!" :) I am super interested in coming back to a NN/g conference just to take more classes from Nancy."
Cara Kleid, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
"I picked up a lot of great new leadership tactics to try out immediately, within my project work and cross-functional team projects."
Kim Wiessner, REI
"Nancy is amazing. I love all the experience she brought to the topic and is really useful to practically implement!"
Heather Brown, BECU
"This course alone was worth my 5-day admission."
Ri Zoldak, Ameriprise Financial
"This class works very much in hand with Design Influence. They are keystones to working with groups and other stakeholders in any organization. A must-take class!"
Jacquie Granger, USAC, Washington, DC - USA
"This course will be particularly useful to those new to working in cross-functional teams. It's a deep subject, and well taught."
D Scott Angle, Lockwood Publishing Ltd, Nottingham
"I liked that the instructor uses a lot of real-world examples and practical advice. I especially liked that she gave direct quotes. I liked her sense of humor."
L. Bogoeva, Thermo Fisher
It is only through successful cross-functional input and collaborative execution that User Experience Professionals can bring its greatest ideas to market. It is only within cross-functional teams that we can realize the speed and agility required to keep up with the rate of demand.
Nobody is an island. Nobody can afford to only work with people who have exactly the same background as themselves. All successful product teams include a wide selection of the following disciplines:
Working successfully within these broad cross-functional teams is not a “nice to have.” It is a MUST-have for all UX Professionals. Play well with others, or don't play at all. So, how do we ensure effective and efficient teamwork? It's not easy.
Wouldn't it be nice if all team members had the same ideals, the same goals, the same vocabulary, and the same understanding of everything that goes on in the project. Maybe in Utopia, but not on Planet Earth. With different backgrounds and job roles come different ideals, different goals, different vocabularies, and different interpretations of the same data. However, you can learn how to deal with these differences and turn them from obstacles to opportunities.
As a UXer, you are supposed to be the person on the team who knows how to deal with people. In this session, we'll learn how UX Professionals reach higher levels of success through building on their existing skillset into competencies to lead, manage, and participate successfully within cross-functional teams.
We'll explore how this opportunity is an especially relevant now, as the value of User Experience continues to become more broadly recognized and in-demand by businesses around the world. We'll particularly focus on the skills every UX Professional needs (regardless of level) to effectively persuade, influence, and lead others.
Chase Wing
Vera Bradley