Don’t Forget the Humans (UX – 2010) explored the magic of being an internal design team. With success comes, new challenges and expectations. Sophisticated leaders are asking to democratize design and innovation. They are asking for deeper insight into gnarly challenges. They are asking to apply the design facilitation skill to meetings at large. And the list grows. Just exactly what do we want to be in our teenage years? We don’t know! But we hear the clamor, “Don’t Forget the Organization!”

IBM has a strong pedigree in design and at many points designers have occupied a central and foundational role in the organization. Recently, IBM has embarked on a massive transformation focused on integrating design and user experience practice back into the core of everything the company does. This is the largest such transformation ever attempted and the very scale of IBM as an organization means that it can't help but have major impact in the world of design. For example, the current trajectory will make IBM one of the 5 largest design organizations in the world in the next 4-5 years.

As we all know, this kind of change isn't easy. But the team leading the initiative at IBM is having a lot of early success. In this session, you'll get a peek into the inner workings of the initiative, including an overview of the key parts (from hiring to process change to culture change), early successes, and lessons learned.

The session will focus specifically on ways to deliver change and experience excellence across the organization as well as how to build and grow a high-performing teams that works across channels and the organization.

Siloed organizations inevitably create disjointed experiences for customers. One of biggest—and most overlooked—problems in the customer journey stems from the seemingly unbridgeable gulf between marketing and the rest of the organization. Advertising and marketing communications that aren’t aligned with the true capabilities of the organization set sky-high customer expectations that are impossible to match. Fortunately, several relatively simple tools can help employees on both sides of the chasm work together to provide an on-brand experience that delights customers.

Managing a redesign for the most recognizable brand on Earth goes way beyond design. It requires navigating layers of management, overcoming organizational muscle memory, and empowering a team to take the risks necessary to make something truly magical. Learn how we built a new team, cultivated a culture of design, captured some Unicorns, and created a responsively designed and scalable destination for all things Disney.

Several years ago, Intuit realized that it had strayed from its roots and was no longer creating the most intuitive experiences on the market. With a culture that highly regards the customer, Intuit was ripe to integrate Design Thinking. Learn how Kaaren Hanson’s team and key executives are making Design Thinking a core competence, driving customer and revenue wins, and helping to re-invent the company culture.