Design Leadership

You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf — John Kabat-Zinn

Over the past 15 years I have constantly been in a leadership position of some form and have a natural talent for providing a positive, collaborative and democratic environment for teams to thrive.

Ideagen Plc - Head of UX & Design

Starting with a team of 1 apprentice I grew the UX department to a complement of 12 split into sub-teams within 2 years. This is made up of a mix of User Researchers, UX Designers and UI Designers. Through the application of 'Leader-Leader' principles, my staff have autonomy and freedom to innovate, whilst maintaining direction through the active application of our OKRs.

Removing single points of failure and promoting strong collaboration, both across skillsets and into Scrum teams, has resulted in my relatively small department successfully servicing the design requirements of an Engineering function comprised of 150+ Developers, Testers, BAs and TPOs.

Ideagen has an excellent Learning & Development department and attending the self-styled 'Leadership Academy' with Dr Yana Belmega and her team was nothing short of life-changing. This level of recognition and validation that techniques and procedures I have been using are considered best practices adds a level of confidence in my leadership style that might otherwise be missing.

For details on the how this level of collaboration enabled the production of our design system, please view the User Experience page.