Unsolicited UX - Jay Kietzman
The Unsolicited UX Podcast
S1E2. Mackenzie Merrill: Life Experience, The 3-legged stool, Crafting your Story, Being a Lead Product Designer
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S1E2. Mackenzie Merrill: Life Experience, The 3-legged stool, Crafting your Story, Being a Lead Product Designer

#Product Design #Design Thinking #Design Strategy #The value of life experience

Find Mackenzie Merrill on LinkedIn

Find Jay Kietzman at unsolicitedux.com

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Chapters:

1:18 Introduction to Mackenzie Merrill

2:42 What does it mean to be a Lead Product Designer? 

6:09 The three (or four) legged-stool

14:53 Building trust in cross-functional relationships  

18:00 The Enneagram Personality Test

18:45 The Lone Wolf Designer 

22:41 Finding Balance in Collaboration, Planning & Road mapping

29:00 Saying “No”

30:40 The fourth leg of the stool: Process Management 

33:30 Process Management vs. Agile

35:20 Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

37:58 Drawing out answers from partners 

39:20 Being a Storyteller

41:00 Connecting the right methodologies to the need or the problem

42:22 Get comfortable with being uncomfortable with facilitation 

43:30 Staying in the problem space longer\

44:34 Mackenzie’s path to product design 

48:24 Instructional Design & its relationship to UX

50:15 What advice would Mackenzie give to her younger self?

53:00 Networking

58:19 Mackenzie’s favorite ux topics: Design Strategy & UI

1:00:00 Design Strategy 

1:01:03 Kicking off design strategy conversations with your partners  

1:03:22 UI 

1:06:00 Mackenzie’s Hot Take: The value of live experience  

1:09:50 Bringing your background into your career & story 

1:16:34 Every choice you make comes with risk 

1:17:36 Question from a Mentee 

1:19:56 Getting better at communication 

Referenced:

Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions

Miro

Trello

Adplist.org

Special Thanks to:

Capelle Gabriel, graphic design support

Kelley Van Pelt, sound mixing support

Seb Taylor, vocal training support

Intro Music:
"I Got a Stick Arr Bryan Teoh" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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