Lean & User Experience, again
Over the years I’ve written a few posts about the relationship between Lean and User Experience. But in looking back on those, I don’t feel like I ever did as thorough of a job as I would like in connecting the two domains. So when I was asked last year to contribute to a new book called The Handbook of Business Anthropology, edited by Rita Denny and Patty Sunderland (who also wrote Doing Anthropology in Consumer Research). I proposed a chapter about Lean and Agile, because I feel that these are two critical trends for user experience professionals to understand. As I...
Read MoreHumanizing Business Technology
I attended the The Qualitative Report’s Fourth Annual Conference at the end of this week. I enjoyed listening and learning to many of the sessions, and on Saturday morning I presented the Closing Plenary. In addition to sharing a bit about my own personal and professional journey, I also had a chance share my thoughts about the impact that social sciences and design can have on technology in the business setting. Humanizing Business Technology View the complete presentation on SlideShare. Abstract How can methodologies from the social sciences – and from other fields...
Read MorePicked
I can’t believe it’s been almost six months since I started my job at ZS Associates outside of Chicago. Where has the time gone?! At least a half a dozen times I have started a post about what work is like and how different it is than what I was doing before. But in reality, our move from the Philadelphia area to Chicagoland has had such a huge impact on our lives that it’s been hard to step back and reflect. With the exception of Christmas, today is only my second vacation day since I started at ZS. I spent yesterday at Legoland with my oldest, and today...
Read MoreIntroducing Froggy!
In the past few months, it has become increasingly clear that my website and blog were woefully outdated, and that it was time for a refresh. I have been reticent to post until the site was up and fully navigable, but I think it’s close enough now that I can get back to producing content. So, welcome to my new integrated website and blog! I’ve permanently pulled down my old website, and all the traffic from my former blog on WordPress is being redirected here. I started a mommy blog in 2006, but once I had kids, it became difficult to blend my tweets and posts about poopy...
Read MoreLeaving SAP
In May this year I celebrated my thirteen year anniversary with SAP. It’s a wonderful company and it has been a great ride, but the time has finally come for me to take on some new challenges. I have been blessed to work with a group of extremely talented and motivated people over the years. Saying goodbye to my amazing team and the many great people I’ve worked with at SAP will undoubtably be the hardest part of leaving SAP. I’m leaving to work for a small management consultancy called ZS Associates, which is based in Evanston (just North of Chicago on Lake Michigan,...
Read MoreUser Experience & Lean
Over the past few years I’ve written a few times about SAP’s internal transformation efforts. We just pre-announced record Q2 results yesterday (35%+ growth in all regions – go SAP!), and so I thought it fitting to return to the topics of growth and change and talk a little bit about the good things that are happening internally both with my User Experience team and with Lean. I have been on a multi-year journey to bring the discipline of User Experience to the operational practices of SAP. I finished my PhD in Anthropology in 2004, and I wanted to bring that social...
Read MoreIt’s different here
I visited the SAP headquarters in Germany a few weeks ago. Although the week was jam-packed, I really enjoyed the face time with so many German colleagues and executives. It has been a few years since I was there, and things have certainly changed a lot. One of the nice changes was that I stayed in Kalipeh, which is the guesthouse on campus. It is a beautiful place with a decent restaurant, and it was great to be able to walk to the office in the morning. I just had my thirteen year anniversary with SAP last week, and there was a time in my career that I knew the names of all the...
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