Current thoughts on my career as a global product team leader
Considering the drastically different global health environment we all find ourselves in, I thought I would take the opportunity to reflect on my accomplishments and define my vision for my career. There are challenges we face as a society in mobilizing efforts to reduce novel viruses’ impact on our global economic and cultural systems, and we’ll likely see a limited return to in-person activities in the next 18 months while a viable vaccine can be produced for billions of recipients. I am fortunate that my career already has the experience, current capabilities, and potential to work with stakeholders, product owners, managers, designers, and developers on every continent except Australia, Africa, and Antarctica. I am still hoping to work, at least remotely, with individuals on the hottest and coldest land masses.
Pleased to meet you, my name is Tana, I am a product strategist
I convert business needs into products that sell themselves by delivering intuitive value to customers and end users. I am passionate about the role of design and strategic design thinking for digital transformation of business practices for greater efficacy.
As a strategist, I formulate, plan, and implement a strategy for a product, program, or design system by setting goals, determining actions, and mobilizing resources to execute those actions. By working with me, not only do you benefit from my business strategy acumen, you also get over nine years of expertise in UX design, as well as over ten years of architectural design experience. This includes my experience of managing design and engineering teams, a private consulting practice, and as an individual UX and UI designer for about six enterprise web products and four mobile products.
Why do I do what I do
Humanity needs better experiences, whether at work, in school, at home, or when we need to be healthier. I am passionate about creating value and impact for enterprise and eCommerce customers in all of my endeavors. As usage of the internet for facilitating business and personal improvements increases across the globe, I find that digital products and services require clarity of vision, increasing research and planning, and more precise execution methods with larger design and engineering teams.
How do I do it
The opportunities for solving complex business needs are becoming more achievable as collaboration software allows for better communication among diverse teams, local and remote. Every initiative needs a clearly defined vision and roadmap. I’m adept at communicating the value proposition and goals of a product verbally and visually. I thrive when working with Product Owners and Managers to create contracts and roadmaps by analyzing the requirements and level of effort needed to allocate resources to a product.
I care deeply about the value that creativity brings to an organization, and seek to inspire, respect, and encourage designers and developers to collaborate and create elegant, efficient, and strong solutions. I am a firm believer in true Agile production processes, and have served as a design scrummaster for four product teams on national and global products. By staying true to documented Agile ceremonies and methods, individual team members understand their role and can contribute effectively to be an efficient and innovative team. I often remind my colleagues of the market and user research findings that should guide our decisions, and have been told I provide clear, actionable, and respectful constructive criticism during internal reviews.
My subject matter expertise is in experience design for life sciences, hospitality, eCommerce, telecommunications, insurance, non-profits, and cultural institutions. I have collaborated with leading digital agencies, technology companies, and exhibition design firms in New York, Chicago, and Seattle, such as Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Jack Morton, Digitas, IQVIA, T-Mobile, and Razorfish. Trained as an architect and interaction designer, in the last nine years, I have collaborated on the UX design of web and mobile product experiences such as LIIFund.org, Masters.com, AmericanExpress.com, T-Mobile Digits, and IQVIA’s Apollo Design System. In the prior 14 years as an architectural designer, I collaborated on the 3D exhibits and interior design of the National WWI Museum, the National 9/11 Museum and Memorial, the National Math Museum, Deloitte and Touche’s Tri-State Headquarters near Wall Street, Nashville’s Adventure Science Center Space Chase wing, and the Singapore Discovery Centre.
I hold a master’s degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University. I received my Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University.
As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic in careful phases, it is important to grasp the opportunities for improved interactions through telecommunications that these changes to our ways of working, learning, playing, governing, and staying healthy can bring. I am looking forward to all the ways that humane, efficient, and joyful experiences can be re-imagined with the technologies and production methods we continue to improve upon with dedicated, talented product teams in the years ahead.
