Rick and Morty + 5 IBMers: Patterns, Winter 2021
What happens when you throw five early professional IBM designers into a fully immersive, high-pressure six-week program centered around addressing the complexities of AI Ethics Governance?
You probably guessed it — the designers end up roleplaying cartoon characters in a private meeting for IBM’s Worldwide General Manager for Design.
Believe it or not, this meeting (which must have been the high point of all our early careers) really happened, yet was anything but ordinary or in the least expected. At least as interesting as the meeting itself, however, it is the journey that brought us there. A journey that began on a day in late January this year — a journey that began with Patterns.
Overview of Patterns
Patterns, capital P, is one of IBM’s finest training programs, or as it is officially described “IBM’s industry-standard program for Early Career Designers”. It brings together IBM new hires and emerging designers from all around the world who have begun to specialize in disciplines of design: content design, user experience design, visual design, user research. Patterns not only facilitates the ever-ubiquitous buzzword, networking but also prepares young designers for the challenges they will tackle in their everyday work. It may be consulting with a customer in an unfamiliar industry, collaborating with a distributed global team, managing looming deadlines around every bend, or navigating the overwhelming layered complexity of IBM’s own organizational structure. Or, of course, all of the above.
How did it start?
Once upon a time in a pre-COVID world, Patterns was held on location in IBM’s design studio in Austin, Texas. Participants would meet and gather there to embark on a fully interactive and intensive design boot camp, exploring the city in their free time. While our experience was different from that of our predecessors, we were still very fortunate that the remote program allowed so many participants from across the globe to join (it also meant we didn’t have to witness the breaking of the water pipes that sadly wrecked our beautiful studio in February).
Our Patterns program was in fact the second ever to take place entirely virtually.
One of the worries a lot of us had is whether we’d be able to contribute to our project of interest given our different design backgrounds. The Patterns program matches its attendees based on each of the participant’s interests, not primarily their skills. So, each team does not necessarily include all different types of designers, and this means that all team members participate in the entire holistic experience of end-to-end product MVP development. In one way or another, each team member would wear the hat of a different UX designer, and over time we’d find our strengths points and focus on specific tasks or project deliverables.
How was it different?
You might be wondering what makes Patterns different from most other educational programs at IBM. Patterns’ strengths lie in its emphasis on Enterprise Design Thinking, the IBM interpretation of a powerful problem-solving toolkit. Throughout the six weeks, all participants learn to understand and apply the design thinking framework and mindset, not just in theory, but with a real issue proposed by a real sponsoring IBM project team. The program thrives on these so-called Incubator Projects, small teams that are called into existence to design a marketable solution to a central issue and ideally deliver a Proof of Concept. At the beginning of the program, all Patterns participants watch the Incubator projects’ pitches and get to vote for their personal top four choices.
After each team is matched with their Incubator project, they set up their own working cadence, how often they’d like to meet, and of course, they begin building domain knowledge on their project’s topic. The client’s role is embodied by the Incubator leads, the group of IBMers who presented the problem statement and have an active interest in helping their designers deliver results. Each design team is further supported by their Cohort Coach CoCo –an IBMer from outside the Incubator team, who takes on a managerial role and exercises their coaching skills in a fun, contained setting. In addition, each Incubator team comes with a project Sponsor, who is also from their business unit or is otherwise familiar with the project’s domain of expertise and so can provide continuous consultations. As well, the teams wouldn’t be complete without a range of internal or external sponsor users, experts in the problem space who are willing to share their points of view in detailed interview sessions.
The program provides two different learning “vessels”:
- The work that a team does with their incubators and the deliverables that they agree upon. But also in parallel,
- There are programmed activities from Patterns that consist of tutorials and guiding sessions on the process, methodology, and analysis. We learned from the Patterns team and implemented it with the Incubator team.
As a bonus, we also got access to mentors. Every participant was encouraged to reach out to a mentor of their choice and get advice or feedback on their work — a great opportunity for learning and networking.
Overview of the 6-week journey
A day in patterns
Each day in the Patterns program begins with the “official” educational sessions, where the organizers walk the participants through one or more design thinking exercises. Immediately after each theory section, the project teams get to meet in breakout rooms to attempt the exercise in the context of their problem statements. There are also additional guest speaker events, where IBM experts share their insights on relevant topics such as Carbon (the IBM design system), how to patent an idea, or how to design for accessibility.
So a typical week looks a lot like a typical day, except that there were cumulative updates that we presented every week in a “Playback” to our Incubator team and sometimes if they invite their Sponsor. And again, throughout the entire program, we are in iterative learning and making process using Enterprise Design thinking, so from week one, we apply the basic principles, and every week we notice the new layer of insights and contributions that we were able to make with every new iteration. This intensive learning experience exposed us to learn a lot about how our role — in a team of product development, and especially as designers, could inform the overall experience design, user interaction prompts, the overall usability of the interface… etc
Incubator Projects
Incubator projects in Patterns are presented from across IBM ranging with different business problems in different knowledge domains. The diversity of participants’ backgrounds and the varying nature of the projects creates room for a bountiful harvest of creativity. Not only did the program provide extensive Design Education, but additionally our project’s knowledge domain facilitated a rich experience for us to learn about two of IBM’s leading design arms — General Design Research and Design for AI. So in addition to our UX Design and Research skills, our team had the chance to build domain knowledge on AI Ethics Governance and work on several AI Design exercises facilitated by Advisory Designer Milena Pribic. The program even organized a Shark Tank-style playback in which we pitched our project to Distinguished Designer Adam Cutler, one of the founding members of IBM Design. Check out this episode of Make Data Beautiful podcast to learn more about Adam and Milena’s work at IBM.
Design Thinking Workshops
The essence of the entire program is IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking. In the beginning, we learned about the principles that would guide our work process and help us see problems and solutions from a new point of view:
- A Focus on User Outcomes. Our success as designers isn’t measured by the features and functions we provide. Rather, it’s measured by how well we fulfil our users’ needs — after all, they are the ones relying on our solutions to get their jobs done every day.
- Diverse Empowered Teams. The chance for a real breakthrough increases with diversity; diverse teams generate more and more varied ideas than homogeneous ones. But it doesn’t stop there: these diverse teams must be equipped with the expertise and authority to turn their ideas into outcomes.
- Restless Reinvention. This is the key to a designer’s mindset: treat everything as a prototype. Everything — including in-market solutions. By thinking of everything as just another iteration, you empower yourself and others to bring new thinking and criticism to even the oldest problems.
Next, we were introduced to the behavioural model that is so central to IBM’s design thinking: the Loop, a continuous cycle of three important phases:
- Observe — immerse yourself in the real world to get to know your users, uncover their needs, learn the landscape, and test new ideas.
- Reflect — come together and form a point of view to find common ground, align the team, uncover insights, and plan ahead.
- Make — give concrete form to abstract ideas to explore possibilities, communicate ideas, prototype concepts and drive outcomes.
And last but not least, we learned about the keys that would allow us to scale the method for complex problems and complex teams:
- Hills — the visions or intended outcomes that align us as a team
- Playbacks — the meetings that align the extended team and stakeholders across time
- Sponsor Users — real-world user who align us with reality and help us check our assumptions.
Throughout the program, we were in an iterative learning process which we started by learning the basics of Enterprise Design thinking. From week 1 onwards we applied the basic principles, and every week we noticed the new layer of insights and contributions that we were able to make with every new iteration. This intense learning experience enabled us all to learn about how our roles — be that as a content designer in a team of product development, a visual designer, or a UX consultant — can inform the overall experience design, user interaction prompts, and the overall usability of the interface.
Final Playbacks
And so the day of our final playback approached at last. We made sure to schedule two dry runs earlier before things got serious (or as serious as they could possibly get, us being us!), and just because all good things come in threes, added a spontaneous third rehearsal on top. Given the fixed slot of 20 minutes for our presentation, we practised our timing with the precision of an Olympic synchronized swim team — our excitement definitely rivalled that of any high-profile athlete. We were the second of three Patterns teams in our video call room and had to face the daunting task of following an extremely professional, eloquently delivered pitch on racial equity. But thankfully, everything went smoothly. In fact, it was when the chatbox of our video call began to explode and a ton of reactions were raining down on us, that we realized with relief how much our audience (managers, fellow pattern-ites, incubator leads, friends, and colleagues) were enjoying themselves. Having concluded our presentation, we braced ourselves for some challenging questions, but — nothing. It turns out we were the only Patterns group that wasn’t asked a single question that day. We were dumbfounded.
Imagine how much greater our surprise was then when a short while later, we were asked to present our Final Playback again, in front of a much smaller and more exclusive list of invitees — in front of Phil Gilbert, IBM’s worldwide General Manager for Design. A meeting was scheduled, and it was this memorable occasion that brings our article full circle. Besides Phil, Seth Dobrin, IBM’s Global Chief AI Officer — who is also our project’s sponsor — the Patterns organizers, our coach, and the Incubator team also attended. Phil and Seth sat through our role-play with dignified composure (a penny for their thoughts) but then voiced great affirmative feedback and directed us to get the project in front of more execs. Our prototype, they agreed, should see the light of day as an actual product.
“That was fantastic. One of the best Patterns playbacks ever. Not just storytelling but also the level of implementation” — Phil Gilbert
Takeaways
After all this glowing feedback and internal eminence our project garnered, the question of what Patterns did for us seems almost superfluous. But the truth is, this tangible prototype is only half the equation. Similar to how our product idea developed over the course of the program, we the Patternites developed too. There are some skills the program brought out in us that will last for a good while longer than those six weeks, skills that (even if we say so ourselves) we could observe each other unfolding:
- Leadership. Our team was a true democracy. Each Monday saw the “inauguration” of a new Design Lead, one of us designers who volunteered to take ownership of whatever tasks needed doing for the next five days. But far from treating this as yet another chore, each Design Lead stepped up to the challenge and added their very own flavor to the job. Equally, those who were not the designated Design Lead for the week didn’t twiddle their thumbs but found other ways to take responsibility, to help the others, and simply bring value to the team — whether by setting up an impromptu “Intro to Sketch” session or delivering a fabulous mini guitar concert on a video call. What we learned (and were, secretly, all quite surprised about) was that there is leadership within each of us and that it’s okay to let it out, in unique forms, without the need for pushiness.
- Problem framing, research, and design learnings. While all of us had experience with design in some form or another, to varying degrees, none of us was an all-rounder. Although Patterns didn’t entirely change that, it certainly gave us the best of opportunities to play around and try out other design disciplines, not on our turf. Going through an almost complete mini project allowed us to practice our problem definition skills, research abilities, and design technique.
- Time management. There were 11 people in the inner circle of our project team, located in 4 different time zones. This naturally narrowed down the hours in the day when we’d all be available for live collaboration. As a solution to this, we combined these team working times with individual work during the rest of the day (for example, the North Americans among us continued in their afternoons, and our Europeans picked up work in their mornings). Happily, this proved to be just the right approach for us and despite all the remoteness we ended up neither over-fatigued nor feeling isolated from our team.
- Decision-making and prioritization. Once you know your problem space, you need to decide where in that wide space to focus your efforts. Once you’ve decided on a problem statement, you need to agree on one idea out of so many to tackle it. Once you have your idea, you need to sift through an immense amount of features to figure out which ones are your must-haves and which ones to save for later. Prioritization is key to navigating through this maze of choices — we learned to always keep our end-users at the core of our decisions, to say no to some requests, and to estimate with what amount of effort we could realize which outcomes.
- Grit and resilience. As much fun as Patterns was, some days were longer and harder than a typical day on our everyday projects. Working 12 hour days and not knowing what the next morning would hold certainly sounds uncomfortable for anyone who likes to plan ahead and believes in a work-life balance. It’s certainly not what you’d expect from a program where no real customer’s money is at stake. It’s merely an educational course — until you remember that sometimes the things really worth knowing can’t be taught in a fixed schedule. Without the occasional pressure during Patterns, we wouldn’t have learned to keep a stiff upper lip and, in a nutshell, “just do it”. Ultimately all that matters is giving your best on any given day, whatever tomorrow may hold. One quote from Phil Gilbert’s introductory speech on our first day of Patterns was solid gold in those challenging moments: “humor and humility”, he rightly said, would be our greatest assets on the journey.
- Make it fun! We knew we must utilize our strengths while ensuring we keep the fuel to our work pushing us forward, adding personality to our persona gave a fun flavor to our work which had consistently kept our excitement alive. Storytelling is a very important part of the final playback. We wanted to make sure our playback is engaging but also a great representation of the depth and detail that we have put into our research and project prototype.
Patterns isn’t just a design training program, it’s also a great chance for accelerated solution researching and testing. In six weeks, IBM’s Patterns trained thirty-five emerging designers, who completed nine full MVP prototypes for their respective business units. Only one project — for the first time ever — moved forward to be presented to IBM’s GM of Design, Phil Gilbert. This exemplifies not only the potential among the newest IBMers but also how highly dedicated and fresh ideas are valued across the organizational tiers. The project continues to be lead by GBS Senior Consultant, Daphne Coates, our incubator lead. We are looking forward to its next steps. We are immensely grateful to all who facilitated our team’s unique Patterns journey — we never dreamed we would get this far.
Thanks to all their genuine support, we are looking forward with excitement to three things:
- Continuing to work with the wonderful set of people we met
- Seeing our work come to life
- and in doing so, making a real difference in our own small kind of way.
That, and catching up with Season 4 of Rick & Morty.
Ways to get involved
Wanna get schwifty too? If you are an IBMer, here are the ways for you to get involved:
New-Hire/Emerging Designer: Apply as Patternite!
Mid-Career Designer or Patterns Grad: Become a Mentor or a CoCo (Team Coach!)
Business Unit: Propose an Incubator project!
Manager: Sponsor an Incubator project or nominate a designer!
This article was co-authored by: Carolin Seeger
Project Team Members:
Aidan Sullivan, Carolin Seeger, Jan Christensen, Maribel Ramos and Sara Elsharawy.
