Reflecting on Front Conference 2019: embracing controlled chaos, radical collaboration, and cultural legacy
“You’ll love it! The case studies were gold, the attendees were great, and the conference was super well organized. Plus, Salt Lake City is awesome!”
This is how a friend who previously attended Front described it to me. I was immediately sold. My Front Conference 2019 journey began in late 2018 when I reached out to Andrew Branch, one of Front’s Cofounders and Director of Design at Rev, about volunteer opportunities. Fast forward to June 2019 and I was standing backstage in the beautiful Eccles Theater. That was an amazing experience on its own, but let’s save that story for a different article. Here I‘ll focus on key takeaways from some of the presented case studies.
Please note that videos of all 16 presentations are available on YouTube. If you like what you see, check out the Front website for more info on attending the conference: https://www.frontutah.com/
Letting go of process and accepting controlled chaos by Wade Shearer
Wade Shearer, VP of User Experience at Workfront and a Cofounder of the Front Conference, kicked off the presentations with an enthralling tale of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
Incredible to note: D-Day took place 75 years ago on the day of this presentation and featured Utah Beach among the landing locations.
Though many of us know the heroic and massive seaborne operation that turned the tide of World War II, it’s also important to recognize the daring airborne operation involving over 13,000 paratroopers securing strategic inland locations, which paved the way for the soldiers landing on the beaches. The airborne forces planned and rehearsed these operations for months, yet when it came time for the real deal, they faced a multitude of challenges:
- Visibility issues: the darkness of night and fog
- Communication issues: no radios for fear of intercepted transmissions
- Navigation issues: a shortage of specialists to guide the pilots
As a result, the majority of paratroopers missed their target drop zones. The German defensive forces were fierce and the situation appeared dire. These brave soldiers still managed to accomplish their objectives. How?
Commander’s Intent for dynamic environments
Among many reasons for their victory, General Eisenhower’s framework for Commander’s Intent had a major impact. This strategy defines what a successful mission looks like along with the 5W’s: who, what, where, when, and why.
A key reason Commander’s Intent sets up forces to win is its acknowledgment of innately unknown variables like chaos and incomplete intelligence. These factors can make an overly fleshed-out plan antiquated upon execution, however, defining successful outcomes at a high level empowers soldiers on the ground to improvise and make their own decisions when needed — a crucial element to victory in chaotic environments.
Consider the parallels between these dynamic military operations and the work of your product design teams. For more information on workplace applications of Commander’s Intent, I highly recommend reading the Harvard Business Review’s articles on Managing Uncertainty and Letting Go Without Losing Control.
Successful product teams are easy to build…right?
Wade continued his presentation by describing how nearly all teams know what it takes to succeed in product development these days:
- Establishing autonomous, collocated, and cross-functional teams who are guided by clear, ambitious product vision and strategic themes
- Talking to and testing with customers regularly, then using customer stories to articulate their situations, motivations, and outcomes
- Inspiring, aligning, and measuring with OKRs
- Building, measuring, learning then repeating the process
In reality, building successful product teams isn’t always so simple:
- Overly autonomous teams can become siloed
- Siloed teams tend not to communicate and collaborate
To remedy these challenges at workfront, leadership reorganized teams into portfolios based on strategic initiatives, each with representatives from Product Management, User Experience, Engineering, and Marketing.
How to truly drive results
We all want results, but how do we actually achieve them? Introducing Partners in Leadership’s Results Pyramid:
- Results require Action such as planning and execution
- Action stems from the Beliefs that inspire people to work
- Experiences instill and reinforce Beliefs
This model challenges us to think beyond just our desired results and to consider the beliefs needed to galvanize action. From there, we can craft memorable experiences that instill these core beliefs. For example, to instill the belief that Collaboration is crucial, you might orchestrate a memorable collaborative experience like an escape room.
People don’t like being told what to do; provide intent and direction
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Steve Jobs
Another great truth is people don’t like being prescribed what to do; this can kill creativity and build resentment. At the same time, lack of direction can lead to indecision or even more disastrous results. Per Barry O’Reilly, an effective leadership paradigm involves providing intent in the form of context for goals and why they matter, then letting employees solve the problems.
To experience Wade’s full presentation and keen examples of these principles in motion, watch the recording here: https://youtu.be/uOM8cf0RqNA
Radical collaboration and trust by Kim Williams
Kim Williams, Sr. Director of Product Design at Minted and Group Manager of UX at Indeed at the time of this presentation, asserted that effective collaboration is the linchpin to organizational success.
1. Know yourself
Effective collaboration begins with understanding ourselves. Powerful questions to help guide the process of self-understanding include…
- Why is it you do what you do?
- What makes you get out of bed in the morning?
- What type of work aligns with your being and what you love in life?
Know how you work: This involves acknowledging that we are all unique then setting aside time to define…
- Your preferred medium of communication
- The conditions and hours under which you do you do your best work
- Your professional super powers (consider using tools like Strengthsfinder)
- Your Achilles’ Heel and weaknesses
Know how your team works: through the lens that we all bring different value and traits to the table, identify where you best fit into your team. An insightful and fun tool is https://www.16personalities.com/ which will provide a description of who you are and why you do things the way you do.
2. Know your partners
Once you know yourself, you can begin the process of knowing your partners.
Communicating at different altitudes: this concept refers to calibrating the content and delivery of our communication depending on whom we’re speaking with. Key factors to consider include and understand well include:
- What are their goals
- How do they measure success
- What are their incentives and inspirations
- How might you map their incentives and inspirations back to their goals
Promoting clarity: is crucial to alignment and shared success
- Define roles and responsibilities for each team member
- Draft crisp expectations
- Create a RACI Chart to ensure your project has owners for Responsibility, Accountability, who to Consult, and who needs to stay Informed.
Make sure everyone speaks the same “language”
- Create a glossary for terms specific to your organization
- Provide the right type of supporting data for whomever you’re communicating with (qualitative, quantitative, etc.)
Foster effective collaboration
- Provide meeting agendas, resources to read prior to presentations, and co-creation documents to maximize collaboration opportunities
Embrace differences
- Since everyone works, learns, and communicates differently, define meeting and workshop activities that are inclusive to all participants
- Honor the diversity of your teams and partners; welcome the multitude of perspectives and personalities to enrich how you approach challenges
3. Come together
Once you know yourself and your partners, it’s time to reach higher together.
- Create a shared vision along with values, principles, objectives, and roadmaps
- Understand the costs (monetary, time, etc.) required to realize that vision
- Define the metrics and measures of success
- Determine frameworks for prioritizing and making decisions
Maintaining momentum
- Find ways to consistently demonstrate value within your team and organization
- Celebrate every win and learning
- Communicate CONSTANTLY
To view Kim’s energizing presentation in its entirety check out: https://youtu.be/go-QozWjc9M
Gen 2 by Frank Yoo
Lastly, I’d like to highlight Frank Yoo’s, Director of Design at Google, talk on growing up as a second generation American. His talk was imaginative for a design conference and extra memorable because there were no product screens. It was all stories from his personal and professional journey.
1. Costs of comfort — sacrificing for others
Frank’s parents owned a liquor store in Long Beach, CA for over 40 years. He recalled a specific altercation that stood out in his childhood memory: a customer got into a heated exchange with his mom, with the back and forth exchange culminating in a harsh question:
“Why don’t you go back to your country?”
It was the first time he had experienced strong feelings of anger, confusion, and shame from someone trying to attack his family’s sense of dignity. A cheap shot and sense of marginalization over what? A bag of chips. Sadly this wasn’t the last episode as verbal attacks, theft, armed robbery, and fights were a regular occurrence at the family business.
So why go through these risks and troubles?
To put food on the table. When the English language and a degree from a domestic university create barriers that make it challenging to find white-collar work, gas stations, laundromats, and liquor stores become a common way for immigrants to provide for their families.
The costs can be unthinkable. Pictured above are Frank’s uncle and family friend who lost their lives as a result of violence from operating liquor stores. It’s the ultimate sacrifice of setting aside personal aspirations to create softer landing for the next generation, to allow their children to forge legacy.
Frank’s parents’ sacrifice enabled him to explore different career paths and wander the country — ultimately following his calling to become a designer.
Establishing softer landings at work
During his time as Interim VP of Design at Lyft, Frank inherited a beautiful custom studio, an open charter to pursue blue sky initiatives, and buy-in from leadership to integrate a design led product development process.
It sounded like a dream come true.
But then things broke down: other departments began resenting the design team, conflicts ensued, and productivity diminished.
Design became a Pariah.
Taking a page out of his parents’ book, Frank traded discomfort for overall organizational health : he acknowledged his team’s past wrongdoings, dropped the studio model, and changed his attitude towards partnership.
Where might you make sacrifices at work for the greater good?
“Are you willing to do what your team needs you to do? even if that thing isn’t particularly exciting to you?” — Julie Zhuo
2. Mom to the people — the power of relationships
Owning a liquor store involves constant contact with people. Frank recalls the harmonious relationships his family and community members — especially between his mom and their landlord Mrs. P. Their relationship was built on a bedrock of mutual understanding and trust: his mom always honored her end of an agreement and never missed a rent payment.
Why relationships matter
After 40 years and 480 paid rent checks, Frank’s parents decided it was time to sell the business, retire, and pass the torch on to another first generation Korean immigrant to help him realize his American dream. As the deal was getting finalized, the landlord Mrs. P’s health declined. Mrs. P’s daughter took over negotiations and demanded all involved parties stop the sales process immediately so she could liquidate all the assets and cash out.
For a moment, it looked as if a lifetime of hard work would be squandered.
But even in her ailing health, Mrs P. stood up for the Yoo family and battled her own children to make sure the original deal was finalized. She saved the day — not only for Frank’s parents but for the next owner and his family.
First principles for work:
The story above illustrates powerful first principles that we can apply both at work and in our personal lives.
- Invest into genuine, lasting partnerships
- Place an unwavering emphasis on mutual trust
- Honor terms of agreement to forge win-win situations
3. Finding strength in differences
Lastly, Frank described the stigma and self consciousness that stemmed from being culturally different from the kids around him. He recalls the ridicule when friends came over to his family’s house and unknowingly opened the family refrigerator containing kimchi.
Though social pressure initially led him to seek assimilation to the prevalent culture, he evolved his thinking to focus on how we’re alike rather than different. From there he shedded fear, dissolved insecurities, and learned to recognize strength in differences.
It ultimately resulted in a sense of Mental Freedom and a new life perspective focused on Family, Connection, and Adding Value in the World. Now as the Director of Design at Google overseeing Gmail and G Suite, even in the face of daunting work, he shows up as the truest version of himself.
“Belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.” Brene Brown
This evokes the question: how might we resolve any internal conflict to foster greater mental freedom?
Call to action for meaningful change and inclusion
Frank closes this talk by reminding us that we all have unique stories of difference. By speaking up and expressing our truths, we can create meaningful change towards greater inclusion across all roles and levels. I wholeheartedly echo this sentiment and fully laud his courage to share so many deeply personal (and at times painful) stories.
To catch this amazing talk for yourself, click: https://youtu.be/o4YseYT95qM
16 talks. 2 days. 1 unforgettable experience
I hope you enjoyed these recaps and highly recommend checking out all 16 talks on YouTube when you have time. Rewatching them reminded me of how amazing Front was! The diversity of case studies, insightful takeaways, and meaningful connections formed exceeded all my expectations. I truly cannot wait to return.
Hats off to Front’s Cofounders Andrew, Ben, and Wade for creating a truly unforgettable experience. For more information on attending an upcoming conference, please check out https://www.frontutah.com/
