How Will You Measure Success?
It was the last day of my internship. I stared out of the window at the big blue Atlanta sky, anxiously awaiting his next words. We had exchanged some friendly banter before delving into how I had performed over the summer. As usual, I stiffened up my posture and braced for the worst.
“You were a great addition to the team,” said Mayank. I smiled, but shrugged off the compliment and waited for an honest critique. Three years of graduate school, surrounded by peers who had ten times my talent and work ethic, had made me indifferent to praise. “Yes, but I know I could have done better,” I thought to myself. “No one will care about what I did a week from now. How do I get BETTER?” I had to filter the signal out from the noise.
He continued: “I’m curious about where you think UX research at this company should go from here. How will we measure success?”
I was shocked. I’d never really been asked something like that before. After all the tests I’d passed, projects I’d finished, and analyses I’d performed, I had no answer.
Mayank’s keen eyes scanned my face for a reaction. I nervously twiddled my thumbs underneath the desk, and calculated the optimal sequence of words, like a recurrent neural network trained on dozens of professional development textbooks. Beads of sweat formed over my brow.
“Um… Well, I think there are always, um, opportunities for improvement…”
I coyly smiled. “Nailed it!” I thought. “Never frame anything as a problem or issue when talking to your stakeholders. It’s always an opportunity.”
That’s Consulting 101! Dr. Hass (my Industrial/Organizational Psychology professor) would have been proud, except for the fact that I said “um” a few times.
However, Mayank seemed a little unsatisfied with my answer. He paused for a moment, frowning, looking down at his hands. Just fractions of a second later, the patented Sharma Smile™ spread across his face.
“What exactly did you have in mind? I want to know what you think.”
I was shocked. I’ve never really been asked my opinion on something like this before. Graduate school usually consisted of me struggling to ask the right questions, and now someone was asking me what I thought? Who the hell am I?
This question was the extra bracket that broke the lines of code in my consultant programming. Something inside me relaxed, and I felt like I could talk freely and honestly. With a goofy smile across my face, I gave a passionate speech on how analyses are only as good as the quality of the data collected and how quantitative methods are an important facet of user research. I spoke way too fast and may have spat a little while talking. (Sorry, Dr. Hass.) Mayank seemed entertained by my offerings. Grinning, he replied: “That’s true, but numbers don’t tell you everything.”
Although he was right, THIS SENTENCE VIOLATED EVERYTHING I HOLD DEAR. We began a sort of… parley. Of course, there was no hostility. In fact, we were both excited, almost giddy, at the thought of improving research within the organization. Mayank, a trained anthropologist, stressed the importance of ethnography and understanding the voice of the customer, while I rambled on about unsupervised learning and how many scale points Likert-type items should have. (From what I’ve read, seven seems to work the best overall, but it depends on what you’re measuring.) I was stunned by the depth of his wisdom. We both agreed that the best research should consist of exploratory and confirmatory analyses comprising elements of both approaches. It was a lot of fun!
Suddenly, he started talking about my future.
“You’ll likely have your choice of a few companies when you finish, but I hope you’ll consider applying here,” said Mayank. “I think that wherever you go from here, you’re going to do great.”
These last few sentences really tugged at the heartstrings. Keep in mind that as a child of immigrants, anything close to “good job” is like giving me a giant gold trophy and spraying champagne in my face.
He then got up from his chair, indicating that we were almost done talking. Knowing that this was the last meeting I’d have this summer, I felt a sense of melancholy, as if I was abandoning the work I had cared so much about. He said a few more inspirational things (it’s pure instinct for him at this point) and then asked me if I’d like to return for a second summer. I didn’t need to fit an ARIMA model to forecast that I’d be back.
I now realize that he was not asking me about Verizon Connect, or data science, or even UX research in general. I get the sense that he was asking me about something deeper. Something at my core. How will I measure my own success? Is it keeping up with my peers? Is it gaining recognition? Is it dealing with my insecurities as a budding data scientist? Or is it just doing something I love to do and using it to help those I care about?
Thanks to Mayank, I’m now closer to finding a solution. (The scale will probably have seven points.)
Written by Adrian Abellanoza
Adrian is a data analytics intern for the Experience team. His areas of focus include Industrial/Organizational Psychology and Social Psychology. His methods include machine learning, inferential statistics, and drinking sugar-free Red Bull.
