Fireside with Founders & Leaders

In this engaging episode, host Rupert McSheehy welcomes Buzz Pearce, a seasoned leader in the design industry with nearly three decades of experience. Buzz reflects on his journey from a young, curious child inspired by his architect father to his current role as a design leader at TEM. He shares valuable insights into the evolution of design, the importance of leadership, and the shift from being a hands-on designer to mentoring and empowering teams. Buzz emphasizes the need for designers to embrace a mindset focused on problem-solving and collaboration, as well as the importance of understanding the business context in which design operates.

Throughout the conversation, Buzz discusses the challenges and opportunities that arise in the design field, particularly in startup environments. He provides practical advice for designers seeking employment and highlights the significance of maintaining a balance between creativity and the practical demands of business. With a focus on learning and adaptation, Buzz encourages listeners to cultivate a growth mindset and to navigate the complexities of design leadership with purpose and clarity.

What is Fireside with Founders & Leaders?

In this podcast, we talk to some of the greatest founders and leaders about their journey to where they are as well as discuss their companies and many other subjects depending on the guest.
We are aiming to create meaningful content that everyone can get value from. We hope you enjoy 😁

so buzz welcome to the podcast

thank you very much for having me

thank you for joining me

it feels like an age since we've been

we've been speaking for for many years

uh generally about design work

and

I've been speaking to you about job hunts in the past

from a personal perspective

and probably no doubt

trying to pitch you in terms of

getting people into your teams

but now we are here to talk about you and the podcast

and some of the topics we've got to talk about today

specifically around design leadership

the design industry which of course you've been in for

well a few years

I won't give away your age

cause we've just discussed that

um but can you give us a history

in terms of your background

how you got into design

and then up to where you are today

okay well let's

let's give away the age

so people got frame of reference

I'll be 50 next year yup

which is obviously causing some time to reflect

yup so um

I'll try and give you a few

bits and pieces that people might not get

if they stalked me on LinkedIn

how about that how do I get into design

well I had a great inspirational uh

start point which was my father

uh he's an architect

okay and uh

so I would always admire him on his draftsman table

doing things by hand um

and just seeing the kind of care and quality of craft

and so that was very inspiring and of course uh

also having a a mother who's very practical on craft

like you know

wonderful seamstress and so on

so the act of making and building was there

right from an early age which I suppose

in some ways is quite typical of any designer

you're taking things apart

understanding them how they work

what the materials can do

and try and replicate it yourself

so I suppose I had a a very um

well blessed childhood really

having a workshop at home and a nice big garden

would build tree houses and yeah

get very practical

you were that child taking things apart

were you yeah

Lego yeah

we didn't have a TV yeah

it was just like no

let's not have any of that

and then of course

computers became more accessible

and I well remember getting a first family computer

an Amstrad CPC 6 1 2

8 I can still remember that

yeah and of course that was

that opened up a different kind of world

but I wouldn't say I was like

a boffin or anything like that

I just wanted to understand it as another medium

and then we got an acorn Archimedes

which was a a kind of the gooey point and click

kind of interface that you see on Apple Macs and so on

but no one really heard of the ACORN computers

but they were amazing um

and right at that time

early teenager getting into those so

you know desktop publishing came out

and you could hook up a printer

and you could start doing your own stuff

and output these things at professional grade

so we got the we got the itch

and a friend of mine at school got one as well

and we started doing the first school newspaper nice

so that was one of the things

but right at that time schools were doing um

work experiences

and that was my first experience with an Apple Mac

in a you know

marketing company where I was scanning things in

and getting them into layouts

and so on so anyway

so I thought I'd just dwell a little bit on just that

that era yeah

of what was kind of interesting me

and I was very much into fine arts as well

you know painting

sculpting and just the act of making

I still am like that yup

but then uh

sort of being encouraged rather

to actually go into the workplace very early on OK

not not even do a levels OK

um but I felt somehow that I needed to learn

and be taught from the masters of the craft

so going into university I had some amazing professors

you know on typography

and I went to bath and

we weren't allowed to touch a computer for like

a year and a half okay

it was all hand drawn 8 point Helvetica type

you know yup

and so I I love that yeah

um it slowed you down

made you think and so on and then of course

the internet came along and just blew everything out

no one really knew what it was

it was called new media

so I started teaching myself and then long story short

me and my mates at Uni entered various competitions

and this one particular competition

for the Royal Society of Arts was design the um

user interface for inflight entertainment

mm hmm

and so we went down to Bristol Airport

got a bunch of airplane seats

cut holes in it put a

you know put the computer in

and shipped it all to London for the presentation

long story short Simon Waterfall was one of the judges

we won it he offered us a job

yep and that was my great first job at deep end

yeah um

back in so 1998 9

99 sometime like that

and then it's just been a rocket ship and people go

oh how did you plot your career

I didn't yeah

I really didn't and you can probably tell

I just like making stuff and doing things with other

like minded people yeah

and seeing where it sort of takes me

but you you know

um you're looking for sort of guidance

where should I go what should I do

your different life stages require different things

so and then of course you can

just look on LinkedIn where I've been um

but yes I started off in the agency world

yep um

but then it was always a yearning to get closer

to a brand to a product

to a business and um

after about eight years at poke um

Skype came along yep and this was Skype when um

it we just released video calling on a PC

mm hmm when even on a Mac or any other thing

so really early and yeah

I came in as creative director with a team

and I'd never managed people before

and I was way out of my depth

and I made basically every mistake in the book

so it's been a real baptism of

I was put into a job of incompetence yeah

a maze that I didn't you know get booted out um

so I wouldn't advise that yeah

it's an interesting time though

because that was probably a time whereby

people were saying video calls

and I was who's gonna want to have a call

like through the internet

like why would people want to do that

yeah well

there'd always been that kind of Jetsons

like type of the future which is you know

in films we're showing all the time

so there was always that pent up

this is what the future's gonna be

but no one really experienced it people had tried

but they were notoriously complex to

to set up you had to open up firewall ports here there

and apple had tried this and Microsoft had tried

and everyone was like it's just so much of a faff

and then Skype came along and it literally was plug in

you don't have to do anything

yep connect together and it worked

it was like magic so of course

saying that you worked at Skype

people like wow

you're you're some sort of celebrity yep

so it was a it was probably one of my favourite

places to work in my career

and it was it was it was a rocket ship

and we'd

sort of inadvertently cracked the viral coefficient

which is you know

it for every one person they bring in another person

it was almost like one

it was amazing

so you couldn't Skype alone

so it was double digits

and we remember just seeing like a million

you know a week being added to the registration

and you didn't it was sort of just took off

yep

I didn't really have to do anything

it was just there but then it was OK

we now we gotta connect up all the other end points

you know on all the other types of devices

and new devices were coming out

smartphones were coming out front facing cameras

and then of course

the iPhone came out and it wasn't ready in version 1

as everyone remembers but version 2

the 3G one

I remember very distinctly taking my first Skype call

when I was in New York

and the quality was insane like

like they were standing right next to me

and the amazing engineers there

who developed the Codex that are still in use today

yep um

was incredible but then

you rapidly discover that

the battery life of the iPhone lasted about 20 minutes

when you're running Skype

so it's like

OK that didn't scale

so you you

you know

getting much closer to the technical side of things was

probably what I Learned most from being

being at Skype

and then it's been sort of in house ever since then

nice and going from something that is quite creative

you sound like you're a hands on person right

you like doing creating making into a leadership role

yeah

alright that's it's a big change right

and people don't necessarily realize sometimes

the transition that you need to make

to go from a doer to a strategist or a people leader

yeah

I I always like getting in the kitchen

you know but not like hey

I need to be head chef or anything like that

it's not it's not like that

it's just more being around people

hmm and

and talking through things

and developing that common language of taste

and how you analyse things

and if you need me to sweep the floor

I'll do that still I still do that now

even in this so called leadership position

so I try and keep a little bit of the hands on

but in a way more supportive role

so yeah just kind of the

the making aspect is always there

and I don't know whether you know

as a true designer you ever really give that up

yeah OK

but it's fair to say that you do get a bit rusty

on certain tools and

you know folks coming in

they know all the shortcuts

and they can produce things much quicker

and I'm you know

still detaching instances and

you know

doing all that kind of stuff that winds everyone up

but you learn and I'm asking hey

show me how you did that that's cool

so I feel like there's a transition

but the the most important thing is actually it's

it's not a transition of the making

so it's more of a transition in your mindset

okay and

in in simple terms

I think of it like this

and this is from my own experience

but I do see it as a pattern

you know in

in your in your 20s and so on

you're really kind of learning the tools

learning the craft

getting proficient

and so a lot of it's about you and your

and your skills

and then how you operate within the team

and then you're thinking about the business

whereas you get into a leadership position

it's completely inverted

you're just constantly thinking about the business

and then the team and then you

yeah

and it's that flip

and it happens quite suddenly it's not

it's not always a gentle transition

at least it wasn't for me

hmm

so I try and help people understand

as they're going through their career

this is how you're gonna have to start thinking

cause if you're not prepared

then it can feel really sudden

and you hear a lot of designers who make that say

switch from IC to manager ugh

I don't like this yeah you know

cause they haven't

been prepped for what it will feel like

there's not like

a management training school for designers

that I see right

it's most of the time you you just get put into it

exactly and um and I did yeah

and so you know

I remember getting to Skype and I think I don't know

I had half a dozen people reporting to me

and that all felt good

and my ego was crazy high and wow

you know

yeah this guy and

and then it comes to performance reviews

what's a performance review

yeah

honestly

I I never done it never done it at at in agency

it was like the performance review was happy Christmas

good year is a couple of grand on your merry way

it would you know

it was it was like that yeah

so how did you learn

well you didn't have chat

GPT to go and ask you to create a performance review

certainly didn't

I think very quickly

it became apparent to my team very quickly

that hey he's never done this before

so I I try and be honest with people and go

I've never done it before

I'm really sorry you know

but we'll go through this together

because it's not actually that complicated

and I think I'm fairly good at observing people

and understanding what makes them tick

and where they get their energy from

and so on so I think I had that there

and I also had opinions on what aesthetics

what good looks like

so I was able to kind of coach and that so you

you kind of have a few of those things

but it wasn't so structured

so OK what are they gotta work on

what's their growth plan and so on

how are they done previously

oh man I haven't taken any notes

in one to one meetings or anything like this

I've got all this memory that I have to now pour out

and was it right

and I think just by sharing observations

getting them to reflect

it became very apparent is that ah

that's the key is

it's not me that has to own their career

they have to yep

so it I tended to then start developing a

kind of leading by asking questions

which is effectively coaching

yep right

and people go

what's the difference between a mentor and a coach

they often get kind of blended together

and my simple mind is that well

a mentor comes from a place of experience

and so therefore

if we're having a conversation

my mental mind would go OK

based on what you've told me

this is what I would do

mm hmm but the coach would then flip that round and go

OK based on this

what would you do

yup

cause then the accountability lies with you

and it's much more empowering

because if you do the thing that I told you to do

and it doesn't work then it's like

oh now I'm accountable yeah OK

not that I'm shying away from accountability

cause I'm gonna say we'll probably get on to that

but it's

it's very important that you that word empower people

yup to make those decisions in a safe space

so that they don't

deliberately fail yup

you know because this whole notion of failing

um I don't really like to be honest

I have I don't like to fail yeah

so I don't get out I don't go out to fail yeah

I don't think many other people do go out to fail

but it

puts an interesting lens on it

and I'm saying this

because it's in the context of my own failure

yeah

so you looking at it and you go OK

how can I learn the fastest

that's that's more

and if I fail on the way then that's fine

so yes I get the expression fail fast

but it puts it in the negative

yeah OK

learn things more in the positive

so how would you frame it then

learn fast learn fast

and so that's what I did or I tried to learn fast

and we had great people in

in the people department who were like OK

we see you're struggling you know

and we had really good coaching

that's great on being a good manager

and I say I say

I think honestly

it's a constant voyage of learning being a manager

because you're dealing with people and variables

like you've never had before

um if you think that

you know designing a product has lots of variables

yep that's nothing compared to dealing with people um

and dealing with team

yep yeah

and you've have you had a mentors and coaches through

throughout your career yourself

and I've had the fortunate yeah

I mean I've worked with amazing people

and they've been very patient with me

and sharing their wisdom um

I've only ever had one professional coach yep

and she was amazing and my

that was first time I ever had

that was as a sky scanner

and that was as a result of talking to my mentor

who was the CEO at the time

and he said have you ever had a coach no

what does a coach do you know

it was sort of

at that time where coaching was becoming a

more of a commonplace thing

yeah

and it was very very helpful because she um

called me out

really yeah

OK 'cause I was kinda looking for coaches like a advice

like a mentor but no

and that's where I learnt the difference between mentor

and gonna ask you some tough questions

you're gonna have to come up with the answers yeah

and I remember when we were doing this sort of I

I chatted to quite a few different coaches

cause you wanted to get the right mix

and the question that she asked me

which I thought oh

that's interesting

she could sense that I was getting quite overwhelmed

and so with everything that I was doing

and so

when was the last time you cried in front of someone

ooh that's gonna be interesting

hmm so and she's like well

I'm gonna push you and you might end up breaking haha

I was like okay

that that that just kind of that's probably what I need

and she just to take me to the to the edge

yep

okay now I know where where my limits are and so on

and then

we can start actually having a constructive

dialogue on how to do that

so yeah though you have these moments in time

I could take you to the place where she said it and

you know and so on so and then we yeah

we had I don't know

six months of constant thing and she was she was great

yeah

and would you say

for perhaps more junior people coming up in the

the design market and design world yeah

would you say a mentor is a better place to start

or a coach because if they don't have the experience

can they really have it coached out of them

we're in a interesting time

aren't we yeah

where

so much information and advice is readily available

and even can be created in a moment

but I still think there are some fundamentals

that get very easily overlooked

and

I think you still need to have real

deep human connection with your fellow human beings

yeah

um where you can share because I

I would get concerned if you start defaulting to AI

for advice and so on um

it's very cold people are there

and then they are because it's so convenient

kinda scary but what you get is homogenization

mm hmm people think the same so you have to

you have to use it sparingly and I think of it as

if a computer is like an electric bike for the mind

mm hmm sorry

a bike for the mind yup

that Steve Jobs said yeah

then a then a computer with AI

is like an electric bike for the mind yeah

you just get up and going so much quicker

but then it plateaus rapidly

I think and you're still on your own

so you're still gonna use your mental faculties

that are God given gift you know yeah

a reason and so when you're when you're young

when I was young you know

you have a really good dollop of naivety

yep which is helpful because you don't know what

what risks you you sort of have an idea

but you don't really know the magnitude of the risk

and so it liberates you

yeah

the older you get the more perhaps risk averse

so the reason why I'm saying this is

I don't necessarily know what advice I would give

from a mentorship point of view

because we've never been in this space before with AI

so it's OK but I

I still think will come down to the fundamentals

can you actually think can you dissect

can you analyze

cause that's the job right

yep and if you're out sourcing that to

to machine that's dangerous

I think yeah

um so with our kids at home

you know if they're gonna start using AI for homework

it's like OK

then you're gonna start marking the AI yeah

cause you just you just do it in a different way yeah

and the same at work so I can get notion

I can get all these different tools to spit me out

a plan

but then really interrogate that plan and modify it

and so on

but so many people just take that and then pass it on

yeah you

and maybe I'm getting old maybe

but I I want people to properly think yeah

deeply still um

so I'm yeah

I'm I'm still keep banging that drum from a

mentorship perspective

nice um

and then coaching

I think anyone can do cause you just ask questions yeah

there's a great book leading by asking questions yep

which is very very helpful yeah

nice

and you've obviously worked in some great organizations

experience some rapid growth

as we've spoken about a moment ago

what have you seen

companies get wrong from a design perspective

when they're going through that type of growth

because I know

we're not talking about necessary failure

we're talking about learning so

so yeah

where where can companies

learn from things that have happened that you've seen

well designers we

we have an ideal sense of how design should be run

and I think the first thing to do is as a designer

you gotta know where other people are coming from

and so

one of the things I think is interesting right now

based on

I've pretty much only worked at founder LED start UPS

is ask the question to the leadership

when was their kind of conversion moment to design

yup when did they realize oh

that's the power of what design can do

and that's a very telling question and answer

hmm okay

I now know where they're at right

because it could be just very aesthetic

it could be really deep and meaningful problem solving

could be all sorts of different

but you then start to gauge where they're at in

in how they think about design

how it should be organized and so on

so that's that's one thing

and then the other thing is

where design sits in an organisation can be

very critical

mmm hmm um

and often yeah

we want design the top seat of the table

but that's not always the best place to be honest

I've Learned why

because you have to put yourself in the CEO's shoes

and certain CEOs will have a very strong kind of

bias to a particular kind of

um function

right because that's their

that's their happy place

others will know what design can do

but have no idea how to actually put it into practice

so therefore that's why I'm there

others will have a very strong idea how to practice it

and therefore you have different kind of conversations

um so it's a

it's it's an interesting one

because not all businesses are created equal

the sectors have different biases

and having worked across different sectors

I think that's

that's one of the eye opening things

it's not there's not a single playbook

so you gotta go in and seek to understand

where they're coming from

where the design is in their mindset

why do you want me here you know

that's a good question

often it's I just want you to make things look good

you know and you go

okay well

that's a start right

yeah sometimes you just have to okay

well that's what we can do

and that rapidly translates into well

we can make ideas tangible and that's them prototyping

so I have a saying

which is if a picture paints 1,000 words

a prototype saves 1,000 meetings

because you can actually get an experience it

and of course now prototype is so fast

yeah I mean that's it's insane

we can talk about that in a bit later yeah

um so you can get something very tangible very quickly

and even sometimes

that tangible thing can often be put into a test

put into production

so the whole thing is kind of collapsing

but then you come back down to fundamentals again

yeah

what's the problem it's solving

how well is it solving that problem

you know it's not just organizing complexity

it's removing it

what's the outcome that you're looking for

still comes down to those fundamental things

as a design I say as a problem solving process

that often design is the one championing in a business

hmm along with and along with engineering and product

so I think those three functions are the most

kind of critical is probably data in that as well

yep these days

so the quad is a really good structure to put in place

and have really good relationships with your peer group

in that in that space

no matter where they kind of sit in the organization

I really do try and seek to pull those four together

and how do you do that

well

I start by asking questions yeah

what are they goals what are their motives

start to understand what do they think about design

etcetera where have they been burned in the past

cause often they've got some stories

um either

you know a design team or a design leader

or something that's like alright

well me up

and so you gotta understand where the

where the buttons are yeah OK

and where

where not on where to have a tough conversation

but then you you rapidly gotta quickly come and go

this is how I see it this is how I think we are in

in the business right now

and this is the first stage that I'll take

you can't if you give them the whole playbook

they won't wanna go right there straight away

but you just can't um

you can get there quite quickly yeah

but

you obviously got to

think of the composition of the team

think of the seniority of the team

think of the skills you need to bring in

what are they trying to achieve

um so I have those conversations and then it's like

okay if you're hiring X amount of engineers

we're gonna have this kind of surface area okay

cause often engineering go first

yeah because they gotta do the most amount of hiring

so you have that as a spider sense of okay

this is the magnitude of what we gotta go build

and then product and

and design and data often kind of match

a sort of a loose ratio and who's gonna go where um

so I just have those open conversations and try and

try and write the thinking down as much as possible

share those documents for comment

you know and have those artifacts um

but it still comes down to actually talking to people

yeah

understanding where they're coming from as a leader

they're they're expecting you to lead so

you you have to be decisive

but you look at

the different composition of the leadership team

your peer group

and some will be extremely decisive

and can actually make a decision very

very quickly with very little data

others will take a little bit longer

I'm probably on this one of

I'll take a bit longer cause I wanna understand

it's not about perfection over

you know doing it's more of this case

I wanna have confidence in the decision that I'm

that I'm making so yeah I can procrastinate

and I know that's a weakness of mine

is it backfired on you before

oh yeah

yeah I mean

even now I'd say you know

I'm working at a company called Tem Energy

which is a wonderful company and um yeah

I had a good chat with one of the founders and the CEO

and I've been working there now for about

in total 40 odd days yep

and he's like OK right

let's see some action then

you know in terms of how you wanna structure the team

and I'm going yep

I know

the reason why I'm procrastinating

cause I don't know whether I'm gonna be in long term

you know can I see them through

cause you you don't wanna start making decisions

then exit

so procrastination I try and use as a strength

but I know that um

if you ask my wife yeah

I can procrastinate but I think that's just

I like to understand it comprehensively enough

mm hmm

not everything

but enough to be confident in the decision

and then it comes back down to

I suppose a bit of my style

which is I'm I'm open about how I think

and what you can expect from me

cause I think that's probably one of the most

important things you can try and do

as a leader or as anyone really is

what are you getting yeah

just be honest I don't like doing that

you know I wanna do this OK

what gives me energy what doesn't

OK great

now I know how to shape it

yeah OK

you have to do a bit of that

cause you have to do stuff you don't always like doing

but how can you

use your skills

and apply them to the thing that you don't like doing

to make it a bit more enjoyable

so I tend to try and use my design

skills to visualise the problem

you know what I'm trying to solve

yup cause I'm a visual thinker

and I think that's partly why I procrastinate

yeah

is because if I haven't got a real strong mental model

or visual model in my mind I

I don't feel like I've fully grasped it

if I can't draw it

yep

so that's why I'm constantly reaching for the paper

to draw it and

but that helps people right

because we're all you know um

we need all those different facets

uh to help explain quite complex things

sometimes it's not just the written

yeah yeah

and you talked about the quadrant of

different disciplines so product design

software engineering and data

could be data sort of merge marketing could be ops

you know all these different functions here

I see

a lot of the lines being blurred these days

between these so like

what's your opinion on merging these

these quad this quadrant together almost

which I see in some organizations

where it all sits under one umbrella

yeah um

often it happens more organically

um I think if you start forcing it

then you tend to get a bit organ rejection

the bottom line is that people are in certain functions

because they have a preference for it

and preference you know

competence follows preference

yep

as a product manager

you probably have a general preference

for being super organized

and wanna help people and orchestrate

and so on

but you also have a sense

strong sense of I wanna make things that solve problems

okay

so there's an overlap there with design and engineering

so you always had that overlap

as what we call product people

mm hmm yeah

are you a product person yeah

so you you still have those things in in a root

but it is starting to overlap

but some people just don't have that overlap

they go no

I actually I want to stay here

how do you force people over that

you know I think

I think to think of it is you can nudge and encourage

a classic one is like design

owning more of the front end now

hmm right

because you kind of can

yup

but then you gotta be checks and balances

it's like OK

well

you might be able to push something to production as on

but can I verify that that's good quality cut

no I can't

so you still need the the deep expertise

yup and experience

but you probably need less of it in some ways

cause you can have

people that are just doing those things

um on a daily basis

but I think it's still people building

collaborating together trusting each other

it's the classic kind of five dysfunctions of a team

do they trust each other and so on

can you have those open conversations

um so you try and encourage that um

and we're literally kind of going through those sort of

process enhancements now at

at 10

yep we just crossed 100 people in the business

yes and those

are often the

sort of the tipping points where it was working

and all of a sudden it breaks

yep

and that's normal yep

oh no

now we gotta fix it again

and so I I kinda like those kind of things

I got a love hate relationship with it

cause it's like ah

we just fixed it now it

now it's broken again broken again

we gotta we gotta Rev it

give you something to do

yeah job security

I suppose um

but yeah having gone through those various stages

you do see certain patterns

and that's kind of quite natural human behaviour

because one thing I kind of learnt

I can't remember where I heard it from

or maybe I dreamt it

I wouldn't claim any originality here

but relationships are so fundamental in business

in any company

the if this is me

and here's my relationship to my peer group

mm hmm

that's four relationships right

me to them mm hmm

but a really tight team will understand

their relationships to each other yep

so how many is that

yeah OK

that's quite a lot of relationships yeah

you add one more oh

that's like almost an exponential yeah

another one and then

you know

how many relationships can you hold in your head

when you really do understand

other people's relationships to each other

and then you naturally just kind of

have this point in time where

you go OK

I I can't keep track of everything yeah

and that's the kind of core startup team right

that of about say 30 odd

where everyone knows each other quite intimately

and that's you know

several hundred relationships

if you gotta think about it

yep

so of course

some people love that and they love that intimacy

and I totally get that I mean

I still kind of crave that kind of intimacy as well

but a business is gonna scale

and some people then go I just they

they try and keep hold of

wanting to know everything all the time

and know everyone all the time

but you just can't yeah

so you have to let go at some point

and there's these kind of tipping points

so so 65 and then again it's sort of a one 25

and then when you're after like 250 to 500

and it's a bit arbitrary

but there are tipping points just slightly in there

and then after 500

you're kind of in a replicable kind of playbook

because you've got

you've got the ways in which you structure and scale

but you go that that's probably a bit of an old school

way of looking at it right

because you can do more with less in some ways with a

I hate that expression actually do more with less

but you can certainly get up and running

quicker with AI and you can put workflows together yep

but then it's those workflows that have to be managed

and maintained and that still needs humans to do that

so you can automate

but you still gotta scale

because processes get more convoluted

and especially if you go into new markets

there are different processes

gonna create new workflows

so you still gonna have to scale

and you still got people that have to build it

but I try and keep things very lean

yeah okay um

it's always much better to be in want of more yep

than to have surplus yep

um so yep

is that what you've always done though

with building your teams

if you try to keep things relatively lean

yeah and I kind of

I kind of learnt a little bit the hard way at Skype

which I went in and had almost everything fully staffed

yeah and then

and then without kind of realizing it

you had a team of like you know

50 odd people and then they're like okay

so what am I doing next week

and I'm like oh man

you know yeah

and just hard to keep track of

was that just so hard to keep track of

yeah just so hard to keep track of

and you know I signed a contract

cause I was so concerned about missing deadlines

and so on I suppose that's

that's still a thing that I still have to learn

which is I say yes

yeah OK

so learning to say no

what

it's not necessary to learn to say no on certain things

yeah learn to say no

that's that's a really bad idea

don't do that that's rarer than

than what I would say is not now we're focused on this

OK yeah

yeah which there's a slightly softer way

cause it's probably a legitimate

thing that we should be doing

but yeah you can't do it all

so like okay

now it's about how to learn how to make the trade offs

you're either gonna get this or this

you know here's the resources

let's yeah

and you find yourself making those trade offs

as a leader is your

almost like your daily muscle that you're using

not that this

yeah and helping guide

but you want them to self govern as well

yeah here's the goal

okay now you make the trade off yeah

what would you get me slip into the coach okay

based on that we'll do this good

now you're owning it so yeah

I I have been burned by over hiring

and I Learned the lesson the hard way

so I keep it in scarcity

because you you're looking at a cost ahead

right in a business yeah

how much is those people actually earning

for the business and yeah

and but now you're seeing the cost ahead

getting way more scrutinized yeah

and so it's a good metric to keep track of like

are they actually delivering

you know on an aggregate

you know um

so yeah and how do you

um talking of metrics

how do you sort of then put together the metrics to

to look at the value creation of design

cause it's a big thing that people always

look at and go

sometimes the CEO goes I don't know what

what's the value of UX design in my organization

uh so is there a way that you have a secret sauce

oh I wish yeah sorry

it's

it's a it's a fundamental thing that keeps coming up

hmm

um but it's so similar to how product

management gets evaluated

which is what is the thing that you're shipping

yeah OK

and what is the effect of it

so there's no one single metric you're

you're looking at a whole bunch of things

um so the way I

which I try and sort of stratify it up is

there's the team operations right

how efficient are you um

are you delivering hitting deadlines

so that's all kind of sanity

kind of metrics to just make sure that you

you're doing what you said you would do basically

um and then it's like

okay based on that

how do we know what we're producing is actually

making a difference

so I tend to produce a kind of a lever map

like if if we're going to introduce design standards

what will that actually then do

and what's the proxy metric that will then do to

to hit revenue yep

because it's not gonna be like design standards bomb

revenue doesn't work like that

there are there are proxies inside that

so you're OK well

engineering have standards code reviews

why why do they have that

well

because there should be a direct correlation between

quality of code and incidents

yep or bugs yep

same as design so you gonna well

there's there's overlaps in in product

there's overlaps in design there's overlaps in data

well can we make informed decisions on poor data no

we can't so so

the way in which those four functions is

like the glue and the grease

you've got to kind of agree together

what are the metrics the KPIs that are worth measuring

that actually tell us something

yep

is going to happen or has happened

that we like or dislike OK

it's not that complicated when you explain it like that

but it's it's a complicated process of unpicking

what is worth measuring in a certain business

yes um

that's the thing

I think people most people don't know what to measure

yeah yeah

and I I've I've struggled sometimes and get hmm

well what what should I measure here

the beauty of it is

right now is you can go to GPT and go

based on all these things

give me some ideas and that's a good you know

electric like a good start point you can go oh yeah

I forgot about that one I could do it like that yeah

but then you're on your own again

you go okay now I

let's bring that to the table and kind of look at it

how we get the data that informs that

I was chatting to a good friend of mine the other

two days ago

and he done an interesting thing his name uh

no lions

he's the chief design officer at um Natwest now

yup and uh

sorry no if this is

but he was going hey

I just took all of the Figma logs

and saw what I could kind of maybe create from it

and I think I might be onto something but I'm not sure

and so we had a really good chat and oh

that's an interesting thing OK

let me have a

I'll take my logs and see what I get from it

is it is it worth the information

cause you got data in abundance yeah

and sometimes you just gonna shifting through

and you might pick on a find a gem

so I think quant data is helpful

it tells you what is going on

yep

don't tell you why no

that's when you need the Qual yeah

it's a classic adage

but the the older I get the more I believe in it

you gotta have that as a

the train won't run unless you have Quan and Qual yeah

and I think in a in a game now where brands are

and companies

that want to have a bit more of a relationship

with their customer

you gotta understand what makes the customer tick

and you don't really get that from Quant

you get that from personal engagement um

and understanding what they're trying to accomplish

so I'm a big believer in a lot of things in business

start from fundamental research

yeah and why do you think then most organizations in

in my opinion uh

don't do that reason they're impatient and they also

they're afraid of finding out something

they don't wanna know

cause the very nature of research is you don't know

you don't know what you're gonna get back

so the ego telling someone who's a business owner

go telling them this is a shitty idea

don't do it yeah

but you have to understand why something is a bad idea

yeah so you have to kind of go out and say

see what happens then there is of course

well you only ask five people

and then you get into the kind of statistical

yeah side of things

so you have to kind of teach a little bit

you're looking for patterns

you're looking for these things um

so I think there's yeah

there's people that have a very strong hunch

and you're constantly balancing these things because

I mean I hate focus groups and all that stuff

that it's more just quiet observation listening

watching them perform tasks

you know that tells you a lot

alright

you're not necessary by asking questions actually

it's just by observing look at this task

what you're trying to accomplish

and some that you get these ah

that's really interesting yeah um

and give one example

um Alexa

wonderful product designer researcher at Tem Energy

um tracks all the kind of insights and you go OK

she's got I don't know how many hundred insights

how many of those

actually got into the product development life cycle

and actually got done yeah

great metric right

because if you're doing research

and none of that gets into like

what in the world are we doing

yeah

you know so we go OK

there's your score we gotta see these things happening

coming through into the product

you can't do it all yeah

but that one's more critical than that one

you know how do you then score it

so yeah we're looking at the

the rice score right now you know

as using that I don't know

intercom and others use those

so you're looking at different models

is this gonna be a better model than that one

or do we have to invent our own

very quickly

it can get convoluted on how to assess the data

because some of it's just arbitrary scoring internally

just to give ourselves a bit of a steer

it's a bit like that with engineering

right

very easy can

can bamboozle an organisation and people go

OK you know

I'm not gonna talk about it

because you're talking stuff I don't understand

so they kind of get left alone

yeah you know

most of the time yeah

yeah oh yeah

four nines reliability oh yeah

we're cool ha ha ha it's an arbitrary number yeah

so why four nines why not three

why not two what

what I don't know what that

you know yeah

but it's a it doesn't mean

but it's a number right

yeah and they decide okay

that's the thing that we're gonna do same with design

yeah um

but we should see if this got shipped

what metric actually fundamentally was it adoption

was it activation

and you got all these different things um

how much did it increase retention and so on so um

they're just fundamental metrics

you don't always know

yeah sometimes you ship something

it works sometimes you don't

that's the beauty of it

yeah

you're just mitigating risk as much as you possibly can

yeah

and looking at as many different types of data points

and different types of metrics to help balance

the scale

yeah yeah

exactly

that's what makes it enjoyable

when you're uncovering things all the time

yeah and we spoke a little bit well

touched upon tooling and you mentioned

the fact that you can create a prototype in well

minutes seconds

depending on what tools you're using

as someone who is quite old school in terms of your

your background you talked about typography

a bit of a dying art these days

I feel for most people most people don't know much

about typography in the design world

how do you feel about all of the

the design tools that are coming through

that you can just do these things quickly

is it something that you cherish and you love

love using them or are they killing the industry

I think it comes back to the point of like

if you're divesting yourself of thinking

and offloading that to a machine

I'm very wary of that yep

but rapid prototyping is about learning mmm hmm right

the issue is

there's tons of these different prototyping tools

they do things in different ways

you get up to speed to a certain point

and then you get into a prompting black hole

and then it just doesn't do what you

you can't seem to it plateaus very quickly

and then you can't seem to prompt your way out of it

and you go I'm just gonna start again

and then you're gonna look and go

how long have I spent doing this

I could have probably done it by now yeah

and that's the pattern we see everywhere everyone's OK

but then sometimes because it's probabilistic

not deterministic

you don't always know what you're gonna get

so we're trying to create a probabilistic model

be deterministic because as designers

we're used to being very deterministic in

shaping the thing

so what in my ideal

I would wanna have a a product that has the prompt

and that's kinda like your art director your UI direct

you know giving instructions to a designer yeah

then have the canvas that you can actually use

like Figma

where you can feel it and stretch it and be direct

manipulation as much as possible

then you've got the fine tuning controls

yep which you would traditionally have

and then you've got the code okay

and you need to have all of them

and they all need to work across each other

but at the moment it's just like it's still linear

it doesn't flow back in to the design tool people go

why is it have to do that

well it does because as a designer I

I need to feel it

I need to be able to tweak it and test it with

with my hands as much as I possibly not make that

not tell it hmm

it's just weird

yeah I think so

yeah maybe I'm a bit old school and then typography is

is such a thing you got such fine tune controls now

which is great in software development

that I think as you progress in your career

if you're really concerned

about the quality of the thing that you put out

you naturally

get very interested in

how the alphanumeric presentation is

in the UI

yeah

um how things are spaced and how things are laid out

the visual hierarchy is so critical

for you to be able to understand things

and so I find myself teaching that quite a bit

and sort of showing examples of why that's

you know not that way

this way oh yeah

because you can just change things around

so AI has a kind of a

I got a love hate relationship with it

yeah um

but it's like whack a mole

you just can't keep up

yeah it's like

one minute one tool can't do it

the next minute another tool over here can do it

and then that one then can do it

you know which one am I gonna invest in

sorry but there's just

there's no

there's no magic formula here

it's like you gotta kind of just test them all

and so I have like three or four

same prompt yeah

Bosch Bosch Bosch

and you go how much are we spending on tools

yeah

you know how much is

how much is costing to run those things from energy

you go

gets all very expensive suddenly

you realize that actually

replacing a person with all of these tools

is it not as cheap as people make out

yeah you go

so you get this sort of delta happening where you go OK

well one person using all these tools

cause you don't know what you're gonna get

um versus actually just hiring a person

and then who's a really good person

who can actually just get it done

yeah

way it up yeah

so yeah um

I mean I'm

I'm pessimistic and I'm optimistic

and it's a strange place right now

but you probably hear this from absolutely everyone

yeah um

I think it's good to talk about it

I think a lot of people are in this sort of

in between stage at the moment

they're not quite sure what to think and uh

I think we're still early on into sort of

you venturing into to these sort of things

and in the mainstream yeah

yeah certainly I mean

it's I mean

I've been using it at work since really GPT came out

and that was the kind of the first kind of mainstream

oh wow and then you start

what you see is people when a new tech comes out

you see the current patterns being applied to it

so what I mean by that is

people are so used to doing Google searches

that effectively

they were just using TPT to do searches

so you go from the familiar to the new

and then you start pushing and go

what can what can this do

and then of course with the internet is it

everyone's then sharing what they can and can't do

and there's so many charlatans out there in my opinion

but yeah I did this and I did this and then you go

yeah she show me how and then I don't know

don't worry about that and you go

you can't really do it can you

yeah you try and do it um

and then there are some people that genuinely

have set up amazing work flows

and that wow

that's that's really impressive

um I don't know how

how they can scale I

I don't know because I think

workflows have to be constantly maintained yeah

more complexity comes in so um yeah

it's it's an interesting time in the family as well

yeah

going on a car journey

and I'll end up speaking to GPT to

um settle a debate

or to find out if and so I

I find myself going on a walk

yep talking to GPT yeah

as it's just sort of bouncing

I just even GBT

even Claude I just

I'm using GBT at the moment

probably because

there's a strange personification that comes with AI

and there's a relationship that starts building

that scares me a little

yeah yeah what's going on

but you everyone

prefers a different way of information

being presented to them especially in the audio hmm

so yeah

having different tone timber speed

people assimilate things in different ways

so there's one particular voice that I

that happens to just

you know

the other voices could explain it exactly the same way

but it's just the

the way in which it's dished up resonates to you yeah

it helps me understand it more

yeah and I think that's a really interesting space

um and it's a bit like that

when you're giving feedback to another designer

you know I could give feedback

exactly the same way as another person

but the way in which you express it suddenly clicks yep

and so yeah how

how do you convey those through the

the written means it we're so multi dimensional

in terms of how information is delivered to us um

a lot of the time we're doing loom video

yeah because you need all those different aspects

like there's the person's face

you can hear their voice

you can see what they're doing yeah

and those become really powerful definitely

but then you're gonna watch it yep

so it's like double speed

so it's fascinating time

all the different mixed modalities that we're using

um but I have a strong bias to being

in an office with people yeah

do you think it's just helpful

sitting in front of someone

seeing the whites of their eyes

seeing that they're human

yep that simple thing you

you feed off the energy as well um

it becomes less

you know

so much of the way in which we interact with is

dictated to us by the limitations of the tech

so you're on a Google Meet or a zoom

it's like you have to raise your hand and then people

yeah someone's saying something really interesting

it's sort of it's a fair but it's also not

not how it would naturally happen in the room

yeah OK

it's sort of reading people going OK

they're probably back to speak or oh

I'll just start and then you kind of use things it

it flows more naturally I think than OK

you go first then you

then you and then by the time it gets to you

if you're like third one with the hand up

you're like well

the moment's kind of passed and it's not important

and that can be also a self governing thing

so I just again that's maybe where

yeah where I

I prefer being with people

and I'm learning constantly how to do it remote

which is still come from Skype days

yup

um yeah

so I look for the signals yeah

a lot of the time and I misinterpret signals as well

some people have very stern resting faces

you think have I said something

you know this is how they are

yeah and you don't know sometimes

because I just asked my wife

she's got that face you

are you angry she's like no it's just how I look

you know and

and we're cause we're constantly craving these signals

right but when you're in person

you get to know very quickly

that's just that's how they their

their face is you know

when they're thinking or something

so yeah I'm very conscious of that when I'm on a call

that I don't want to give off the wrong signal

so if I agree then I'll I'll

I'll make it really obvious

yeah um

anyway these are just sort of the

the human stuff

yep that's important though

it's so critical yeah

and every industry has

its trends and we've talked about uh

I don't think AI is necessarily a trend

but it's a hot topic but in the design world

what are the trends that you see at the moment

that you don't think are that relevant

got me on that one

there's a lot of

kind of people looking into the crystal ball

and predicting the future

yeah

um yeah it's fun to do

how helpful is it I don't know um

I tend to think of it as what's

what's in the next sort of three to six months right

in front of me that I gotta go deliver and get done

that keeps the lights on for the business and so on

so more pragmatic sometimes you just look up and go

well look at the future I I would suppose

yeah I mean

having had a few conversations

actually a lot of conversations about where

where is this all going

you can take a very dystopian view of it

you can take a very optimistic view

I always look at it like this

whenever there's a new piece of tech that comes along

there's always a trade off

there's always something that you're gonna

be giving up

you go right back

before you know the written word

people were sharing history verbally yeah

I'm constantly repeating it

so their memory was probably astronomically

phenomenally good

writing it down was like if you write it down

then my memory is gonna start fading

yeah but the value of writing

it down meant that there was a true artifact right

a shared common understanding of

something that actually happened okay

that's a good trade off right

you know

you can go through all these things and you kind of go

well look at the trade offs we're now making

yep

it's probably not answering your question directly

but I do think that there's a

there's a there's a moment go

what are we trading off here guys

yeah

OK yeah

cause I'm really worried that

is everyone figured that out yet

that's the thing no

because convenience is such a strong yeah thing right

it's like I say bags

take that for example right yeah

yeah

Amazon comes along convenience like

oh yeah

that's you know

Maslow's hierarchy of needs right at the top

yep and it's like

it's so convenient

yeah

but now you're missing out on certain experiences of

discovery yeah

um cause you just come to your door and so on

what am I giving up maybe oh

maybe that was worth it I don't know yeah

um we'll find out

won't we

I don't I yeah

but

there's a difference between intelligence and wisdom

you know I think let's

let's try and be more wise and learn from the past here

about what are we trading off so there we go

and having worked with a number of different founders

and working in founder LED organizations

what would you suggest

is the one question

that founders should ask of their design leaders

when coming into an organization

I think it's very helpful for

a founder to get a good sense of

this person coming in

on what they think and what they see

without any kind of prior

preconceptions on the business

because what you get there is a very beginner mindset

and you spot things

that those who have been in the weeds very

you know just don't see anymore so I

I always try and keep the beginner mindset alive and go

look at it as if I'm looking at it for the first time

and you can spot so many different things

so write them down and you can share that

that to me would be my advice is get someone who's OK

look at it

see what you see what you can understand

and then play it back

yep

that's a very helpful thing for a founder oh

didn't see any of those things before OK

cause they're so in in in the in the in the weeds

so I found that's very very helpful and then go OK

out of those things

which one do you think of those things is really

you know gonna burn the house down or really critical

um and you start the conversation going that way

nice keep it simple yeah

sometimes the best way in life right

keep it simple well

that's the I remember hearing that phrase from my

my grandfather you know

Second World War always remember to kiss

yeah yeah

what are you saying we got a kiss

keep it simple stupid yeah

it's a great one

fundamentals again

and final question for you today

buzz for any designers out there when they're

when they're looking for work

um as someone who's hired many designers in their time

had teams of people

what are the things that designers can do to

to really elevate their skill set

to get in front of like the right people

or when they're in front of the right people

to showcase the work that they've done

um to land a job

yeah

it's a great question and it is

it is tough I'm not gonna say oh

it's easy and so on

but what I do see is the same kind of case study

over and over and over

loads of post it notes loads of this and that yeah

just like I can just go through it and go yep

OK what is it really telling me

um I read it

I look at it and it's the same over and over

what I trying to cut through and go

what's the actual piece of invention here

what did you actually solve

tell it to me in a very straightforward

simple way in an elegant way

tell me what effect it had on the business

and just leave it at that

and then I tend to ask and go

what are you

what were you most excited about in delivering that

what was the thing you're most proud of

and then I can get really specific and then go

I'm really proud of that little tiny interaction

that just made it a bit more special

or the way in which that was phrased that LED to that

it meant that behind the office

all of that was removed

case studies are notorious

but don't have tons of them

I tend to think of as what's the latest one

the most recent piece of work that you've done

cause you I always look at it like that

I'm only as good as the last piece of work I've done

yep

um and try and tailor it

that's relevant for what you think is

what the business needs

I've done this before I remember I going for um

folks invited me into this uh

business to say hey

do you wanna come and head up this design team

and I said oh

that's an interesting business

can you when you come in take us through a case study

and I was like oh man

I can't put a case study in there and okay

well I'm gonna

I'm gonna kind of just manipulate this one a little bit

make it kind of mobile first kind of stuff and

and they kinda came in they took it and they were like

oh yeah that's really impressive

but was that relevant to us

yeah I was like

you're dead right

it's not yeah it's

30% relevant yeah um

but it gives you a glimpse on how I think

but honestly

I don't have time to prepare a big case study for you

and I'm not gonna solve your business

you know but I have prepared this for you

and this is what I see about your business right now

but I'm not gonna solve it for you

I'm just gonna tell you these things

and that was way more interesting and engaging

so it comes back to the point around

the founders of leadership should ask

cause they'll do that with every other function yep

why not design

yeah absolutely

you should be and I think as you say

sometimes the biggest balance is the time

you shouldn't have to go away and spend like

two days putting something together yeah

yeah there are so many great tools out there though

you know

for putting together great portfolios and in many ways

there's no excuse now

you don't have to know how to code

go on a framer

you can do amazing stuff and it looks really good

then the next thing is okay

it looks good can you lay it out

you know and actually have some level of craft

so many designers and I just don't have that yeah

so I okay

I'm biased

which is amazing though because that's the job right

is to

and I've always maintained this

and we've had some fierce debates

oh yeah you know

designers shouldn't have to know how to

you know do all the final pixel polish

I'm like well

then

what are you doing to be calling yourself a designer

but I tend to look at it as full stack right

you gotta go through the classic kind of Jesse

James Garrett kind of stack and go

what's the strategy what's the scope

what's the structure what's the skeleton

what's the surface

and you gotta be able to do the whole thing

in my opinion'cause engineers do the whole yeah

full stack but then you have preferences

some will prefer the strategy

but they can still do the whole stack

some will prefer the front end final fix

but they can still do the whole stack see

you got the that's what I'm talking about

the whole composition of the team

you have preferences

yeah and people I prefer over here OK

then I'll compliment you with this

and the variability of that is then they go

well I don't like doing that anymore

I'm gonna switch over here

and so you got this constant mix

and you want to help foster that as well so

be really clear

I think it's really helpful to have a read me file

mm hmm

this is what you get when you hire me

um here's how I think

here's my values write it down

it's OK you know

um because that's what interviewing is all about you're

you're mitigating risk yeah

that's what it is from both sides

yeah yeah

so I I

I'd much rather have a much shorter interview process

and get working together

and use probation period for both sides

try before you buy yeah

so often it's like

I gotta get through probation and then

then I'm okay then I can sit back

you know yeah

and I don't think like that um

so so that's

that's worldly advice yep

make it look good take your time

don't have spelling mistakes

all those kind of fundamentals

make sure the visuals look really good

and you can really see the detail

don't use crazy amounts of words explaining everything

try and distill it down

you should be able to do that with AI

come on yep

make look at it

get it get DVD to analyze it whatever

whichever tool you want

break it down into exact language

you can do those things and then

what I'm gonna do is just kind of

interrogate you on that work yeah

and see how

how much of it you did versus just be honest about it

um so two fundamental things really

if you're a person that can actually get things done

great

and then it's how you get those things done in a team

if you've got

if you can do those two things really well

you'll be absolutely fine yeah

so again fundamentals

I love it yeah

nice and simple buzz

thank you so much for talking to me today

it's been an absolute pleasure

thank you Time's flying by

it has didn't think I could talk that much

there we go there we go we're good

I hope it'll be helpful for

for folks out there

I think it will be

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