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Pre-Workshop Lecture: Make Meaningful Work By Designing Successful Product Teams

Note: This pre-workshop lecture is free and open to attendees who are, or are not attending the companion workshop. Attendees who participate in both events will receive the full experience, but lecture-only attendees will find value in the lecture as a stand-alone activity. If you are interested in both activities, make sure to sign up on this page for the Lecture, and a separate event page for the Workshop.

The companion workshop Being involved in doing meaningful work is something we all want. The psychiatrist Viktor Frankl famously described how the innate human quest for meaning is so strong that, even in terrible circumstances, people seek out their purpose in life. Today people feel stuck on projects that have little value or sometimes described as “bullshit work”. We all get lost in the noise, speed and deliverables of the day-to- day work that we forget about why we are working on a project in the first place. This results in feeling purposeless, stressed, unhealthy, and in a state of “sleepwalking.” What if we could design a project that encouraged people to thrive and relevant practices to help people do the work that matters? – where the best work felt like play and the best play felt like work. To design a product team that works well together to deliver great customer experiences. Product teams where the roles, capabilities and ways of working are intentional and encourage people to learn, improve and thrive. Hear from the learning’s of years of research and learning’s from companies and countries globally and join us to share project stories to help us “Make Meaningful Work”.

This is part of a global tour in 2017 that includes Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Vercelli, Taiwan, Shanghai, Singapore, Melbourne, Wellington, Ottawa, Toronto and Boston.

We are slowly building a community of people who want to answer the question of how to “Make Meaningful Work” in the lead up to an annual and first “Make Meaningful Work” event in Hong Kong.

What will you learn?

During this fun lecture (and its attendant workshop the next day) we will look at the:

• Challenges we face on projects
• Characteristics of successful teams
• Roles to help projects run well
• Practices to get multi disciplines on the team working together
• Artifacts to communicate the project's direction
• Your own practice plan to take into your own projects to make meaningful work.

We will share project stories and discover relevant practices to help overcome challenges and
ensure people have a practice plan to take into their day-to- day projects. Finally, we will all discuss the importance of these daily practices with a clear intention of wellness for people, work, projects, communities and economies for an enlightened future and it will leave all of us inspired to traverse from being stuck on projects (“sleepwalking”), to flow (“sparkle”).

Who Should Attend

Diversity is good! This needs to be a cross disciplinary conversation, so we welcome a wide range of job titles:

• Product & Project Managers
• Designers
• Engineers & Developers
• Marketing & Sales
• Content and Communications

Notes

• Please note! On Saturday, Nov. 11th there is a companion one-day workshop to this lecture. Attendance at that workshop requires a SEPARATE sign-up and payment via Eventbrite. If you are interested in attending the workshop, make sure you are signed up on both Eventbrite reservation pages.
• This lecture is provided to provide professional development insights and also to provide some food-for-thought "homework" for the interactive workshop the following day. We encourage you to attend both events!

About the Facilitators

DAN SZUC

Dan is a co-founder and principal at Apogee and co-founder of Make Meaningful Work, as well as the co-founder of UX Hong Kong. He has been involved in the UX field for over 20 years, and has been based in Hong Kong for over 20 years. Dan has lectured about user-centered design globally. He has co-authored three books including: From Sleepwalking to Sparkle, Global UX with Whitney Quesenbery and the Usability Kit with Gerry Gaffney. You can follow him on Twitter: @dszuc

JO WONG

Jo is a co-founder and principal at Apogee and co-founder of Make Meaningful Work, as well as the co-founder of UX Hong Kong. Jo grew up in multicultural Hong Kong, with a Chinese-Burmese father and Chinese-Indonesian mother. She collaborates with global teams conducting research in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Jo is passionate about the environment, political and economic systems and how we can live healthier and happier lives while not adversely impacting less fortunate people. She is a co-founder of Apogee, the co-founder of UX Hong Kong and Make Meaningful Work. You can follow her on Twitter: @igiwong

JEN FABRIZI

Jen is Director of Experience Design Strategy and Research at Travelers Insurance in Hartford, CT. She has been in the UX field for over 20 years and has spoken at several design conferences - www.womentalkdesign.com Jen began her career as a symphonic musician in orchestras and chamber music groups. It was there that she first encountered the intuitive connection of collaboration that musicians make with one another in performances for live audiences. Jen seeks to bring this experience to a wide range of business teams to help create a positive experience of design – and more meaningful team collaborations. You can follow her on Twitter: @jenniferfabrizi

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