The four focus areas for a UX Manager

Sep 2

Everyone is busy, and I am sure so are you. As UX Managers, how could we ensure that we are focused on the critical tasks even if they are not urgent? I use this framework for thinking about my various responsibilities. I look at them weekly, quarterly, and annually.

PRODUCT STRATEGY

This is all about thinking 3-5 years in the future. How can we be intentional about product strategy and help shape it? Tasks that might fall under this umbrella:

Weekly: Allocating weekly time on my calendar to investigate ongoing trends
Quarterly: Prioritizing strategic UX Research
Annually: Running a 2 month long project to do market research and generate concepts to inform annual planning

EXECUTION

This is the day to day. Typically we spend a lot of time on this anyway and don’t really need to think about it. This includes tasks like design reviews and approvals. The most important thing about this category is that we ensure we don’t spend ALL of our time on this.

OPERATIONAL

This bucket includes everything a team needs to run smoothly. For example, how are we doing work allocations? Which meetings are we holding on a recurring basis? How are those meetings being run? How are we tracking out work etc. Todos might include:

Weekly: Reviewing project tracker
Quarterly: Allocating work to UXers so they are not overloaded
Annually: Doing an annual edit of our operations to cull anything unnecessary and implement new systems to optimize our workflow

CULTURAL

The basis for all of the above is a healthy, happy team. There are many things that fall under this umbrella. 1:1s, how you do those 1:1s, hosting team off-sites, holding events with cross-functional partners, team rituals and practices etc. What tasks might look like:

Weekly: Allocate enough time for 1:1s
Quarterly: Hold a team offsite for people to connect outside of work
Annually: Run a team survey to check team health and come up with an action plan to resolve the low scoring areas

I’ve found this framework to be very helpful in deciding how I spend my time. Hope this helps spark some ideas for you too!

Aastha Gaur

With over 15 years of experience navigating the vibrant world of User Experience design and leadership in media & technology, I currently lead a team of 100+ professionals in Customer Engagement at Google.