Integrating Practice consistently into your Product, Design, and Life

Practice doesn't make perfect. You know, a lot of people, practice makes perfect. Practice makes perfect. No, practice builds confidence. And confidence is what you need as you're stepping into these bigger challenges, these bigger opportunities, these bigger roles. You've got to have that confidence so you can show up for your team, show up for yourself, show up for your family. And practice is a gateway to getting to that. So I hope you're fired up today. I'm super fired up. I love practice, so get this thing going. So first off, I want to start with just three core main ideas to kind of set the tone for today. And the first thing is that practice is a mindset, it's not an obligation. So so oftentimes we're like, oh, I gotta go to practice, I gotta do this thing. You gotta make practice a way of life. You gotta make practice a part of your disciplines. You gotta make it integrated into the mindset of like, you know, that you gotta practice to get better at things. And there's always gonna be another level, right? That's why next level UX is here. Because all of these, all of these weeks that you're gonna go through, like even action planning and goals and building clarity, you're gonna learn different levels of this every single year. Every time you go through another version of yourself where you have new responsibilities and new members of your team joining, you got to level up with them. You got to level up yourself. So thinking about, okay, well, what am I going to do this day, this week, this month to be able to practice these, these new things that I'm going to be learning? You know, we got, we got this whole new tech industry is, is just so many things happening with the AI industry, with also the adaptation of like, a lot of people are losing their roles. So thinking about, like, well, how do you create an environment where you're still growing and still elevating yourself even in the most difficult times, even in those times of stress, even in those times of like, you know, it's stormy. And when it's stormy, that doesn't mean we stop these things. So I want to encourage you to think about practice being a part of your discipline, part of your practice. Practice, practice, practice. All right, let's go. All right, the next thing is thinking about leadership. And I put this in here because it takes a lot of self leadership to be showing up and being vulnerable and being honest about the things you do need to practice in. And even though you know something doesn't mean you can't still practice those things. Like for Example, And I still like to go back to my baseball days because I built so many positive routines, rituals and habits from playing baseball. And it was, I think it was because we did things over and over and over and over. You know, from our practice schedule. What we did, you know, for the three hours that we had practice, it was documented, it was detailed. We knew what we were doing, we knew we were showing up. And when we were hitting the balls off the tee, like we would hit hundreds of balls off the tee. And even though we knew how to hit the ball off the tee, we are working on our muscle memory, we are working on our performance, we are working on getting it right. Getting it right. Getting it right. And the same thing can happen with the things that you do on a regular basis. Your morning routines, your evening routines, the ways that you interact with your family, the ways that you show up for your team, the way that you communicate, your learnings, the way that you communicate, the things that you're trying to build. All of those things are going to be recurring events. So we have reoccurring events. It takes not only, you know, your manager is trying to see what's going on, but you have to take the leadership, your self leadership and know that it isn't just for your managers, it's for yourself. Like your holistic self is things that you need to continue practicing like your whole self. So you keep that in mind. The third one is that I want you to consider with practice is this developing a love for the rituals and rhythms that serve you. And you know, I talk about the growth loop and I'll talk about that today a little bit more. But it's also like your rhythm sheet is also really important. So the things that you have to do every single day, every single week, every single month that are non negotiable things, but things that help you become a better you, developing a love for those rituals and routines will serve you over the long term. And remember, this is a long game. It's not about short wins. The reason why this is a 12 week program is because I don't want you to just come in and have one day of, you know, this, this awesome day of a workshop and learn all these things, but then never go in and start practicing them, those things. But you got to start learning about how to integrate some of these insights and some of learnings into your daily practices. Okay? It's so important to love what you do because you have to do it every day. So design and architect the things that are serving you and Start making it a practice in a self love that you're going to go in and you're going to read a couple books this month, you're going to learn a new skill, you're going to revisit a skill that you already thought you were good at and then you're going to go back in and do it again, and then do it again, and then do it again. You have to find that love of learning again and that love of learning that you know that you're going to be growing and developing day over day, week over week and year over year. So let's just really take a second and look at these things and be like, well, how am I doing in each of these categories? Because these are the core things that I want you to keep coming back to. And, and we could talk about practice all daggone day, but these are the core things that I want you to start thinking about, integrating, exploring and finding that purpose and intention to bring some of these things to life. Let's do this. So remember, all of these things are a part of the design, development, product life cycle, right? Ideation, wireframing, all these things. And I show these things just to remind you, like each one of these elements has a quality to them. Like you can get better at each of these things, you can get better at how you document things. How would you do that? Well, making sure that you know the type of team that you have right now. And what type of things do they look for? What type of things do they struggle with? What type of things could you, could you present to them in a way where it makes them feel a little bit more confident about what they're receiving? Right. We're constantly playing pitch and catch with our teammates, our cross functional partners, our designers, our product managers, our engineers, our marketing teams, our business stakeholders, our research teams, our data science. Right? We have a holistic ecosystem of people that we work with. So just, just that one little thing of documentation. What can you do to prepare them for what they're going to receive? What things can you already put in your documentation that you know they're going to ask for? How can you be thoughtful and considerate about the things that are coming and the things that are coming through? The same thing goes for all of these categories, right? We can practice all of these things all day long, but think about where you can have the most impact, where you can be learning the most right now and just start that process. The other things with the process that we go through, right? I showed this last week when we're thinking about action planning because we have to plan each of these elements. But it's not just about planning these things. There's ways to get better at these things, and there's practice that we can actually take to get better at these things. Right from the way we prepare something, getting better at that, the way that we understand and collect information and make sure that our stakeholders make sure that our business stakeholders make sure that the people that we're working with and, you know, across disciplines know that it's time to collect information. It's time to pull in what we need to learn about this project, that we're moving forward. And then when it's time for us to focus and we know exactly what we're doing, we're exactly. We're pointed in the right direction. Now we can think about how do we kick off a project, how do we kick it off in a way that is going to set everyone up for success that's participating in this, in this venture. You know, who are the people that are going to do the work and who are the people that are going to get feedback on the work? Who are the people that are going to help you advance the projects? Knowing all of those things and then practicing, you know, being aware of those things and practicing them is also a part of this practice week. We want to be able to help you start thinking about the things you do before, the things you do during the things you do after these sessions or actually after these, like, individual dots. So I know that, again, some of these things are a part like, I mean, they can feel pretty overwhelming if you've, like, oh, I haven't gone through these processes that much. I haven't been with a team that has the maturity to know how to do these things. That's okay. But I just want you to be aware of these things so you can start looking at these things in your team and your discipline. That way when you start stepping into either a leadership role or you start stepping into, you know, that next version of yourself, you can actually perform a little bit better and be prepared for some of these things. There's just so many different. There's so many different ways to get better at, you know, how you test and validate your experiences, how you improve it, how you get feedback. So I just want you to take and take some stock into this and think about, like, well, where do I need to get a little bit better at? And that's another good way of asking for help, asking for some support, asking questions, having a curious mindset with your team, learning what the current process is and kind of analyzing it, seeing what you could do better, then making suggestions on how to improve it once you have an opinion. This is all super important stuff, right? We also talked about that with this other aspect of getting started, doing discovery, ideation, validation, all these steps as well, like, what are your. How's your team currently flowing through this? And I often think, like a lot of times, and this has even happened in our teams where there's current processes in place, but the current processes in place are not meant to like, be, like, they're not meant to be perfect. If they're trying to be perfect, then it's, it's. It's essentially putting so much pressure on a team to have to be so perfect in a process that doesn't give room for like, tweaking and adjusting and really helping the team learn the entire route. I'm a huge believer in letting the team kind of evolve together, but still setting standards and still setting performance standards for what needs to happen, but letting the team grow together, letting the team voice themselves. This is why retro retrospectives are so important after sprints, because you're able to have the team develop some intellectual, like, collaborative sharing of information so that they can have stock and they can have accountability in the things that they're doing so that they can get better week over week over week over week. So all of these things we know that they can get better. But I don't like putting like, you have to do it this certain way, you have to do it this certain pathway. Because I think that reduces the amount of learning that can happen for individuals to help them level up to their next. Their next position or their next kind of breakthrough. And I think that's how people learn faster too. But you got to be there to coach them, you got to be able to support them. You got to be able to be there to at least help them be aware of the things that are happening so that they can improve them. And then the team can really take. Take it to a whole nother level. I think the best, the best. The best times where I've seen this kind of work so well is during my times at Lynda. And I think it was just because, you know, the team had been around for, you know, like 10, 10 plus years, and the systems were so in tune and their rhythms and routines were so intact and the disciplines of the rituals were so kind of normalized, like they were just. They are things that happened so that anybody that would come into a team would know, oh, this is how the team operates. This is the practices I need to follow. These are the questions that I can ask. These are, this is how I can interact, integrate into this team. This is how I can contribute to the team. So it's more about. It's more about a contribution, mindset in this regard. And I think that that was just a beauty. It was harmony, it was beautiful. And I think that every new team has to go through this phase of growth. And I think when you think about your role and how you play into that role, it's about creating awareness. It's about exposing the opportunities and then integrating those opportunities and then validating them, testing them, seeing how they go, seeing how they move. And I think that's like, peace. It's also. It's also fun to see a team get better. And I think all of you will go through this process in your career and you'll also see it, you know, whether you're in product, whether you're in design, whether you're in a different business discipline, you'll see the process that you go through as you scale your company and as you go through. But it's good to be aware of these things and it's good to take mental, mental note and physical note, typing, writing what's happening so you can be exposed to how you can potentially make it better. And then that's where practice comes in.