Next Level UX - Live Monthly Coaching and Workshops

Foreign hey, what's up? Drew Bridewell here, head of design at Growth Day, which is a leading personal development and coaching application serving some of the leading influencers in the world around personal development and coaching. And I'm host of Practical UX Weekly. It's a LinkedIn learning series about UX design. And it's where I share practical tips from the things I've learned from working at top companies like LinkedIn, Lynda.com, facebook, Envision and many, many more. And during that time when I was at InVision and I was building all this course content, I was mapping out and learning over 150 companies and learning how they practice design, what works, what doesn't work. And then I was building programs and workshops around how to help them and get better and be better collaborators, be more effective and efficient when building design systems. It's so much more so now after not being in corporate America anymore and building and developing products and services, I've learned so many things and I want to be able to share them back with you. I want to be able to teach them back and that's why Next Level UX was formed. So I've coached individuals from you're just starting out in UX to all the way to senior executive teams, you that are building and making things really, really fast. And they need acceleration, they need effective team collaboration and they need to do it at scale. And not only do they need to do that, they're gonna need design and their design team is gonna need to be super effective in order for them to achieve going from zero to one very, very fast. And lo and behold, I have built five zero to one products over the last two years. And then over the last eight years I've been working in production, personal development, applications and like learning and development tools and what people need in order to achieve their goals and their dreams and what kind of things and what kind of problems do they run up against? So my mission is to help accelerate personal growth for each individual that wants it. And I'm just specializing in design and I'm specializing in coaching design leadership. So what I want to do today is give you a little bit of a tour into what Next Level UX is all about, but also a new offering with which I'm really excited to bring to you, which is called Group Coaching. So I know everybody knows about what Group Coaching is, but you might not know what I'm going to offer when it comes to Group coaching, which is going to be every single month starting in September. So I'M going to open enrollment right now, so please definitely subscribe down below or wherever the link is that you find it or wherever you're viewing this from. Because I would love to work with you on a monthly basis to help teach you these 12 topics that I'm about to jump into. So you can really understand that design is just not about the pixels. It's just not about storyboarding. It is about the entire ecosystem that we create around our designs, around our engineering partners, how we create crazy amount of design clarity so we can all run in flow and be working in harmony. So I'm really excited to talk about that and I'm going to do that right now, so let's dive right in. So the first thing that I want to draw your attention to with this group coaching experience is if you've never been a part of a group coaching experience, they're typically an hour long and the first 10 to 30 minutes is about the topic, warming up and getting a lesson in. So we want to warm up around a discussion and then what we'll do is we'll circle into more social learning tactics practices and we'll do breakout rooms and then we'll end with Q and A and then be on our way leading into the next month with clear actionable goals and clear learning insights that you can go practice over the next four weeks. So on top of that, what we'll also do is you'll be able to watch these replays inside of the admin experience or inside of the app experience inside of Next Level ux. And you can see that nextlevel UX me when you sign into the product experience. So let's dive into the framework. So the framework is 12 categories and you can kind of see me sketched up the brand that I have in a lot of the videos that you'll see, but it's really 12 categories. The first category is around clarity. So it's about understanding, not only about what you need to do, but what are all the things around you that can affect the outcome and really understanding, like what do I want? What kind of designer do I want to be? How do I want to show up? What is my kryptonite? What is my purpose? So I have a homework assignment to really help you identify those things and pick some key focus areas so you can be on your way and check in with those things on a weekly basis. The second thing that we do is we break down goals. How many times do you just know that you have a goal that you know that you need to focus on, but you kind of just push it under the rug. You just don't really focus on it very much. You're not looking at it every day in the face and looking at it in the mirror and being like, I need to achieve this goal. This is important to me. I want to do this. And I need help and support to be able to do that. And that is what you're going to get from the coaching program. Again, it's tailored around makers, it's tailored around designers and product managers and engineers. And people are really trying to accelerate. So the third thing that we're going to jump into is action planning. Action planning is fun because, you know all those big giant projects that you have and say you have like three or four projects at a given time, and you're really trying to stay in harmony with the team. Action planning helps you be able to break down the big giant rocks and the smaller chunks and the smaller chunks so you can make sure that you plan out your weeks appropriately so you can achieve those things and so you can set better expectations with your product partners, with your engineering partners, with your design partners, with your. With your family and friends. You gotta set those boundaries so you can be able to be more effective during the week. The fourth thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna practice these things. And practice is so important because it's like swinging a bat. I was a total athlete growing up, you know, going to the field and throwing the baseball, hitting off the tee, working on my plays, learning the playbook, learning all those things. You really have to practice. So practice helps you grow. Even if it's 5%, 1%, half a percent every week, that's what we want. So after you knock out the four weeks and you're done with practice, then we jump into design energy. Design energy is important because just like you need to sustain the energy to show up for work every day, you need to sustain the creative energy to be able to be in your flow, to create, to make, and to do it in a way that is going to help you stay enthusiastic about the work that you do. And that's really important to me. That's really important to making sure that you're showing up for your team and just having great outcomes. So week six, we jump into design clarity. Design clarity is the foundation of what Next Level UX was created for. Because the whole problem that we're solving is trying to help engineers, product managers, designers, business stakeholders, CEOs, marketing, customer support, customer success, making sure that the entire Organization understands what's happening, what's the flow of it happening, what is the rhythm, what is the connective tissue that design is bringing to the table? And then how is design showing up every single week to make sure that the company understands what is moving forward, what questions need to be answered, and how are things testing? How is the work doing? Design clarity is a magical thing that I can't wait to talk about. Can't wait to bring it to you live in these group coaching sessions. The seventh thing that we talk about is design impact. So right after you understand all the work that you're doing, you got to understand how it's measurable for the business outcomes, how does it drive actual business impact to the project work to the company value to the mission and vision of the company. You got to be able to connect the vision and the mission to the work that you're doing every single day. So there's some connectedness to it. So it actually feels like you're on the right path and you're doing the right thing. So we'll talk about design impact, and there are a lot of ways to be able to show your impact as a designer and, and to be able to put those things back in your performance reviews so that you can get credit and you can get valued at what you should be getting valued in the market. The next thing that we're going to talk about is influence and courage. So influence and courage is important because as you're progressing, as you're getting started in the. In the world of design, you got to be able to have influence with your work. You got to be able to show it. You got to be able to articulate it back to your team. You gotta be able to have fun with it, too, and show that work on a weekly basis. And influence really pairs well with courage, because it takes courage to show your work when it's in sketch mode. It takes courage to schedule that meeting with, you know, five, six, seven, eight engineers or product managers or CEO. CEO and all the executive leadership team to really show them. All right, this is what I'm pitching. This is what we tested. This is what the data shows. This is my little formula for showing the designs. And I'll share with you a design formula that you can have that will help you prepare for these moments. But you got to have courage and influence together to be able to do that. And then we jump into tools, people and tactics. Tools, people and tactics are important because you got lots of different services that you can tap into. The market is flooded and fragmented with all these amazing tools. But you got to really understand how to fit them into your work style, into your team's work style, into your company's work style, into the business model that you're trying to create. You just don't buy and use a ton of tools because they're hot and they're in the market. You got to really approach, you got to really approach in a strategic way how you're going to use them and how all the rest of the team is going to use them as well. So that's tools, people and tactics because it's all intertwined. And then I share tons of stuff around that. And then the final forms of things that we talk about are just, you know, around the reflection. Like doing daily, weekly and monthly reflections is incredibly important. Making sure that you have a moment in time throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the month. We're just checking in with yourself, am I on the right track? Am I doing the things that matter? Am I focusing my attention and time on the things that I care about and how am I approaching that? And do I have support and do I have encouragement for my team? And that's also what we're going to try to create with this group. Group coach, this group coaching session and that's really important. So all these things are going to be every single month over the next 12 months. And these are things that I teach. When I do one on one coaching with my students and with my clients, I'll end up putting them through a 12 week coaching program with these things where we have one on ones every single week. And it's pretty intense. There's a lot of homework and details to it. But we're working hard, we're trying to get to that next level. We have to put in the time and effort. So I'm going to be offering this again in a group setting so all you can come in and join on a monthly basis and then be able to practice over the giving month. So let's also look at the framework. The framework is how these things all connect. So the 12 categories around everything that we're going to focus on, I call them the core training pillars. There's a really simple recipe that you can start using today even if you don't attend the group coaching sessions. It's about reflection, it's about choosing focus areas so where to apply these things that you're going to be learning. Even if you go off to masterclass LinkedIn learning, which is awesome, I have content there, you should go there and check those things out. If you go to Skillshare and learn more tactical skills on Skillshare, or if you're going to YouTube and learning from amazing free technical designers and people, that's cool too. You're going to need to be able to take all this information and be able to apply it in certain ways. So you got to be able to understand how to do that. Then I'm going to share tips, tricks and best practices always. And I'm even going to share little templates and handouts that I give away in the training sessions. And you're going to be able to use those and try those and implement those. The other thing we're going to do is you're going to have homework, things that you can reflect on, things that you can get going on, and then you're going to have a reflection period, which again, it's like, okay, I'm on the right track doing this and that's super important. So I love frameworks because they help create structure around training. And so when I'm teaching, a framework can just help drive conversation starters. It can really help people anchor into a topic. So what I want to do now is I want to dive another step into the types of things that we discuss inside of all of those 12 topics. Because this 12 topics are multiple hour sessions. And, you know, we'll break it down and we'll just be able to share this content over the rest of the year. So what I want to show you now is kind of like my aerial view of my desk here. And I have what we just went through is the program, but it all starts with design intention. Like, why are we showing up? Why are we here? What are we trying to do? You get to design that. Then we got the framework. The framework has the Career Accelerator, which is basically the program that I just talked to you about. This is a, you know, if you want next level, one on one coaching, you can get that. But there's also the coaching program which we're about to start in September. We have Mapping to Learn, which is a framework and a system for just breaking down information. Like when you try to go through big giant projects and you're trying to break them down and you're going to be like, what am I going to build first? What is the strategy around this system? How do I organize all this stuff? Like, I break down three projects that I've been working on, the UX Playbook makers and also the actual, like mapping a move. So when you're trying to move, like how do you break down all that stuff? So I talk about that in there. So it's kind of a fun. But it also helps you kind of break down how you would apply it in your career or in your life or in your projects. So definitely check that out. Then we have design systems. Now let me come back to you. I'm a total geek about design systems, but I'm really like thinking about them in an operational way because you can have the most amazing designer that's executing all the assets inside of Figma, inside of Studio, or inside of Sketch, or inside whatever design tool you're using, like, oh, oh, that's great. But if you can't operationalize your design system so your engineers, your product partners, your content, your marketing and everyone in your company can leverage it in a meaningful way, you're missing a lot of opportunity. So I'll talk about design systems and building a world class and the evolution building a world class design system and the evolution of those and how when you build them, you can evolve them on an ongoing basis so they can help improve not only your work, but everyone else's work. It's a force multiplier. It's a really amazing thing. So we'll talk about that as well. And then the last thing on the program side is action planning. Action planning is really awesome because action planning helps you really understand how to break down your projects into smaller chunks and the smaller chunks. So when you got three or four projects you're working on, you don't get like stalemated about how to proceed and how to move forward. You're planning those things ahead of time and you know how to break them down and you know where to go to get clarity and design clarity about what you should be working on, what you should be designing and how to break those things down and then working on them and building them into plan so you can set better boundaries, so you can set better expectations, so that you can be a better leader for your team, so that you can be a better design manager and helping your organization have, you know, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 designers with working in parallel together with the same mission, vision and understanding of what everybody's working on. So you can scale, so you can build at scale and so you can design at scale. So there's a recipe to this. And I talk about that in Action Planning. But then there's all the other things that happen around next level ux. So let's look a little bit further into that. We'll talk about like what is a Brief. How do we present things? How do we find inspiration? How do we set goals? What do we do when we don't have examples or creative examples and we need to start and we're doing a true zero to one project. What do we do with videos and storyboarding? What the heck is swap mode? Swap mode. Being able to jump in and really jump into a topic and really figure it out. Now how will we deliver these things? What is the medium really understanding how the medium can affect the influence, the actual decision that's being made. You know, this is an idea. How do you have back and forth with your partners to really understand why you're going with one option over the other option and just having a really healthy debate about it. Knowledge sharing something that is so critical and can save your company hundreds of thousands of dollars over the period of time. This is absolute gold. And then milestones, like really defining milestones and being able to rally with your team and join and jump in and be able to create that. The intent, it all starts with the intent, like how you wake up in the morning and what intentions you set. And I love talking to you about that. Setting goals, the download. When you're kickstarting a brand new project and you're like, oh my gosh, this project has 12 products associated to it and I have to break down these 12 projects. I have to think about how all the other designers are going to be working on these things. And we just had a whole new, a whole new shift that we're going to have to re architect how our teams are set up. How do I break that down, how do I set that up? How do I think about how it's going to impact my players on my team so I can set them up for success when they come back in. So you got to think about all those things and we talk about that in the download. Then it's like understanding what are needle moving tasks and how am I going to make sure that the things that I work on are actual needle movers? We're going to talk about the flow of information. When information comes in, how are you downloading that information? How are you helping acknowledge what you're hearing so you can actually come back and take good notes and be able to do something about it the next time? We're going to also, also give a lot of high fives. We're going to celebrate each other, we're going to give each other thumbs up, we're going to clap for each other, we're going to support each other, we're going to celebrate each other, we're going to give each other shout outs and we're going to be dope. Like, we're going to be awesome. And then we're going to express gratitude. And all this comes down. All this is wrapped around Next Level ux, but it's also wrapped around you. And what's important about you is that you're in the circle, you're in the middle, and you're going to be working with business stakeholders, PMs, engineers, designers. And if you're an engineer, then you're in the circle and you just swap it out with the designer and you're going to be working with all these people on an ongoing basis. These are called your XFN partners. Your XFN partners are the people that you're in flow with every single week. And you're creating clarity through your processes, through action planning, through craftsmanship, through knowledge transfer, through collaboration and communication. And that is your process that you just work in. This is like your game that you're playing this sport and then you come in and you're intaking, you're getting your milestones and you're accomplishing your goals and you're doing this week over week and that helps you drive to that next level. And that's what I want to help bring to you through Next Level UX coaching and also through our group coaching offer. So, definitely, if you're interested and you've watched through this entire video, I just want to applaud you and honor you because this stuff's not easy. This stuff is hard work and it's just a ton of fun to be able to see something or imagine it in your mind, to be able to work with your product partners, to be able to think about like, oh, I'm going to build something new. I'm going to build a new idea. I'm going to create something that is going to help change a person's life and we have that responsibility, we have that opportunity. So if we can be better designers together, then we can be better designers and we can all be able to help each other and we're going to grow together and we're going to have a lot of fun. So that is what Next Level UX is all about. So I can't wait to, to bring this to you. It's starting in September, so please subscribe, sign up for this thing and let's have a growth moment together. Let's do this. Let's have some fun. So, all right, I'll see you in the next one. And I'll see you in September. So hope you sign up and I will see you next time. All right, thanks.