Using strategy to focus the investigations of your User Experience team

Problem

Often, User Experience teams are given carte blanche to go explore new concepts & ideas, starting from a blank canvas. This can unfortunately lead to frustration when these concepts prove too costly to implement, stray too far from the strategy of the business, or are outdated when the time comes to actually work on them one or two quarters later.

Actions taken

As a caveat, I would say the right solution here largely depends on your vision for your UX team,how it is staffed now and how it will be staffed moving forward. It also depends on the stage of the company—are the core products just getting started, hitting peak growth, or already maturing? The below specifically applies to startups that are getting started or in the growth phase.

Your UX team, like any other team in the company, should be following the company strategy. What new markets does the company want to go in? Which new customer segments should we address?

The right sequencing for me would be that Product, alongside with the company strategy team & UX, establishes a working strategy. Once that have established a clear intention for moving forward, UX can come act on the strategy in two key ways:

• Explore specific areas of the strategy where the voice of the user is lacking (example: launching a new product, product delivering significantly below expectations, addressing new customer segments)
• Explore general areas where establishing a strategy in the next few quarters requires more user input; the key here is that it becomes a key strategic decision to invest x% of the UX team's time investigating rather than an open-ended research into user needs.This way, your UX is a direct contributor to your company strategy, both on the influence & execution sides, and they are working only on things that are key to the organization in the very near future.

Lessons learned

When collaborating with UX and Product, there can often be a grey area of who comes first in terms of strategic mapping of collaborative goals. Leading with strategy and not with open-ended explorations focuses the UX team into very specific tracks. It also makes sure that whatever is learned can be implemented quickly as the landscape changes at a very fast pace.

"The right sequencing for me would be that Product, alongside with the company strategy team & UX, establishes a working strategy."

"Leading with strategy and not with open-ended explorations focuses the UX team into very specific tracks."