In October, I gave a new talk titled Coach, Diplomat, Advocate, Architect, where I dissect these four archetypes of the design leader, and share the difficult news that, in order to fully succeed, that design leader must embrace all of them. It’s my first new material in a couple of years, and though I ended up having to speed through it at the end (I typically put too much stuff in a new talk), I think it came out well.
Coach, Diplomat, Advocate, and Architect: The Leveraged Design Leader: Peter Merholz, Leading Design 2017 from Clearleft on Vimeo.
Pretty much every talk was worth watching. Some personal favorites include Stuart Frisby sharing his experience growing design at Booking.com from 6 to 100 (and beyond), Kim Lenox’s frank sharing of how her personal growth allowed her to become a better leader, Ben Terrett’s funny and real grappling with being the bottleneck, and Cap Watkins’ confessional on the neuroses of the design VP.
Some videos to queue up for holiday viewing!
Org Design for Design Orgs 