Design Kaffé

In our last episode of season 4, we ask ourselves: do we need product managers? Can people in other disciplines, like designers and engineers, do product management, or is it essential that there is a dedicated PM on every team? When does it make sense to have PMs and when does it not?

This week we're talking about delivery speed and the fine balance to find with delivering quality. We explore why it matters, the impact delivery speed can have on the quality of the team's outputs and how we as designers can face this challenge.

We talk about money. How transparent should we be about salaries with our peers, recruiters, and companies? How should salary negotiations be handled or not handled? What about raises and promotions? Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com.

We're back this week with a heavy topic on discrimination. We're trying to unpack how being discriminated feels like, what discrimination looks like and why it occurs in the workplace. We also explore how we can be better allies and improve our work environments. Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com.

We talk about nepotism and other signs of toxicity in the workplace. We discuss why it’s so damaging to individuals and teams when there’s systemic toxicity at work, and share thoughts on what to do when you find yourself in these situations. Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com. New episode every other Friday!

We explore the challenges and difficult feelings of taking time off from work due to mental health. We discuss why it is tricky to be honest and upfront about it, and fears we may have about the perception others have of us and our reliability at work. Follow us on Twitter ⁠@designkaffe⁠ and check out our website ⁠designkaffe.com⁠. New episode every two weeks on Friday

This week Tiia Meuronen and Tom Kerwin guest our podcast to share their experiences with redundancies and having their hours and pay cut. We talk about how you can look after yourself while going through such challenging experiences, how companies handle redundancies and pay cuts well and not so well, and what the wider design community can do to look after each other. Find Tom on LinkedIn, his Innovation Tactics deck on Pip Decks, his Pivot Triggers on Maven, and his consulting services on Trigger Strategy Group. Follow Tiia on LinkedIn and check out her company Béa Fertility. Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com. New episode every other Friday!

Today we’re discussing feedback and how it can sometimes be delivered poorly. We explore in what contexts or situations poor feedback tends to occur and how we can best react to it. Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com. New episode every two weeks on Friday

We talk about mediocrity and low standards where design over time doesn’t deliver impact or meet the standards set by ourselves and others. We discuss what might cause mediocre design, how experience as leaders and designers can affect our standards, and what we can do to improve our design standards. Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com.

This week we talk about toxic goal-setting and productivity. We reflect on the best way to evaluate growth at work and best practices to set goals for ourselves. We also discuss productivity and how to set healthy boundaries when we're caught into the hustle mentality. Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com.

We talk about being human at work, whether that's our emotional states or more enduring traits of our identities and personalities which all influence how we interact with our work and our coworkers. We discuss the challenges of the notion of “bringing your whole self” to work and how managers and leaders can better support humans at work. Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com.

We're back for another design conversation, this time about bad job search experiences. We share our own past experiences searching for a design role and what we've found frustrating and uncomfortable when interviewing with companies. We also open the Pandora's Box on design tasks and share a few tips on what to do with unpleasant recruitment experiences. Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com. New episode every other Friday!

In our first episode of season 4, we share our experiences of being introverted designers in extraverted workplaces. What challenges have we found, how have we overcome them, and what value can we bring by having more diversity of thinking and communication styles in our industry? Follow us on Twitter @designkaffe and check out our website designkaffe.com. New episode every other Friday!

Welcome to Design Kaffé, a podcast where we have mindful, candid conversations for designers in tech. In our fortnightly episodes, we discuss a wide range of topics to explore what it means to be a designer, the challenges we face in the design and tech industry, and share thoughts on how we can all be better at what we do. We hope you enjoy listening!

In this last episode of season 3, we look back and reflect over the season’s episodes and format. We talk about what felt challenging to us and what lessons we took away from this season. Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

We complete our last theme for season 3 by exploring the when and how of gathering insights. When during design do we know we should gather insights? How do we get started gathering insights, and what are some of the common mistakes we make in doing so? Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com.

This week we continue our theme on Insights and deep-dive into identifying and using insights. We talk about the best ways to analyse data and extract meaningful insights, what methodologies we like to use and how visualising insights can be key to retain them throughout the design process. Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday

We have the wonderful Léa Samrani on as a guest this week to discuss how product managers and designers can collaborate well with each other. We explore the differences and overlap in PM and designer roles and responsibilities, and the importance of nurturing the PM-designer duo relationship to drive better outcomes. Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday!

We’re starting a new theme on Insights and discuss the differences of being Data-Driven vs Data-Informed. We dive into how team dynamics or design process can differ with each approach. We also cover lessons from our experience and share why we believe in a Data-informed approach ourselves. Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday

We round off our Management theme by talking about managing ourselves. How do we manage our goals—whether they’re project goals or career goals—and ensure we set the right goals to begin with? How do we self-manage both our deliverables as well as our ultimate impact and outcomes? And how do we keep ourselves accountable? Follow us on Twitter @UX_Maturity and check out our website uxmaturitypodcast.com. New episode every Friday!