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Let's start the show. Hello, everyone. I'm Dr. Karen Hardy, and welcome to Flip This Risk Podcast.
When we get a few high achievers about the relationship with risk taking, and how that really influences their leadership and resiliency, you can find out more about our podcast at flipthisriskpodcast.com. And today, I have with me, Mr. David Harris. Now, David is a Seattle-based design researcher.
On the experience collective team at Microsoft, and today we want to have a conversation about a management practice, I believe, known as human center design. We want to talk about what it is, how can we use to help us manage business better within our organization. So, David, welcome to the podcast. Thank you.
Thanks for having me. Listen, hey, I feel like I have a rock star. I'm talking to a rock star right now. I read your bio about your background when it comes to design research and all these other things, and how you work with Microsoft in Seattle.
That's a big deal for folks like me on the East Coast. But you're right in the middle of working with a giant when it comes to technology. So, I'm curious to know, and my audience property is too, we hear a lot about human center design, human center leadership. All these terms are starting to bubble up.
What exactly is going on? So that I'm actually hearing this term more often than not. Yeah, I think the term really applies to a certain methodology or way of thinking. We say human center.
That means that simply put, you're going to real humans, real people, getting their feedback on a particular design process, product or service, and interpreting their feedback and applying that to help improve that said product, service or process. But when we already doing that in business practice, I mean, it wasn't absent people when we were concerned about how they felt. What difference is it now? Is it just being, is it just a popularity thing right now?
Is something that seems to be researching? Or is this something brand new or something we've already been doing in exchange to that? I think the appetite for things that are more personalized and adapted to real people's needs is increasing. And as businesses respond to that, there needs to be certain processes and ways of thinking that are instilled that are standardized.
So, maybe in the past there might have been surveys. What happens with the results of those surveys? We don't know. But by following a particular practice, it might ensure that from the top down that this way of thinking and these processes can't be standardized or propagated through an organization.
I like the fact that you mentioned surveys, who hasn't been on the back end of a survey? You've got a list of questions, you answer it, and you wonder what happens to all that feedback. Is it that that too, in terms of surveys, really didn't get the result we've been looking for all these years? And what is it that HCD does that surveys don't do?
Well, the background of the human-centered design process takes into account several other types of fields of study, I believe you could say, from anthropology to psychology and even design as well. And really thinking about not just what people are doing, but also observing how they're feeling about certain things, so that's where the psychology of things comes into play. And then that observation piece of really being able to read between the lines and to extract insights out of information that might come from multiple different sources. So we talk about surveys and those definitely a common thing that we're all familiar with, but there's lots of other ways to gain insights from what people are doing or thinking, saying or even not saying that we can use and take those insights and help make decisions.
So maybe sometimes you might get some feedback, some insights from that feedback, and you might decide that we're not going to make any improvements and we're not going to change the way we're doing things, but at least you have something to make you more confident in what that decision will make. It makes you more confident in knowing that you've tapped into the insights, opinions, ideas of the end user, is that what you're saying? Correct. Okay, so the people who are users of your product or of a service, whatever you're delivering to them, you bring them closer to the process.
You draw them closer to you to make sure you're including the way they operate or the way they see the world, because I'm assuming that anyone who engages in HCD methods, they see the world one way and users see the world another way. Right, I think it's very important to, as we're observing people, we check our own kind of assumptions and advices. A lot of times many things were created, designed, engineered, in a vacuum, and maybe there's a lot of assumptions about what people want or what they're doing. By bringing real people and what they're saying or doing into the process, we can have more solid understanding of data in the context of what's going on, and we're able to check that against our own biases and assumptions as well.
Because we all have biases and assumptions, even in our, and that's not a bad thing either, I'm just saying we all have biases and assumptions in our own skillset, our own body of knowledge, our own comfort level, things like that, right? Exactly. So it sounds interesting because it seems to me that because people are engaging more in human-centered design or I assume they are, organizations are, that means that they have stronger skills in people, in dealing with people. How is that coming along in organizations, do you think?
I mean, that's a whole different skill set. Yeah. I think just as with any other type of discipline or role, we have a more diverse set of people that are creating design and thinking about these things for researching what people are doing. We have a better understanding in the context of what people might want or what those insights might be.
So again, we talked about biases we all have them, and by bringing in different viewpoints and people from different backgrounds and perspectives in the research process, but also in the design and engineering or policy making aspects of that process, we can better ensure that we're putting up those biases against more diverse set of views. So you're being a design researcher on the Experience Collective team at Microsoft. Are you seeing, have you seen a big difference in terms of productivity by instituting ACD into processes? I mean, what's the real big benefit at the end that I can actually measure?
If I do HCD, then the outcome will be this versus, I mean, is it that big of a difference based on if I don't use ACD? That's a great question. I think one of the big shifts we're seeing right now and kind of the user experience kind of around is a democratization of these types of practices where it's not just the people whose specific role it is to do user experience researcher design or getting feedback, but they're really preparing everyone at all different types of levels in an organization to do some of these same things. When that happens, the quality can be a little different than someone who's specific role it is to do those things, but it does increase understanding in context of users or people or customers that are related to those organizations and the people that are carrying out the role to work in those different roles are then able to use that understanding even as a competitive advantage.
I think even at companies like mine and other tech companies, they understand that that's why you see not just one or two roles as research, but also whole teams of researchers, user experience researchers, user researchers, design researchers, they call to think about some of these things. And those people like myself and jobs like mine are also teaching others how to do that as well. So there's an aspect in my role of not only carrying out research, but also sometimes teaching others across disciplines how to do that as well. As I said before, it seems to be a boom.
But why now do you think the discussion around ACD and the utilization of ACD now has become even more popular? Is that a result of the pandemic? Is that a post-end thing that has started to develop or was it already there? Is it influenced by remote workers?
I mean, what exactly is pushing this new revitalized effort around ACD? Well, I think with the proliferation of startups and companies that are able to really quickly adapt to people's needs, customers and people that are using whether software services or different products, they're becoming, they're expecting I should say to have an experience that is, like I said, personalized, customized even or adaptable to their needs. And organizations and businesses that aren't incorporating some of those practices to help adapt to people's experiences are just not making a cut. So I think it's really from customer and consumer demand, and whether it's in government or like a government or an app that's using, people know the difference between a great experience and a bad experience.
And that line has been drawn. So you mentioned the pandemic. So many different ways we have to shift to whether it's getting our groceries or moving around the city. And some of the services that we've had, we could tolerate some of the things that we might have used in the past.
Well, so that's very interesting. So let's put this into a context that is I know you talked about business, you talked about government, you talked about customer experience, how they feel going through a process or how they feel when it comes to utilizing a process or a product that you produce within organization. Let's talk about problem solving though. You mentioned when areas in terms of policy, how do you have an example of how ACD can help with policy and policy development?
How do you envision that? Yeah, well, am I a background working in government, the city of Seattle? There were different ways that we could, instead of just creating policies, regulations or sometimes laws in a vacuum, there's definitely there are mechanisms for talking to constituents and citizens and making sure that their voices are heard. But we're removing the spectrum of just kind of listening and maybe incorporating things that we've heard to the other end of really participatory type of methods of not just getting feedback, but also having the people that were and are affected by some of these regulations or policies involved in the research and involved in the policy making as well.
I think there's kind of a spectrum of what can happen there. And I think that the ultimate and probably sometimes the hardest way to do that is really add the people that are at the end of some of these policies are actually involved in what's happening. But I think really just some of the same methodologies and practices that you see in software and technology companies can be applied just as well in government as well. So, observation and surveys and really being able to synthesize and come back to the people that you've talked to and checking biases and assumptions and incorporating some of those things in product and service.
You're listening to Flip This Risk Podcast with Dr. Karen Hardy and we'll be right back with more great conversation after this. We are doing research and understanding what their needs are. It sounds very emotional intelligently.
And I think a lot of people from the technical expertise, they rely heavily on technical expertise to do what we probably need to involve HCD. Does that sound about right? Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's the way we talk about emotional intelligence.
Going back to what people want out of their experiences is definitely an emotional aspect to it. So again, when things are created in a technical vacuum, void of emotion and understanding how people actually might experience something, then we get some experiences that feel like they've been absent of emotion. And I'm really glad you brought that up. Just talking about the various phases of discovery and design and implementation.
Another aspect that I haven't mentioned yet is just prototyping. So, I've been a part of many pilots in my government days. And I think though there are just another type of another way to say prototyping and we think of things like that and compare to other industries where they're prototyping really fast or sometimes over time. But really completing that loop and seeking to understand and get that emotional aspect of what people are doing and saying, but also thinking and feeling as well.
It's interesting because in the public sector space and that's where my expertise is in, I do know that we love to put things in draft. Everything is a draft and it stays in draft forever. If we really don't get to the prototype piece, actually I think we skip over prototyping, just go to, this is a requirement. And I think that maybe that's something we need to really think about.
So in terms of risk management, enterprise risk management is looking at risk across an organization. And we have positions dedicated to helping leadership make decisions strategically based on those in the inventory of risk across an organization. That's the Chief Risk Officer. And I can see how Chief Risk Officer or CRO may use or oversee the HCD function to help bring about a little bit more connection between leadership and buy-in when it comes to using risk management as a tool to help the organization perform a little bit more.
Do people need more training in this area to understand first what HCD is and how it differs from other things? Is that something you think is a necessity? I do think training is always good. Training to understand and port a pieces of the process.
Because at the end of the day, it would have to be adapted to what an organization's capacity is to execute some of those things as well as how it might integrate into processes that they already have, how it might disintegrate. So training is a good way of understanding how this methodology might fit inside of their organization and be customized for that. And understanding where trade-offs might need to be made, I mentioned, for instance, democratization of research and understanding of customers could happen. And understanding the trade-off plan and quality versus democratization versus someone who's actually focused on that.
So definitely a good idea to train for that and just, like I said, understand how it could be integrated into once day-to-day. And then also, I think that it's always a journey. I think this is a growing field because people are always changing and there might be new ways and new methods and new things to try out. So even myself, as a practitioner, always has to be looking for different ways to improve my craft.
Another aspect of this is, you know, you might have great time hearing from people and get these great insights, but the other aspect of my job is to help communicate that to leadership or to people who are making decisions. And that's also, I think, a growing type of practice that changes because people are changing. And as we have experiences consuming information in other ways, we all have to adapt to how we're kind of communicating some of these things because insights might, you know, depending on what field you are in, might be life, life or depth. And, you know, if you're building a plane and sometimes people are in some field called human factors, I'm going to make sure that the pilot has a great experience and knows how to access those controls and the cockpit so that people's lives won't be in danger.
So that's just something that will. Absolutely. And this is another term called design thinking. I've heard I use a different way.
Humans such a design versus design thinking. And what's the difference there? When you talk about design thinking, that sounds like an asset that someone can have within an organization. Yeah, so design thinking is really, I think, a subset of, well, maybe cousin of human-centered design.
Where human-centered design is really focused on really getting close to that context and feedback from real people. Design thinking is a practice of really rapidly iterating and prototyping in a way that's really standardized so that you can create more innovative things faster. And the innovative thing can be a policy, can be a manual, can be anything training. So whatever that innovative thing you think is within your organization, having a design thinking mindset, I think that's probably what is really about having the people that are working with your organization thinking like that.
That they can go fast to prototype experiment and things like that, right? It just could be beneficial. Yeah, I think it's definitely beneficial to have that innovative mindset. And to go fast, not just to go fast, but to fail fast and learn really quickly.
So I think that's really the outcome of design thinking is to learn in new ways that are more, I would say, divergent than conversion. So divergent thinking is a part of that design thinking process at the beginning where you're able to maybe talk to people and get feedback and observe things and really just brainstorming about the myriad of different ideas and ways to solve problems. And then next in that kind of process is to converge on maybe one particular solution and prototype that and to go again and get feedback on that particular solution and then repeat. So taking those learnings and failing fast so that you can quickly iterate as we do in design of different options and prototypes to understand what gets closest to a more innovative way of doing things that actually works for real people.
I really like that because sometimes we found ourselves stuck in a process. We don't understand why something's not moving forward or we're not being productive. And sometimes we just need that breakthrough and to help solve the problem. I can see how design thinking and HCD can be used to help create those breakthroughs.
Especially when it comes to risk management and risk management practitioners, we do get stuck sometimes. It just isn't moving fast enough or we're just not getting the answer that we actually need. And I can see how design thinking and HCD can be inherently beneficial. Just by engaging in the process, it just gives a whole different perspective on what you're doing.
For sure. I think all of these things that we're talking about are really giving, like you said, different ways of thinking and getting us outside of kind of our biases and our assumptions and thinking about different perspectives and coming up with different ways of seeing the world. Whether that's about a product or service or the way other people are viewing those things. Well, especially when you're working in an organizational culture, do you see ACD in design thinking either one of those things helpful in breaking down cultural issues or challenges or what those norms may be?
Yeah, some great examples I've seen when I worked in education and brought some of these ways of thinking. Education is definitely a hot topic in terms of reform and changing the way things are done for the better for our kids. But how that happens can definitely be offered a bit as well. Design thinking I think was fit right well into not only the way teachers and adults think, but also students as well.
They were happy to think in different ways compared to traditional methods of learning. So being able to, like I said, find those different perspectives, whether that's for students and thinking about how they're learning or understanding different perspectives in ways of thinking in the world or even teachers and adults and administrators. How they're in a safe way trying new things and how students will learn. Well, we found out as risk management practitioners that the human factor is something we have to take into consideration, i.e.
I talked about the cultural piece of this. So it was important to introduce this into an organization. And finally, how would you introduce ACD to an organization? Let's say that day one, I mean, well, how would you introduce it to leaders and organizations that are used to doing things a certain way or they're stuck or they need a breakthrough or we need to resolve and make risk management more effective in organizations?
What would you do? You know, I think there's different methods within human center design. And I think one great method is case study. So taking a project and showing how it works in the field and what could be learned, what didn't work, I think is a great way of piloting and prototyping.
So just using the method and itself, even thinking about how you might hear people's feedback on what worked and what didn't work and implementing the process and using the process for the process of the speak. But yeah, definitely taking it, piloting it, prototyping it, seeing what works and what doesn't work, I think is a good way doing it as opposed to going full-out and changing things up without really knowing what works and doesn't work, which is kind of the purpose of human center design, right? So to really actually understand how something works by taking this process and going through it, really analyzing it and seeking those insights that you can get from it. Well, that's fantastic.
And for those who don't know, David Harris is a contributing author of the new book that I wrote, linking enterprise risk management and human center design. You can read more about his writings in that chapter. So Dave, I want to thank you for your time today. No problem.
Thank you for having me. Any last words? Any words of wisdom? I think it's really exciting to see how these two things can come together with a human center design risk management.
I think there's a lot of opportunity for companies to get closer to what people are expecting, whether that's the people that are working inside an organization or the customers and users or people who are using this service. So really excited to see what people have when they combine those things. Awesome. Well, I'm excited too and can't wait to see what the outcome of all this will be.
So again, David, thank you for your time for being on this podcast. And I want to thank everyone else for joining me today. I'm Dr. Karen Hardy and I'll see you next time.
Helping You Feel Secure is our strategy all the way from the board room to the barbershop down the street. Subscribe at flipthisriskpodcast.com. Thanks for listening.