UIE Roadshow - Minneapolis

I've been looking forward to the UIE Roadshow in Minneapolis for several weeks. Hearing Jared Spool speak on most any UX topic is educational, but the focus on UX teams and forming a User Experience vision is what will really help strengthen my team at work. Working on a very young UX team in my organization means we are still raising awareness and evangelizing our methods. I want to know what comes next. Certainly there is more to UX team growth than preaching.

Just a few of the questions I have:

• How else can we promote our services?
• What are some quick ways to calculate ROI?
• How can we convince reluctant stakeholders?
• What methods work for getting buy-in for a staff increase?

Awareness and Promotion
At large corporation, awareness beyond a small technology department is difficult to attain but often the business stakeholders are not technology-savvy. The outside perception of user experience risks being lumped into other departments - QA, marketing, customer service, graphic design - so establishing the team as a unique service that is as critical as QA must happen early in a team's development.

Return on Investment
Sometimes making a convincing argument is as simple as saying, "you need me on your team" but usually the pitch needs to align with a few facts. Until user research and usability testing are a process requirement, business stakeholders will be reluctant to sign on unless they can be convinced of the cost savings.

Reluctant Stakeholders
Once and a while, even after reviewing clear evidence of the benefits of a UX team, stakeholders push back. They still feel that the short term cost and time savings are more important than the potential of long-term benefits for the company. This hurdle is hard to overcome and one that I encounter once or twice a quarter.

Staff Increase
When there are many projects on the docket and the team finds itself acting as a quick-and-dirty usability test service, it feels like time for a new staff member. Since the work (albeit condensed, minimalist work) is getting done, developing a justification for more team members is more difficult than dealing with reluctant stakeholders.

I hope to answer a few of these concerns at the Roadshow on Thursday and what I learn, I'll be sure to share with you. If you are on Twitter, I will try to tweet regularly but please be aware that my live tweeting will be BlackBerry-only. I'll respond to @s and DMs during the break. If you're curious, follow me on Twitter.