Re: ui management classes

Hi Drew,
 
That is a great question! And an area sorely lacking in our field!
 
In the good old days, companies provided management training and classes to likely candidates or, in some companies, to all who were interested. This is a great approach because you can take a class and then discuss it with other class-mates within your company and with other managers. On-going learning, backed up with practical experience works well. Unfortunately, I've noticed that there is a lot less of that happening these days.
 
At one level, management of any discipline is much the same and courses are generic. Like issues of HR (how to avoid discrimination, sexual harrasment, writing good performance reviews, etc.). There are other generic topics as well: managing a budget, how to lead a group, running good meetings, behavior-based interviewing, etc. There are many great classes available on these general management topics. Try:
 - your HR department (even if they don't have the class, they may refer you to classes
   your company will pay for)
 - ACM or other large professional organizations (ACM offers free online courses)
 - local community college or business school
 - web-sites and organizations
 - I particularly like this site:
   http://www.manager-tools.com/
 
On areas that are specific to UI/UX/HCI, there seem to be fewer options. Richard Anderson runs some workshops/classes, that he lists in his email. Various workshops and classes are offered from time-to-time by others as well, it pays to read through the web-sites and newsletters for various design, usability, web-site (etc.) groups to find these.
 
My best advice is three part:
 
1) Find some leaders in the field who are close to you and ask for informational interviews. How did they get where they are, what was most helpful to them, what classes/training did they find valuable?
 
2) Find some managers in your comany and ask them the same things.
 
3) Get a mentor (or a couple of them), if you can.
 
Personally, I've managed several Usability groups at various financial and high-tech firms. I am forever indebted for the management classes I took at Sun Microsystems (when I was not a manager) and am very grateful that they allowed anyone to take them. Since then, I've learned a lot about management from peers, management books, and classes when I could get them, but most from mentors I ran into professionally.
 
It would be great if you summarized your findings and posted back to the list.
 
Meghan Ede
[email protected]
 
Meadow Consulting
User Experience Strategy & Research
http://meadow.consulting.googlepages.com/
[email protected]

--- On Tue, 5/27/08, Drew Simchik <[email protected]> wrote:

From: Drew Simchik <[email protected]>
Subject: [BayCHI Discussions] ui management classes
To: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, May 27, 2008, 1:32 PM

I've been doing usability and UI design at the ground level for about 12 
years now. I never thought I'd be interested in managing other 
designers, but increasingly I'm coming to feel that it's a role I need 
to move into, both for my own personal growth and for the continued 
success of our company.

I've never managed before, though, and my experience as a team lead (vs. 
a project lead) is somewhat limited. So I'm looking for the best way to 
train for these roles.  I see a lot of classes advertised in design 
techniques and specific tools, but I can't remember seeing anything 
specifically oriented toward:

- Managing designers (or management classes for designers)
- Strategic (vs. tactical) usability and user experience design -- i.e., 
setting companywide directions as opposed to styling buttons and menus

Do training courses or seminars in these areas exist? I'm motivated 
partly by the desire to learn, and partly by the desire to back up my 
request for greater responsibility with evidence that I've gained the 
necessary background.

Hopefully this isn't a completely naive or clueless request.  All advice 
welcomed.

Thanks,
Drew Simchik
[email protected]
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