Strategy
Facilitating decision making
While at Northwestern Mutual, I helped executives formulate and communicate their product strategy and vision to their teams, peers, and the broader organization. Additionally I functioned as a dotted-line manager for designers and researchers to work on our end to end corporate vision initiatives or internal tools.
At Proteus Motion, I introduced user research to this early stage startup and worked with the Director of Software Engineering and the CEO to identify strategic opportunities, weigh trade-offs, and plan for the future.
Enterprise Experience Design
Northwestern Mutual
Working within the newly spun up Enterprise Experience Design team at Northwestern Mutual, I had the opportunity to influence areas of the product far beyond my portfolio of work as a design manager. This included supporting end to end product strategy and promoting user understanding while collaborating with organizations that wouldn’t typically interact with product design.
Foundations for Research and Planning
Proteus Motion
I collaborated with my counterpart, the Director of Software Engineering to introduce right-sized methods, introducing formal processes for feature definition, communication, roadmap planning, and prioritization. Recognizing the absence of structured research beyond ad-hoc customer conversations, I introduced straightforward UX research practices to the company.
Enterprise Experience Design
Northwestern Mutual
Working within the newly spun up Enterprise Experience Design team at Northwestern Mutual, I had the opportunity to influence areas of the product far beyond my portfolio of work as a design manager. This included supporting end to end product strategy and promoting user understanding while collaborating with organizations that wouldn’t typically interact with product design.
Foundations for Research and Planning
Proteus Motion
I collaborated with my counterpart, the Director of Software Engineering to introduce right-sized methods, introducing formal processes for feature definition, communication, roadmap planning, and prioritization. Recognizing the absence of structured research beyond ad-hoc customer conversations, I introduced straightforward UX research practices to the company.
© 2023 Will Gabrenya