Graham's Looking Back  |  2017

GRAHAM'S IDEO VALUE: TALK LESS, DO MORE

+ You're always finding new tools that improve your process and makes recruiting tangible.

+ You never quite stand still and are always making!

+ I loved seeing you present DR recruiting to the folks at Liberty Mutual. They were super impressed with that presentation and definitely contributes to why they would still be interested in research.

ROOM FOR GROWTH: I wonder if there's something you can do to make others successful. I.e. help us help you. What if you made a questionnaire design researchers have to fill out to chat with you? Or a document that guides researchers for a last minute recruits when you're gone? Also, I think you could do a better job of sharing all of your experiments with the office. There have been a LOT this year and I don't think many people know about them. Do an MLM share!!!

GRAHAM'S IDEO VALUE: TALK LESS, DO MORE

+ You get sh*t done. 

+ You are an amazing recruiter, Google stalker, finder of unicorns. This is an amazing thing that you give the DR community. Without you our research would suffer and we would spend way less time learning and designing and way more time recruiting. Thank you.

ROOM FOR GROWTH: Overall, I would love to see you yes, handle the day-to-day recruiting stuff, but take time out to do more overall synthesis of activities and global learnings. Also, when are we doing a recruiting event? Or adding a recruiting touch to an event we're planning? I'd love to work with you on this if you're into it...let's find ways to use what you know to benefit our community.

GRAHAM'S IDEO VALUE: MAKE OTHERS SUCCESSFUL

+ You literally make our projects happen and design research soar. Without you our projects wouldn't be able to exist or thrive. You work quietly in the background often so diligently and strategically balancing so many things but always finding success for others and the projects. In moments when this has been difficult (say FMI) you've worked closely to be creative, adjust, brainstorm, etc to continue to make the project success.

+ Graham you are a serious rockstar. You are calm under pressure, creative, thoughtful, strategic, and elevate every project with your approach, thinking, and preparation. 

+ I think you've really elevated recruiting - the systems, the thinking, the highlighting of biases and working to overcome them. How can your work and perspectives help lead/change IDEO recruiting overall? 

ROOM FOR GROWTH: You share a lot, but could share more - I only wish you had more time to be part of research planning earlier on and contribute to design research more and more - you clearly have such a knack for it. You're amazing at recruiting - my question would be what part of recruiting do you like the most - then start to emphasize this.

+ I think you've done a nice job helping teams explain the recruiting process to clients (thinking of that preso you did with Yael for liberty). 

+ One thing you're really great it as helping us understand who it is we're actually recruiting for. For Wex in particular, we weren't totally sure of the titles etc... we needed, and you helped us use the screening process as a learning opportunity to understand who it was we actually needed to chat too.

+ You take a very design researchy approach to recruiting, which actually turns the screening process into a value moment to collect info and learn.

ROOM FOR GROWTH: You're in a unique position to have good insights about how recruiting differs based on type of project (industry, venture, b2b vs b2c etc....). Would be great to leverage that knowledge before the project even starts.

I think we've learned a lot this year about recruiting for b2b that we can use if/when those projects come up in the future. I bet you could double down and take this goal further in 2018.

GRAHAM'S IDEO VALUE: MAKE OTHERS SUCCESSFUL

+ You put so much effort into supporting the DR community (both in Cambridge and at IDEO). Many of our clients don't ever get to see the incredible effort you put into your job (it all just magically falls into place). You make all of us, and our work, successful on a daily basis!

ROOM FOR GROWTH: While you do a great job of working closely with DRs for recruiting, I'd love to collaborate more with you on research planning. You have such great ideas, and I know I could benefit greatly from increased collaboration with you. 

I'd love to see you share your skills more. So much of what you do is in the background and it would be great to bring it to the forefront more regularly. As we continue developing a D4C portfolio, and train our clients in DR, your skillset will be incredibly important to them and I'd love to see you get involved in that training.