It's been a while since Jonny and Neil sat down to talk through Product progress, plans and strategy. This somewhat unplanned ramble-chat covers how we're thinking about high touch vs low touch go-to-market, COVID impact, honing the problem we're solving and for who. Of course, Neil also reviews a biscuit. We have no new guest interview episodes planned (it's been a busy few months) but if you like these team chats please let us know and we can do more of them! Anti-racism statement During this episode we reference a statement on anti-racism and our stance, that we planned to be an intro to the episode but we decided to make it its own episode. The audio and transcript of that is here: https://www.progressionapp.com/posts/anti-racism-statement/ — please do give it a listen, we're learning and would love your feedback. Other links As always, you can give Progression a try at https://progressionapp.com All previous episodes now available on our blog: https://progressionapp.com/blog Jonny on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonnyburch Neil on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ncameron

Progression Podcast

#22: Inside Progression Ep2 — Jonny and Neil catch-up

A statement about our Anti-racism stance and plans for making Progression an anti-racist product and business. Read the full statement and more detail on our action items here: https://progressionapp.com/posts/anti-racism-statement/

Progression anti-racism statement

Cap Watkins is CXO at Primary, where he's responsible for Design, Product, People and engineering (oh my!). In the recent past, he was a professional leadership coach and organizational consultant at Practical Works, helping senior contributors, first-time managers and managers-of-managers grow and evolve in their roles. Previously, he was VP of Design at BuzzFeed, where he managed Product Design.  While at Buzzfeed Cap also created one of the most popular design frameworks on progression.fyi – https://www.progression.fyi/f/buzzfeed, which he then blogged about warning people not to use it directly. We talked about that along with several of his blog posts, including: https://capwatkins.com/blog/skip-the-shortcuts https://capwatkins.com/blog/two-questions I'd been following and nagging Cap for an interview for months, so it's funny that it then took me six months to get the resulting interview out. It's a great and very much evergreen interview though, so lots to dig into. Find cap on: https://capwatkins.com/ https://twitter.com/cap Who else should we be speaking to? Be on the pod! Tell us about someone great! Just email podcast@progressionapp.com and tell us more. Our lovely sponsor: Deliveroo Our wonderful sponsor Deliveroo is looking for loads of designers, researchers, writers as well as leaders and managers. Go check them out at https://deliveroo.design Join the waitlist We’re aiming to launch soon, but if you want to jump the gun or just be in the loop, get involved in our waitlist. progressionapp.com Rate us! It really helps if you rate us on iTunes. You can do that right here. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/progression-podcast/id1435509539

#21 Cap Watkins (Primary, Buzzfeed) on helping new managers and the problem with taking other people's career ladders

About Irene Irene is a designer and veteran design leader, leading design and user experience at Google, Yahoo, Netscape, and Udacity. She was once even the most prolific hirer of UX talent in silicon valley.  She now works as an operational partner at Khosla Ventures, working with fast growing portfolio companies on design and strategic problems at the highest level, as well as teaching yoga. Our conversation covered scaling design across some of the most well known and iconic companies in the world as well as extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation, using envy to identify what you enjoy and finding the thing that gives you joy. I loved this conversation – Irene absolutely (but politely) schooled me on some of my assumptions about the evolution of design and I learned a ton. I hope you do too! Irene's website: ireneau.com Irene on Twitter: twitter.com/ireneau Design your Life – Irene's medium blog: https://medium.com/design-your-life Who else should we be speaking to? Be on the pod! Tell us about someone great! Just email podcast@progressionapp.com and tell us more. Our lovely sponsor: Deliveroo Our wonderful sponsor Deliveroo is looking for loads of designers, researchers, writers as well as leaders and managers. Go check them out at https://deliveroo.design We're looking for new sponsors! hit us up: podcast@progressionapp.com Join the waitlist We’re aiming to launch soon, but if you want to jump the gun or just be in the loop, get involved in our waitlist. progressionapp.com Rate us! It really helps if you rate us on iTunes. You can do that right here. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/progression-podcast/id1435509539 

#20: Irene Au (Khosla Ventures, Google) on scaling design teams and practices, scaling yourself and finding your why

About Ryan Ryan Carson has been a huge figure in tech and online learning for a long time now through his company Treehouse, but his journey to get there and onwards from this success story is a journey of learning about himself, what he loves and also his privilege.  From Carsonified, his tech conference startup based in the UK through Treehouse to Project unlock the American dream (training 100,000 Americans from diverse backgrounds into software engineering apprenticeships), he talks through his biggest challenge yet. Ryan on twitter: https://twitter.com/ryancarson Treehouse: https://teamtreehouse.com Project unlock the american dream: https://projectunlocktheamericandream.org Ryan's book recommendations The New Jim Crow: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1595586431 Seeing White: https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-White-Introduction-Privilege-Race/dp/1442203080 Who else should we be speaking to? Be on the pod! Tell us about someone great! Just email podcast@progressionapp.com and tell us more. Our lovely sponsor: Deliveroo Our wonderful sponsor Deliveroo is looking for loads of designers, researchers, writers as well as leaders and managers. Go check them out at https://deliveroo.design Join the waitlist We’re aiming to launch soon, but if you want to jump the gun or just be in the loop, get involved in our waitlist. progressionapp.com Rate us! It really helps if you rate us on iTunes. You can do that right here. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/progression-podcast/id1435509539

#19: Ryan Carson (CEO, Treehouse) on a winding journey to training 100,000 new software engineers

Today’s guest: Anne-Laure Le Cunff Anne-Laure is a prolific writer, thinker and learner. From a background in tech at companies like Google, she's spend the last year or so focused on entrepreneurial projects, culminating in her own Venture Studio Ness Labs, dedicated to products that help people be happier and healthier. She's hugely active in the online entrepreneurial community, championing learning and personal development with a broad set of 6000+ folks following along through her newsletter. As a fellow maker and founder, Anne-Laure and I talk less about team building and more about the journey of starting something new, compound interest when it comes to writing, being an active learner and a company of one. Anne-Laure's company: https://nesslabs.com/ and newsletter: https://nesslabs.com/newsletter Maker Mag: https://makermag.com/ Anne-Laure on Twitter: https://twitter.com/anthilemoon Our lovely sponsor: Deliveroo Our wonderful sponsor Deliveroo is looking for loads of designers, researchers, writers as well as leaders and managers. Go check them out at https://deliveroo.design Join the waitlist We’re aiming to launch in the first quarter of next year, but if you want to jump the gun or just be in the loop, get involved in our waitlist. https://progressionapp.com Rate us! It really helps if you rate us on iTunes. You can do that right here. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/progression-podcast/id1435509539 Who else should we be speaking to? Be on the pod! Tell us about someone great! Just email podcast@progressionapp.com and tell us more.

#18 Anne-Laure Le Cunff on mindfulness, burnout, writing every day and building a business

I loved chatting to Kara back in August, excited to finally get this episode out to your ears! Kara started her career as an instructional designer, eventually working her way to leading user experience design through experience at (amongst others) top-flight companies in sport (the Super Bowl), Film (Oscars) and politics, both as senior advisor to 18F and as Biden's Director of UX during Obama's cancer moonshot. She was also one of the first Presidential Innovation Fellows. We talked about Instructional design, meeting Obama, pale males, career progression of a person vs a professional and where you can use existing skills in new ways and readjust your career to suit the things you’re good at AND the things you love.  We also covered attempting to cure cancer, doing user-centred design in government, being a good sponsor and our mutual love of the West Wing. Show links Obama announcing the cancer moonshot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W2Fl_X_6I4 Kara's article on how to care and feed a team: https://medium.com/@karadefrias/the-product-managers-guide-to-the-care-and-feeding-of-humans-ee2854bc5944 Find Kara on the web at https://www.karadefrias.com/, and on twitter at https://twitter.com/karadefrias. Who else should we be speaking to? We have a fantastic set of interviews already recorded so we're sorted for getting into your ear-holes for this year, but we're looking for guests for 2020 episodes, so if you or someone you know is doing great work, let us know! Even better if it's someone who might not be regulars on other podcasts or stages. Just email podcast@progressionapp.com and tell us more. Our lovely sponsor: Deliveroo! Our wonderful sponsor Deliveroo is looking for loads of designers, researchers, writers as well as leaders and managers. It really is an exciting and fun place to work (I should know as an alumni). Go check out the team, blog and open roles at deliveroo.design or follow them on twitter: https://twitter.com/deliveroodesign 

#17 Kara DeFrias on changing careers, curing cancer and being a sponsor

Dave Malouf is a veteran design leader, strategist, facilitator, researcher, and educator who has worked with some of the largest and fastest growing organizations globally. He's probably best known for his work around Design Ops, that slightly nebulous set of practices that help design organisations to scale. We get right into defining then pulling Design Ops apart, as well as touching on how speaking globally informs his practice and gives him energy. Dave on Twitter: https://twitter.com/daveixd Worth watching: Dave's keynote at IxDA Rio Who else should we be speaking to? We have a fantastic set of interviews already recorded so we're sorted for getting into your ear-holes for this year, but we're looking for guests for 2020 episodes, so if you or someone you know is doing great work, let us know! Even better if it's someone who might not be regulars on other podcasts or stages. Just email podcast@progressionapp.com and tell us more. Our lovely sponsor: Deliveroo! Our wonderful sponsor Deliveroo is looking for loads of designers, researchers, writers as well as leaders and managers. It really is an exciting and fun place to work (I should know as an alumni).  Go check out the team, blog and open roles at deliveroo.design or follow them on twitter: https://twitter.com/deliveroodesign Join the waitlist We’re aiming to launch in the first quarter of next year, but if you want to jump the gun or just be in the loop, get involved in our waitlist. progressionapp.com You can also follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/progressionapp – send us a tweet with your thoughts on the pod!

#16 Dave Malouf on Design Ops and the power of speaking on stage

Hey friends! It's been a while... We're having a mini-break from regular episodes for the summer, but to celebrate Neil officially joining the team (about 4 months ago) as a cofounder, we decided to chat about working together and finding each other, our new feature 'check-ins' and our favourite office snack, the mighty Choco Leibniz. We'll be back with a new season, fantastic guests, a shiny new sponsor and more great interviews in a couple of weeks. Neil can be found at: neilcameron.me twitter.com/ncameron Jonny is, as ever, at jonnyburch.com twitter.com/jonnyburch ----- Remember to join the Progression waitlist for all the latest on our product, including invites to the product before anyone else. 

#15: Inside Progression with Jonny and Neil – teamwork, a new feature and biscuit reviews

Todd is a Design leader, leadership coach and lifelong learner. He recently released findings from a survey of over 800 design teams globally, with a focus on career growth and team health. We dive into his findings- getting through everything from hiring to attrition and the relative importance of different factors in someone's decision to leave. And the results are interesting: it turns out that 35% of people list lack of career growth as their reason for leaving a company, but under 4% of design teams have a progression framework. We also dig into some of the stats around progression frameworks – when do companies roll them out and when should you start considering one for your team. Enjoy! Todd online: On Twitter: https://twitter.com/zakiwarfel Todd's site: http://zakiwarfel.com The report: http://zakiwarfel.com/dci-report/ His great talk at Leading Design last year: https://vimeo.com/297967955 Progression Get your waitlist spot at progressionapp.com (we're going into Beta now so many more invites coming soon) Me and progression: twitter.com/jonnyburch progressionapp.com

#14: Todd Zaki Warfel (Leadership coach, Design Career Index report) on frameworks and job satisfaction

Sana Rao was born in India, educated at the School of Visual Arts in NYC and spent 4 years at Twitter designing a bunch of the mobile experience we use today.  She's now Interim Head of Experience at Deliveroo, working out how to support the designers, researchers and content writers on their journey with the company as it grows. Sana has taken huge risks, experienced twitter abuse, seen companies successfully improve diversity and has a fascinating story of her career to date. She's also a great friend and really interesting person!  Sana's links: Sana on twitter: https://twitter.com/sanarao Redesigning the content research and design org on Medium: https://medium.com/deliveroo-design/redesigning-the-content-research-design-org-50a204425b5c Course materials from SVA: https://postindustrialdesign.school/#resources SVA: http://www.sva.edu Sponsor: Progression (har har) This episode is sponsored by Progression, because why the hell not. Get your waitlist spot at progressionapp.com (we're going into Beta now so many more invites coming soon) (A real sponsor will be back next episode) Me and progression: twitter.com/jonnyburch progressionapp.com

#13: Sana Rao (Twitter, Deliveroo) on life changes, sponsorship and scaling design teams through change

In this twelfth episode of the Progression Podcast I'm chatting to Peter Merholz, co-founder of Adaptive Path, long time speaker and blogger on design scaling and co-author of Org Design for Design Orgs (2016). We get into the weeds on his back story, including learning how to write and speak confidently. We then got onto managing up, down and across, his book and the ethics of design (and a designers' role within it). Finally we got to some listener questions from various Slack channels that I hang out on. Peter's links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/peterme Peter's blog: https://www.peterme.com/ Org Design for Design Orgs (Amazon) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Org-Design-Orgs-Peter-Merholz/dp/1491938404 Coach, Diplomat, Advocate, Architect. Peter's talk at Leading Design: https://vimeo.com/243666544 Sponsor: Onfido ? This episode is sponsored by Onfido! They're ruddy great, and are looking for a VP design (amongst other interesting design and product roles). Check out their open jobs here: onfido.com/jobs Want to sponsor an episode, or suggest a guest? Email podcast@makegrow.co to get straight to me. Me and progression: twitter.com/jonnyburch progressionapp.com

#12: Peter Merholz (Adaptive Path, Org Design for Design Orgs) on org design and ethics

In this episode I'm talking to Braden Kowitz, an SF based designer and founder. Braden's work has been hugely impactful on how we design today through his work on the Sprint book at Google Ventures. But his journey has also been an interesting one, leading from Google to working with startups to founding his own, Range. We talk about finding meaningful work, bucking the trend of an expected design career, the dangers of a rigid ladder in a small team and much more. Braden's Links Range: https://www.range.co/ Braden's personal site: https://kowitz.co/ Braden on twitter: https://twitter.com/kowitz The Sprint Book: https://www.thesprintbook.com/ Sponsor: Onfido ? This episode is sponsored by Onfido! They're ruddy great, and are looking for a VP design (amongst other interesting design and product roles). Check out their open jobs here: onfido.com/jobs Want to sponsor an episode, or suggest a guest? Email podcast@makegrow.co to get straight to me. Me and progression: twitter.com/jonnyburch progressionapp.com

#11: Braden Kowitz (Google Ventures, Range) on co-creating the Design Sprint, becoming a founder and his design journey

Jasmine Friedl is now Director of Design at Intercom in San Francisco, but has had an interesting, varied career, learning her trade at Facebook before some time at Udacity amongst others.  We talked about deliberately choosing a career that's right for you, learning from bad experiences, being lonely at the top, thoughtful leadership, privilege  and much much more. Links from the episode Bad decisions and wrong turns: one girls guide to career success: https://medium.com/@jazzy33ca/bad-decisions-and-wrong-turns-one-girls-guide-to-career-success-3865d874c847 Women at Intercom microsite: https://women.intercom.com/ Find Jasmine at: https://twitter.com/jazzy33ca Sponsor: Onfido are great ? This episode is sponsored by Onfido! They're ruddy great, and are looking for a design ops person (amongst other interesting design and product roles). Check out their open jobs here: onfido.com/jobs Want to sponsor an episode, or suggest a guest? Email podcast@makegrow.co to get straight to me. Me and progression: twitter.com/jonnyburch progressionapp.com

#10: Jasmine Friedl (Intercom) on having a deliberate career and overcoming challenges

Back in January I chatted to Kevin Goldsmith, a very experienced technical leader with background at companies including Microsoft, Adobe, Spotify and more. He was at Spotify when they evolved their org, witnessing and helping to shape the 'Spotify model' which has now found so much popularity in teams around the world. It's taken me ages to get this episode out, but it's a real corker for anyone thinking about scaling a team in tech. There's loads of lessons learned around parallel tracks, consensus-driven org decisions, managing a rollout of career progression in a company which had grown crazy fast with nothing and much, much more. Enjoy! Links from the episode Kevin on Conway's law (podcast): http://www.se-radio.net/2018/07/se-radio-episode-331-kevin-goldsmith-on-architecture-and-organizational-design/ The Spotify careers documentation: https://labs.spotify.com/2016/02/15/spotify-technology-career-steps/ Kevin's current gig, Astrum U: https://www.astrumu.com/ Find Kevin at: https://www.kevingoldsmith.com/ https://twitter.com/KevinGoldsmith Sponsor: Onfido are great ? This episode is sponsored by Onfido! They're ruddy great, and are looking for a design ops person (amongst other interesting design and product roles). Check out their open jobs here: onfido.com/jobs Want to sponsor an episode, or suggest a guest? Email podcast@makegrow.co to get straight to me. Me and progression: twitter.com/jonnyburch progressionapp.com

#9: Kevin Goldsmith on the Spotify model and rolling out progression at scale

As tech teams we're great at designing and building products and experiences that people love. But one thing that we still can't do effectively is design our own careers. With the help of regular contributors and special guests, we dig into why that is, tackling questions around managing vs making, missing manager tools, soft and hard skills and training, compensation and navigating a new job that's right for you.

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Progression Podcast

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