User Experience Management

Chapter 1. Introduction

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

Stephen R. Covey

One Manager’s Personal History

Imagine you are a freshly minted graduate student from one of Northwestern University’s old cinder block buildings with the pale green paint on the walls, the smell of years of classes, and the beat-up furniture in the lab and the graduate student offices. In a blink of an eye, you are transported to a glass box building designed by Eero Saarinen, walking down a hall lined with private offices to talk with your new boss (see Figure 1.1). ¹ You have just been transferred to her team and you are about to have your first meeting. She has a big reputation, ...