This article originally appeared on the Code Computerlove blog and has been republished here with kind permission.

http://blog.codecomputerlove.com/2011/11/10/code-the-bbc-and-the-good-folks-from-nux/

Northern User Experience (NUX) is an informal community for people interested in usability. Based in Manchester and Leeds, NUX holds free monthly meet-ups in both cities, with guest speakers from the User Experience community.

Code Computerlove host the Manchester meet-ups, donating the use of our office space and facilities (and our refreshments budget) for the events, which typically draw anywhere between 10 and 40 people, depending on such vagaries as the guest speaker and their subject, the Mancunian weather, release dates for Call of Duty: MW3, and high profile football games.

Building a UX Team

On Tuesday we were extremely lucky to have Jane Murison from the BBC (@mewroh) who spoke about what it is like setting up, managing and developing a UX team.

A Good Start To Proceedings

I knew things were going well when I saw Jane’s job title: Head of UX&D for Knowledge & Learning and Children’s at BBC Future Media and Technology, which as far as I can tell covers everything apart from Eastenders and Match of the Day.

When I grow up I want a job title like that.

Another sign of things going well happened when I was setting up the drinks and nibbles table. One of the multipack Monster Munch bags contained an extra pack. In my mind this officially marks it down as A Good Day.

Eyes down for a full house

NUX use Eventbrite for reserving places, and attendance tonight was always looking good, but I was pleased to see a lot of new faces this month, including a few guests who came over from the Leeds branch of NUX.

Clearly the BBC’s move oop north is of great interest to the digital community in Manchester, and this talk was a chance to put a face to the organisation and find out a little more about them.

Insights into working at the Beeb

Jane’s talk was both candid and revealing, giving us a great insight into:

• what the BBC are like as an employer
• how their UX function has grown over the years
• what she might be like as a manager
• what you should look for in building and developing a team.

She covered topics such as:

• what to look for when hiring, and how hiring like-for-like is not always the best option
• managing personalities and team dynamics and potential conflicts
• empowering teams members to define their own roles and personal development
• difficulties she has faced managing a team split across 3 locations (top tip: learn to knit on the train).

Pen and Paper? But we’re Digital!?!

There were also a couple of brief exercises where we were asked to think about what our job titles were, what skills we have and what skills we use.

There was an audible intake of breath when Jane asked us to write these down ON PAPER. I don’t know about anyone else, but apart from a few low-fi wireframe sketches, I don’t think I’ve put an actual pen to some actual paper in a meaningful way in years!

Jane then asked us if we were happy with our job titles; what we would prefer them to be; if we thought they described what we did effectively and what personal skills we each had that we thought were under-used in our current jobs.

This section of the talk was particularly revealing, and certainly made me think about skills I had that were not being used to their full potential, and what I could do to remedy that.

So, tell us about Auntie…

It was also interesting to hear what the BBC is like as an employer; how easy it is for them to recruit (let’s face it, everyone would love Auntie Beeb on their CVs, right?); the scope employees have for career progression, personal development and the types of projects the team get to work on.

Cult Of Personality?

Jane’s talk was presented in a very informal style and her personality and engaging manner really brought the presentation to life.

After the talk, we had a questions and answers session with Jane, and as ever this part of the evening was also very interesting.

Again, Jane was open and honest, answering all kinds of questions about topics as potentially sensitive as how to handle team members who are underachieving or counter-productive, how one sometimes has to punch a loved one in the face in order to get them to leave a burning building.

Overall the event was a great success, and certainly introduced the Manchester UX community to a face within the BBC. On behalf of Code and the NUX I’d like to thank Jane for giving up her evening, and wish her the best of success over at Media City in Salford Quays.

–
Barry

Bootstrap:
The next NUX Manchester event is “All about the Metro UI” with @Ben_Lowe on Monday the 5th December 2011. More details can be found on http://northern-user-experience.org/