[英]Facebook產品設計總監Maria Giudice：以人為本是一種心理狀態（圖靈訪談）

Maria Giudice是一位創新者、畫家、女性領導者。她現任Facebook產品設計總監，曾建立知名設計公司Hot Studio，並出任CEO。在Maria的領導下，成立於1997年的體驗設計公司Hot Studio成為了提供全面服務的創新機構。與此同時，Maria也把Hot Studio本身變成了一個以人為中心的產品——一個人們想要為之工作的地方，一家客戶喜歡與之合作的公司。2013年3月Facebook併購Hot Studio後，Maria開始擔任Facebook產品設計總監。Maria經常在美國以及國外發表以設計與合作力量為主題的演講，演講場合包括TEDx，SXSW，以及AIGA設計大會。她長期在夏威夷大學和加利福尼亞大學藝術系任教。Maria Giudice是《創意型領袖：從CEO到DEO》一書的作者，她以設計師和管理者的雙重身份、以多年的親身體會講述設計在企業管理和創新中的應用。

iTuring: What does it mean for a company to be people-centered for the staff? And how can a company be people-centered for both staff and clients?

Being people-centered is a state of mind. As a designer, we must care about all people, and create and do things that will have positive impacts on their lives. As a co-worker in a company, we must act like peers, and treat people with respect regardless of hierarchical level. For those people who report to you, it is important for them to feel like their opinion is important; to act more as a mentor rather than a top-down manager. You will get much better results. The same approach applies to your clients — bring them into your design process and treat them as co-creators. When your clients become part of the creative solution, the process becomes more efficient, and therefore, successful.

iTuring: You are both a designer and a manager, how do manage to affect the collaborative process of product design of your team with your design thinking?

Designers' jobs have moved from simply “makers of artifacts” to leaders of a design process. That means to convene a multi-disciplinary team of engineers, researchers, product managers, and other stakeholders and build a set of activities that can feel inclusive in the design process. Lots of communication, lots of white boarding and drawing activities, lots of expectation setting.

iTuring: As your business grows, does business affect design thinking along the way?

I don’t think so. As the size of organizations grow, the number of teams increase. Even though the number of teams increase, it is ideal to keep team size as small as possible so they can be nimble and move quickly.

iTuring: In software development, the waterfall model and agile practices have contradictive ideologies and usually go against each other, yet you have managed to combine these two methods together in your design process. How do you annihilate contradictions and put these two together?

The reality that as teams move to be more and more nimble, the process itself should be custom fit to the needs and circumstances of the team. We must abandon these labels because very few people follow these methods accurately. The agile process was originally designed to be a pure engineering process, and in order for design to be integrated, the process model had to evolve.

iTuring: Where does innovation take place in your design process? Do more discoveries and strategies in advance mean less space for innovation?

Innovation and creative ideation happens throughout the process. Oftentimes, the biggest innovations appear at the very end of the cycle just before the product launch. You must build in feedback mechanisms throughout the development process. Ask questions constantly. Are we clear about who we are designing for? Have we tested our ideas in front of our customers? Is this something we know our customers will want or respond well to?

iTuring: Some say being fast is everything for a startup, how does a startup balance between product and design?

Startups and technology companies, particularly in Silicon Valley move very fast. In the past, it was more important to be first to market than best to market. Nowadays, it’s much mort important to put out something in the world hat is well crafted, easy to use, and valuable to people. So moving fast is important, but not at the expense of putting a poor experience out into the world.

iTuring: What is the biggest difference between being CEO of Hot Studio and director of product design of Facebook?

As CEO I got to make all the big decisions, and take responsibility for my actions. When you work inside a company, you need to build consensus for everything you do and say. Sometimes, that can be really frustrating.

iTuring: What difference have you made to Facebook? How do you affect Facebook with your own design thinking? Are there any particular obstacles?

Even the small things you do at Facebook have global ramifications. That is the beauty of working at global scale. I can’t point to one single thing because everything we do is a team effort. No single person can take credit for a product or feature that gets released in the world. So many people are involved in its success or failure.

iTuring: In your book Rise of the DEO, you have talked about caring for your staff, improving working environment, and even playing while working. However traditional leaders tend to worry a lot about their people’s productivity under such circumstances. How can one make sure that his/her team would not be getting too comfortable and forgetting to work?

There are lots of articles and data that point to happy employees are more productive in the work environment if they are treated with respect, work a healthy amount of hours, and are recognized for their achievements. Consequently, bad bosses can increase the risk of stroke in employees by 33%

A new British study contends that working for a boss who's considered unreasonable and unfair can make an employee's blood pressure rise. That, in turn, increases the employee's risk of heart attack and stroke.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/martinzwilling/2014/12/02/how-to-squeeze-productivity-from-employee-happiness/
"Whether you are an entrepreneur managing a startup, or a corporate executive with thousands of employees, it’s hard to ignore the evidence of big value from happy employees. For example, the Harvard Business Review a while back included an analysis of hundreds of studies showing an average of 31% higher productivity, 37% higher sales, with creativity three times higher."

http://woreport.wolffolins.com/
http://m.fastcompany.com/3042906/the-ceo-of-the-future-is-a-designer-in-chief
Take a break
"Renewal: Employees who take a break every 90 minutes report a 30 percent higher level of focus than those who take no breaks or just one during the day. They also report a nearly 50 percent greater capacity to think creatively and a 46 percent higher level of health and well-being. The more hours people work beyond 40 — and the more continuously they work — the worse they feel, and the less engaged they become. By contrast, feeling encouraged by one’s supervisor to take breaks increases by nearly 100 percent people’s likelihood to stay with any given company, and also doubles their sense of health and well-being."

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