How the best UX researchers engineer moments by design This post is from a presentation I gave at UXR Day 2021, an internal conference for UX researchers at Microsoft. When reflecting on our time cultivating Customer-Driven Engineering in the Developer Division at Microsoft, there has been an important lesson we’ve…

A list of tips for facilitating any group activity — Collaboration is an imperative skill in any workforce. However, being able to facilitate groups toward successful collaboration, is a skill that can make you a superstar in any organization. Whether you’re organizing business strategy or an office potluck (remember those before the pandemic?), helping teammates communicate effectively and reach consensus…

Part 2 of 2: The Process — This post is part 2 of 2 in a blog series. If you haven’t already read part 1, you can find here. Customer-Driven Engineering (CDE) is a culture and product development process that has been cultivated within the Developer Division (DevDiv) at Microsoft; the division responsible for creating tools and…

Part 1 of 2: The Culture — I grew up with Microsoft. As a kid, I remember using MSDOS to help my brother launch a pre-Internet BBS from our childhood bedroom. After college, I used Microsoft Visual Studio and ASP.NET to build websites for my first real career job at a children’s hospital. I can’t imagine finishing…

This is part 3 of 3 in a series where I’ll share our learnings in transforming an in-person workshop into one that was run completely online. In my first post I discussed our strategies and goals for transitioning our in-person workshop to a remote workshop. In my previous post, I…

This is part 2 of 3 in a series where I’ll share our learnings in transforming an in-person workshop into one that was run completely online. In the previous post, we discussed our goals for running a remote workshop. One of our biggest goals was to create a fun, vibrant…

This is part 1 of 3 in a series where I’ll share our learnings in transforming an in-person workshop into one that was run completely online. Introduction One of the coolest things we’ve been able to build in DevDiv to support our Customer-Driven Engineering culture is an onboarding workshop for all…

NOTE: This article was originally posted on the Notes for Growth blog. This is a blog where our team shares notes on the books we’ve read. The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact is an exploration of the characteristics of memorable and impactful moments. Through moving and…