I've been running a series of LinkedIn polls this week around the topic of job titles and portfolios. The first is a question for Managers and Directors who are asked to do IC work in addition to managerial duties. The second, asking people how happy they are with their own portfolio.
While it's always been clear that player/coaches are a thing, I was surprised to see that 44% of Managers or Directors are spending more than half of their time doing IC work, while another 25% are at least a quarter of the time. That's 69% of Managers or Directors who's job involves a significant amount of time not doing management stuff.
Unsurprisingly in the second poll, only 16% of respondents are happy with their current portfolio, while 52% report they've never been happy with them.
I don't think these findings are a coincidence. When there's so much ambiguity in what a job title means, it makes a lot of sense that people are unhappy with their portfolios. Based on my own research and work, the majority of experienced designers and leaders I work with struggle to put their experience into a compelling, unique story.
This is precisely why I've created a new workshop, Powerful Portfolios for Designers in Management. Having a clear story about your experience gives you a competitive advantage in the job market. The question is, can you tell that story clearly enough for others to see it?
After this workshop, the answer will be yes.
– Ryan
CDO School is currently read by over 3,000 subscribers. Support us by (1) sponsoring an issue, (2) booking a classified ad, or (3) sharing this newsletter with friends and colleagues.
Template of the week
The SCR Framework as Figma Slides: When it comes to communicating business rationale, a great communication structure can make or break your presentation. Quickly turn your idea or proposals into presentations executives love with The Situation-Complication-Resolution (SCR) Framework, a popular version of Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle structure.
Cool shares inside CDO School this week
Women-Centric Design → How might we actively and intentionally co-create a future that serves women? A toolkit for impact practitioners to build products, services & systems that center women.
Generate data with Gemini in Google Sheets → If you're a Google Workspace user, you can now create hundreds of rows of data quickly to do things like categorize user feedback requests or write personalized emails, all without being an expert in data or spreadsheets.
How to bring value as a design leader without getting hands-on → "I became a manager gradually and didn't notice how I stopped creating mockups and prototypes, conducting testing sessions with users, and attending daily syncs with developers. One day, I woke up and realized the biggest value I could bring to the table had vanished."
The value you get with Value-Based Pricing
What I'm reading
Everything is now opaque → "When an AI assistant decides what to recommend based on Reddit sentiment, embedded documentation, third-party schema, or the tone of a YouTube review, your analytics stack won’t capture it. You won’t know what tipped the balance. You won’t even know you were in the running – let alone that you lost."
Stop Demanding People Pay Attention. Starting Inspiring Them to Care. → In a world where everyone is demanding your audience pay attention, you know how to inspire them to do so?" Rather than club you over the head with the lesson, do something else: give
Article of the week
Execs know exactly how Designers will show up to the meeting → When business leaders no longer perceive design as unique but common or ordinary, their thinking shifts from the unique value that designers can provide to the costs associated and past results with having designers on a team.
