Refresh Conference 2023 – showing meaning, not effort

My previous manager referred me to Jakob Randrüüt, the stage program manager at Refresh Conference.¹ A few hours before my slot, I was in ERM’s library – a long shared table, enforced quiet, no phones. I’d submitted the slides weeks earlier. I went through them one more time anyway, rethinking the words rather than changing them. Across the table, someone’s laptop had a sticker I didn’t recognize. ChatGPT had launched two months earlier.

The preparation that mattered had happened before that. Emilia and I had agreed to a review session – no slide deck yet, just symbols sketched on a whiteboard in the order I intended to use them. She showed me where her attention drifted: the sections where I was documenting effort rather than revealing meaning. I cut them.

I had taken over the UX team 18 months earlier. This was my first chance to share what that had taught me. Choosing what to implement was part of it. Committing to it fully was the harder part.

I had made THE PLAN before any of this – everything I felt was essential, all in one document. I was proud of it. Then ashamed. The actions were based on gut feeling, not evidence. Beans thrown at the wall. The frameworks were the research phase I had skipped.

1. Nielsen Norman Group’s UX Maturity Evaluation Individual two-hour interviews with each team member gave us a ground-level snapshot. Teams that had worked closely with a UX team member for at least six months showed structured collaboration; others were still at limited or emerging stages. For the first time, the team had a common language for the problems – and for how to proceed.
2. McKinsey’s 7-S Framework I started this as a journaling exercise – my understanding and feelings on paper. The structure made it quick to distill the gaps. Strategy: the team’s direction wasn’t agreed upon or communicated. Style: my democratic approach made me appear indecisive. Skills: the team was excellent but needed guidance I wasn’t providing.
3. Game Theory An unexpected find – a thread on Reddit I was never able to trace back. I used it to map interactions between me, stakeholders, leadership, and our internal customers. It showed me how to update my communication: what to say to whom, and what to ask for.
4. VRIO Analysis The most demanding exercise – completed across two flights, including airport waiting times. I evaluated every project, every delivery, every hour the team spent. The immediate finding: offering design as a service in other teams’ workshops produced outcomes nobody used. That was the waste to eliminate first.

The most demanding part was recognizing what was actually happening. Around October 2022, I realized I was procrastinating – looking for one more framework instead of concluding the analysis. That was the imposter syndrome. I forced myself to finish and present the plan to my managers.

The strategy had four priorities: educating other teams in service design, keeping the UX team’s work visible, developing competencies, and establishing measurable results for what design was producing.

I had a great time speaking at @RefreshRocks about building and executing UX area strategy in a bigger organization. Also that was the first time I field-tested @iAPresenter. 📸Paula Koppel pic.twitter.com/Cpymt2hY43

— Esko Lehtme (@eskolehtme) January 28, 2023

After the talk, I spent longer than expected in conversation. People recognized the problem – design teams running as a beauty factory, real value uncaptured. They didn’t want more frameworks. They wanted to know how I had communicated with stakeholders: what I’d said, what I’d asked for, how I’d made the case.

The frameworks brought us back to foundational principles and aligned our actions with our goals. Depth of commitment to the chosen tools mattered more than the selection.