Ep.17 Fail fast to learn faster - Thaisa Fernandes

Introduction

0:00so hello everyone uh this is gideon uh and uh welcome for one more episode of the world class designer podcast and with me i have great host my thaisa sorry i have a friend called maiza so i tend to mix the names sorry for that thaisa uh thaisa uh thaisa she's actually a project manager at twitter uh but she does have a background on design and she invited me to be a guest in her

0:39podcast like in the past which was really really cool uh and i think uh thaisa have a lot a lot to share with us uh about her experience uh as designer and like of course as the topic of the

Thaisa Introduction

0:55podcast says the recommendations for her younger self thaisa uh can you please introduce yourself talk a bit about you so who are you what you do for living yeah absolutely first of all thank you so much for inviting me it's truly an honor to be part of your podcast that i liked a lot so a little bit more about me i started my career as a designer i studied in brazil say like we call it like social

1:31like communication with emphasis in advertising and i think when i was in college was really focused on like the design aspect of it we call it like the creative side of things so i thought i wanted to be a designer and i worked as a designer for a long time but after a while realized that i enjoy more working with designers than actually being a designer and i also realized that there's a lot of design aspects of my job now even though i'm not a designer anymore which is great so now i'm a program manager

Program Management

2:08i work at twitter and i work with the twitter apis so and it's interesting because what i work now i actually don't have design it's just like code it's just like apis and in my free time i really enjoy like having conversations with the community and just like learning with other folks and especially folks that also work in tech immigrants so i launched a podcast called latinx in power that

2:41ideoli was part of that we have conversations about different teams and i'm really interested to learn more about the journey of other folks and i really like this idea that our paths are not linear they're not supposed to be linear but all our experience adds to what we do now and i feel that my background as a designer definitely helps me to be a better program manager helps me to create better products i would say so tell me tell me like i've made a mistake on the introduction i say project manager so what's

Project vs Program Management

3:15the difference between project and program manager yeah so this is a common question that usually people have so projects will the definition will be something that has an end goal so when you have a project you usually have a goal that you want to achieve a budget a team so it's really controlled in a sense that it's going to end so the project manager is the person who manages this project in a task level

3:48take care of the budget make sure that we have the right team and we are delivering something that uh is expected and the program it's really different from projects so the program it's more something that has a business objective so you're always uh thinking about something that you're going to achieve in a long time it's always something external that your environment is going to affect a lot so usually in a program you have a lot of projects that are happening at the same time so usually one project

4:23is not something that is going to help you to achieve the business goal but like many other projects will help you to achieve this business goal so and you don't manage the projects you can manage the project but you most most of the time you influence the project so you are always also working with project managers but always thinking about your overall business objective your goal not the project the task level i would say i see and where the product manager comes in there yeah that's a really

5:01good question as well because it's kind of like the names they always start with p and people usually say pms and it's just really confusing so and the pro the the product it's it's totally different as well because the product it's something unique it's something that you are creating and different from the projects it's something that doesn't have an end right because in your product you are always creating something you are always like because your user is also always changing and learning and

5:37their needs are going to change over time so the product doesn't have an end you can never say oh i'm done i finished right so and i work with product managers and basically the difference of my role is more that i'm focused on the operation side of things i'm focused more on like the business objective for example what i do right now we are a big program and and we actually have three programs

6:09we have the twitter developer we have the the twitter what we call it as like twitter marketing partners which is a closed ecosystem where we have some partners that offer great solutions that will increase the value of twitter and we have another program that is focused on like brands and agencies so i essentially have three programs and they all help me to achieve the business objective of my team but they have different goals as well and the product will be the twitter ads api which is

6:42what i work now oh i see i see like wow yeah that's a master class on product project and program management yeah and it's interesting because the product is the twitter ads api and all those programs that i mentioned they all use the the product which are those apis but they have different goals they have different meanings and it's really mind-blowing because we are essentially working we call it partner partners because they are their partners and they are working with us they use the apis that my

7:18team creates but they they essentially they build software and they build software because they have different like goals so they can provide many many many different solutions and it's a global program as well so depending on the region they might have different needs as well so it's really interesting i see that's that's fantastic so but tell me how your career is a designer like end up has

Career Shift

7:48program you already said but can you describe your first work what happened when you jumped and how you moved today i know you're from brazil living in the u.s now so how was your career shift and how things happened yeah so i think i became a designer because in college they were so focused on like the creative side of things and in my mind i was really thinking a lot about design for me in the past was

8:19basically what you see like the visuals right the graphics and after a while i learned that it can be experiences how you make your user feel right so this was a shift for me as well but i think i worked a lot of time as a designer in the beginning of my career especially when i was in college i did a lot of internships and my goal was always to learn and you know like learn as much as i can experiment so i

8:50worked with companies i worked with startups i worked with agencies when i was there but i feel that i'm naturally a really organized person i like to plan so i really enjoy this part and i think that the shift happened really naturally at the time i moved from the city i was born i was living in a bigger city which is a sao paulo and we were having conversations at this agency at the time because

9:25they really needed a project manager and i never thought about it and someone suggested oh you'll be a really good project manager and i was really afraid you know to change because i thought i wasn't ready i thought it was super complicated and i thought i didn't have the skills and then i thought more about it and i was like no this is actually what i kind of do already you know i like to plan i'm organized and i think this will work so i make this shift to project management and i worked for

9:59a long time especially when i was in sao paulo in advertising agencies which was my goal when i decided to move to sao paulo i wanted to work for like big ad agencies i wanted to work with like global projects global brands and when i moved to the west i made the shifts to program management i actually never heard about program management before i still feel that this is something really new especially also here in silicon valley i would say but especially in brazil and when i learned more about it and

10:35then i thought oh this is actually really interesting because it involves a lot of the business aspect of it there's a lot of strategy and planning which are things that i like as well and at the time i was doing a course in uc berkeley and i actually had a class about program management with a guy who wrote a book about program management that i really like so i think that was the moment that i was ready do you mind if i just uh uc berkeley with this guy who wrote this book so i was really excited about

11:11and i feel that it's really dynamic and it's impossible to feel bored uh so i really like it so this was the moment that i made the switch uh to program management okay so like uh so tell me about

Design Experience

11:28your experience uh like regarding design going to the topic of of of our podcast like about becoming world-class designer and how would you based on what you've learned from your experience as designer how would you describe design for your younger self yeah i think i would say to my younger self that design can be a lot of different things including as i mentioned like how the experience side of thing

12:01i think that's really interesting that was something that i didn't know in the past and i always really focus on like the graphic design side of things and okay as i learned more about especially ux in service design i felt that that was mind-blowing to me and i feel that it's really be really interesting so yeah i think i would say that to myself that design can be a lot of different

12:34things not just the graphics not just the visuals and i think if i knew that many years ago i think i will maybe experiment in other areas as well especially like service design i would say i think it's something that i feel that is really interesting and yeah nice and what about your design process how would you explain yourself your design process yeah so i think after some years i i understood that a lot of my

13:10process happens in my head okay you know i tend to to think a lot about things and i really like to to research and i really like user research so i'm always like talking with people and i think like for my younger self i didn't have the knowledge that you know i didn't know much about user research for example and for to me it was always really important to talk with my users or read what my users

13:48were saying and i always thought the need to to know a little bit more about how they felt but i didn't have the language to call it user research for example just to give an example i used to work for a big cosmetic brand in brazil and i i was a designer uh there and what we usually do did was like global campaigns and to me when i work at this company it was really mind-blowing because i was part of

14:19different aspects of the product so for example i used to test the products when they were like creating a new cosmetic line i always volunteered to test and there was like certain ways you needed to test the cosmetics that i had no idea and that was really interesting to be part of like since the beginning i really liked that and i also was part of the marketing campaign so was really interesting as well and as we used to launch like national campaigns and i learned also as i was working more

14:58at this company for like a longer time i also learned that different regions of brazil they used to buy different cosmetics because they have like different needs and it was really interesting for me for example the north of brazil is hotter so they consume a different type of cosmetic than like the south that is a little bit colder and i think at the time when i i was like it was there was an internship in the beginning then they converted to a full-timer and it was really interesting to me it was the first time that

15:29i had the sense of like how your users are going to consume your products differently and in brazil we have like different holidays and some holidays they are more important in certain regions than the others and i also realized that we needed to create some extra campaigns or like visuals depending on the holiday or make some adjustments so that was really interesting because i only learned that because

15:59i was talking with my users i was talking with people and in like understanding also their needs and i started to propose like to create different designs depending on the regions and different campaigns it was really focused on like marketing but i was truly part of like the entire process when they were creating those products so it was really nice and i didn't have this knowledge that i was actually doing user research for example or you know and thinking more about this now i think it's

16:31really interesting and i had a lot of fun it was really really nice that's that's quite a quite a quite experience so like what about mistakes uh what mistakes would you suggest your younger self to make

Mistakes and Learning

16:47sorry i didn't hear what you said i was asking about mistakes which which mistakes would you recommend your younger self to make because you believe that you learned you learned the most from them yeah i think i would recommend to myself to make more mistakes overall i think because i feel that in the the beginning of my career i was really afraid to commit mistakes because i thought it was something

17:17bad and now i have a different perspective about mistakes i really like this like agile idea that you're going to fail and if you fail fast this is actually something good because you learn when you fail and i also like this idea of like not just collecting mistakes not just learning like doing something about it and and i just recommend to my own younger self just to experiment more and don't be afraid of

17:49like failing because it's actually something good because you learn and we need to learn fast and implement you know and also like making sure that you are in an environment where you can experiment and fail i think this is also important because sometimes you you can't you know and you're you're not in the environment that people have this mindset as well i think this is also important so what about like getting extra skills uh which what would you recommend your younger self to focus like you said

18:25you you you wish you could experience like more other things like experience design uh service design if i understood correctly so what else would you recommend your younger self to get extra skills in yeah i think i will recommend to get i quite often think about communication skills because this is basically what i do as a program manager because i'm always in meetings i'm always talking with people

18:59i'm always like discussing different point of views and trying to help the team to come up with a the solution so i feel that communication skills are really important and it's something that coming from brazil i think we don't focus that much on in this skill for example becoming a better presenter it was something that i started to focus more after i moved to the u.s because i feel that we don't talk about it that much in brazil and it's not something that we we try to improve

19:35so i think the communication skills like written and verbally it's something really important i wish i focused on that in the beginning of my career and now it's something that i pay a lot of attention i spend a lot of time like really crafting especially because i also work in my second language so i feel that there's like a layer of pressure on that and i feel that the folks i work here they are they are really good at like presenting and communicating communicating overall so i will definitely focus on that in the

20:11beginning of my career i see uh oh you you end up answering my my other questions like saying saying that so tell me what about books which books will you recommend your younger self to get into because you believe you they you will learn most from them yeah i i think first of all i will recommend to my younger self to read more books i think i didn't have a lot of folks around me in the beginning that was actually

20:46reading so i never pick the uh habits of like reading books constantly so it was something that i developed over the years i think i never yeah i had inspiration or it was something that i need to kind of force myself to read more and now like i read a lot i i try to read one book per week which i think is insane but at the same time i learned so much from books and they're like so inspiring i think it's a really nice

21:17way to fast track your career you know and skills overall so and i have maybe three books that i really liked and kind of like changed me so there's one book that's called five dysfunctions of a team i always talk about this book because i feel that it's really inspiring it's a book about conflicts okay and to me i always thought that conflicts were something bad something that i should avoid and now after i read this book

21:54i realized that conflicts can be something really good because it's an opportunity to discuss different point of views and you can have an agreement and you can learn more about what the other person is feeling what they need so i just approach conflicts in a different way and talking about not just like in a work environment we will always have conflicts you always have like people with different opinions and kind of like knowing how to navigate well those situations i feel that is really important and this

22:27book really changed me and it's really important for me so i really like this book and there's another book it's an old book but i feel that it's still relevant it's like the lean startup book uh i really like this book it's just really interesting because it brings a lot of concepts that i really like the one of like failing fast but also validating your learnings not just like learning you know like failing learning great but if you're not like validating your learnings what's the point right and he talks about

23:03frameworks that i really like kind of like five whys that i really like which is asking why five times until you get to the root of the problem and yeah this book it's really important to me and another book as i really like to write i write a lot in my work as well so as a stephen king book it's about writing it's called on writing it's kind of a memoir but it's just really inspiring really inspiring

23:36because yeah it's a book about writing but it's not a book about grammar or how to write well it's more about how your journey your personality can influence the way you write and and he talks about the sense like if you want to become a writer if you want to write well you need to write every day and it was really important to me and i really enjoy learning more about stephen king to be sincere so i really like those three books nice like i think like communication is is it's a very important

24:11skills like i've been listening a lot of people like saying that uh like their younger self will focus more on communication but in like emphasizing like writing uh i think is one of the parts that it's kind of missing and it's really nice that you you kind of cover it here so like nice i think our audience will like should definitely take uh this as a note like even myself i think i've i've i've been trying to make it consistent like my habit of writing because like writing actually helps you think more

24:46clearly because you think you know something try to write about it you will see so it's really hard so it teaches you to think in a more in a more logical way yeah in a more structured manner so like writing is a really good exercise even for speaking communication so yeah yeah just just to comment on that i'm sorry okay go ahead uh yeah yeah i have a suggestion because i started to write more uh because i wanted to force myself to write in english seven years ago when i moved to the us but it was

25:22actually something that helped helped my career overall and i think personal projects are really good because you will have a lot of freedom and you can experiment so if you want to write more if you want to become a better communicator you can volunteer to write for blogs or you can create your blog so you can do a lot of like as a side thing that i think is really interesting because you have freedom you can experiment and there's not a lot of pressure and that i feel that at work sometimes there's a

25:55lot of pressure right so if you do like side things like that i think it can help because it helps you to build the skill and you can experiment nice that's fantastic uh so uh like uh what about following so who you would recommend your younger self to follow i think i will like overall i will recommend my younger self to follow folks that inspires me that are aligned to the things i believe

26:31and not just the famous folks you know because i think there's a difference on that right like people that are really famous but when you get to know their personality you quite don't enjoy as much i think i will focus yeah you gotta be disappointed yeah i know i know that yeah yeah yeah i think like overall i will i will ask folks myself i would say to follow folks that really inspire me in a like a

27:02deeper level and there's like a lot of especially writers that i like angela davis tony morrison brennan brown there's stephen king as well so i think i would recommend myself to like follow folks and get to know more folks that really inspire me and not like i think i also spend a lot of time just like reading books for example about things related to what i do to my professional life

27:33and which is great it's awesome i learned a lot there's a lot of great books like the ones i said but also things that are not related to work i for example i really like to read like comic books and this year i have been reading like romance books that is something that is kind of new to me because i was never like a person like reading romance and i'm really enjoying because it's also like it's helping me to go to a different place that is more about not about work not about what i do but

28:05having different experiences and i'm also learning with them and it's it's been great as well i see that's yeah like romance i wasn't expecting that yeah i think i read i think i read like i don't know like four like romance books okay so like tell me what about being expert like what would you tell like the younger taiza to become expert in because you believe that that's cute like the side of

28:41communication that you already said on something that you think is gonna will be a killer skill to have so you will go to your younger self and say you know what you better specialize on this because this is gonna help you a lot in your professional future yeah that's a difficult question i would say that that would be leadership okay like leading i think it was something that my entire career i tried to avoid those situations and i tried to avoid to become an expert on or because it's scary right

29:19it's really scary i feel and i always avoid that and now i feel that you can be a leader depending it doesn't matter your level level because we have different expertise and even if you are an intern you can be an expert in a certain area that the other folks that are more senior they are not and there are some situations you can lead something in your organization for example because you are an expert on that and having the sense of like how to lead i think it's really crucial

29:56it's really important and it doesn't matter the level you are okay although it's scary it's it's not easy nice leadership skills yeah so how will people learn leadership skills just volunteering themselves to be in a leadership positions i think we also i think it took me some time to to think more about that and accept so and how would you tell yourself to do that good references and references that in a deeper level align to yourself and what you believe and i feel that now the thing that it's really

30:34valuable and sometimes we don't talk that much about it's our personality the importance of bringing our personality to everything we do and because this is truly what makes us unique right because in terms of skills it's easy to develop skills it's not hard you need time and you need money like sometimes not all the time but you essentially need time and money and after a next period of time you're going to develop the skills but bringing your personality is something that really makes you unique so i feel that it's really

31:09important to also consider that especially when you are leading and bringing your way of thinking your way of doing things that might be different from your reference or what we are used to see out there but that's okay as well that's okay you know okay i see thanks like fantastic fantastic fantastic feedback but that's that's that's really important i think a lot of people will will will benefit from this

31:42so like uh tell me taser what would you wouldn't tell your younger self

31:53i wouldn't tell what i'm doing right now you know like because i was a designer and now i'm program manager i wouldn't say to myself like oh you're going to be a program manager you're going to work with program like products and programs because i don't know i think this will impact my process you know because i i left this process where i really wanted to be a designer and i was a designer for a long time and then i realized oh this is not actually what i want to do and i changed and i think all the experience

32:28that i had was really important to my career and to myself as a program manager now so i wouldn't trade that i wouldn't fast track the spirit yeah it's nice because you think that will will does encourage uh-huh okay i see yeah i think so if i if i would know that after x amount of time i will become program manager maybe i will try to fast track this period or learn more things related to product to program

33:04management instead of like focus on like design or other things that i did during my career and now i feel that it's really important like all the experience that i had before um yeah i think that that's that's that's important and another thing i just thought about it i think i would say to my younger self not just think about the things that i like doing that i enjoy doing but also think about the impact

33:38uh you know that i'm promoting uh you know that i'm promoting and also career progression and all those things that sometimes we don't talk much and i learned over time to really prioritize as well nice uh and uh like to close taiza how much of your current professional success would you attribute to

Luck vs Hard Work

34:15luck and uh how much will be hard work yeah this is a really good question it made me think a lot i truly believe that it's a combination of luck and hard work i don't believe that only hard work will help you to get there because we live in a system that is not supposed to be fair so it's not like mathematics right it's just a combination of a

34:46lot of things and we still live in a society that is sexist is homophobic it's racist so it's just unfortunately the way things are and the system is wrong i truly believe that the system is wrong and we need to change the system so there's a lot of luck involved on that and lucky can be a lot of different things for example depending on where you were born you might have different opportunities

35:17or depending on like your family you will have access to different things and it's the lucky aspect of it because you were born in the situation right and there's also i feel that that all sometimes people call lucky but it's also seeing opportunities you know like seeing an opportunity and just trying to grab it trying to do something about it and i think this is also

35:53an aspect of it like being able to see opportunities find those opportunities and trying to get there and i think my entire career was a combination of all of those areas like lucky hard work and be able to see opportunities and find those opportunities for different reasons right because i have access to it but i knew someone that will help me to get there or just myself trying to to break and have access to those opportunities and

36:35creating something on it so yeah i think my entire career is just a combination of all of those

36:45okay what do you think what's your thoughts about it the lucky aspect or in hard work

37:00like wait for who like for my current professional success uh-huh first of all i don't consider myself a successful person why i'm really far from what i think i can achieve uh like professionally i still have i still think that i have a lot to go a lot to learn and i i'm yet to prove myself because i've been promoting this

37:35world-class designer thing and for me it's really important to walk the talk right and i'm world-class designer on paper i have to prove that i'm world-class designer with work so

37:51so i think i need to work i still i still have a lot of a lot to do so like luck it's a very important factor like i was lucky enough for my father being able to pay like for my university uh to like uh to have a good family uh but i will tell that like although i don't think i'm successful but to be where i am now was required a lot of hard work i had to sacrifice i'm still sacrificing a lot but it's not so hard

38:31for me because i truly believe in what i'm doing and i don't think there is any other way to live life that makes sense

38:43i totally agree with you and i think you are successful the only thing i don't agree with you

38:51so i think like you end up asking me the last question that i was about to ask you uh so which was related to having a question like for me and like this was a nice one i really like this one i never thought actually i never thought i do ask a lot of people but i never thought about me like answering that question uh-huh yeah and it's nice that we also agree and i think this is a

39:23question that the hard work versus like the lucky aspect of things in your life and i think this is something that people tend to think about only the hard work side of things but we don't talk much about the lucky aspect of it and it's just like something that will help a lot yeah like a lot just for you have an idea like the minimum wage in mozambique is equivalent to a university fee

39:54so a monthly university fee so it means that if i had born in a family that couldn't afford that was living based on a minimum wage i would never have gone to university and i would never become the person that i am today so this is a factor that i couldn't control so i am 100 aware that that is a luxury in mozambique i think i'm part of the 10 of people that actually went to university which is

40:26yeah so which is a really huge privilege yeah yeah yeah absolutely and when you go to the university you have access to a lot of different things that is just life-changing and just having access or knowing that you have an opportunity to do something it's just seeing yourself doing something i think is just also something that changes a lot like in your mind what you feel that is possible right definitely

41:01couldn't agree more yeah so so just to close uh tell me where can people find you online i know you are on twitter you have to be on twitter yeah i i have to tweet it's nice because i can leave my twitter open and it's just i'm working yeah people can find me on twitter my my handle is tai fernandez and you can also find me in all social media channels and in my podcast latinxempowered.com we have an episode

41:35coming every month with a different team and i would also invite all of you guys are listening to us today to listen to gideoni episode about decolonizing design from a latinx and african perspective i really like those this conversation we have nice thanks azo for your time and uh hopefully see you next time in in the future yeah that would be awesome thank you

42:14you