Ep.24 From Graphic Design to Product Management - Hannah Dreher

Introduction to Anna Dreyer

0:00hello everyone and welcome for one more episode of the world class designer today with me i have the designer anna dreyer from the us so anna is here to share with us a bit of her stories um what she would suggest for her younger self to become a better or a world-class designer so like without further ado uh hello anna and welcome to the show oh can you talk a bit about yourself

0:36and so people can know you yes thank you glad to be here today um i live in georgia in the united states in the north georgia area and i'm married with two dogs great big dogs um just love animals and uh yeah i love to read and um love solving mysteries so that's kind of how i fell into design and product and all of that world was sort of a love for solving mysteries that followed me

1:09throughout my career okay so like i've seen on your profile anna that you start working as a

Transition to Product Management

1:18graphic designer so can you tell us your transitions from graphic designer and now for product manager and how that happened yeah so i i actually went to college and got a degree in a bachelor of arts and graphic design and fine art and did a lot of different classes i did sculpture classes and painting classes and graphic design and graphic design and it was back when uh graphic designers pretty much did

1:49design work but they didn't do any kind of coding they didn't touch anything really digital it's kind of like you had designers did a lot of press checks went to a lot of printers and made a lot of print materials and display materials and things like that and then you had your developers who worked in a different part of the company and you would give them your design files and they would make it into something digital so there was this kind of like it was a very split world when i was going through

2:20school and coming out of school and a couple years in i was working for a creative ad agency did an internship at one and then worked for a couple years in another one and just started kind of seeing that the way of the world was changing and if i wanted to be competitive and i wanted to really take you know control of my career and my life i needed to add some more skills and not just rely on you know got this degree so now i'm good to go so i ended up working in a startup at one

2:55point um it was doing more um kind of like a daily deals type of thing like a groupon um based in atlanta and i started taking some coding online courses that were free i think through code academy at the time to learn html and css so i could kind of transition myself to a hybrid designer which is what they were called back then kind of learning both digital skills and print skills and i really started positioning myself more towards the digital side of things

3:27seeing that websites were you know responsive design was becoming more popular email design we were coming out of the early 2000s and needing some more advanced techniques than what people had been using 10 years ago so from there i transitioned to another company as a full-time designer working in the it was actually for an international company based out of japan and the u.s office that did building manufacturing supply so i took some more classes learned some more

4:07skills started really trying out some digital design stuff and that's what got me in the door to the company where i'm currently working so i started in their operations department as a digital media designer and all this time i've been taking other classes or reading books trying to enhance my skills learn new things to get where i wanted to go and i kind of fell into product because i would i would give the developers ideas and then they actually started coming to me and asking me

4:39for ideas about how to enhance our operations process and how to make things better for their internal customers um i ended up standing up a email design system which was a modular framework that the designers could use to build emails for all of our clients at the time we went from everyone just kind of coding things from scratch there was no really shared code it was kind of like the wild west everything was all over the place to moving it into this framework where everything was responsive it was built in the system where

5:14you could just pop one piece in and pop another piece out if you didn't like it you could easily change the colors and styles and things so it significantly reduced the production time but also elevated the standard of coding so it was consistent across the board at that point i had started having conversations with the chief product officer for about a year and because it is a smaller company it's probably a medium-sized company there's a lot of opportunity and companies are a little bit smaller medium-sized if you

5:47want to grow and learn a lot of things because you don't have to necessarily get stuck in a

5:54a position just as a cog you know in the wheel if you're the kind of person who likes a lot of challenge that can be a really good environment if it's a good company with a good future and some growth potential so those kind of companies have always attracted me and i was able to move over fully into the product department a few years ago starting as a product owner and then for consumer products and then moving my way into product manager so i've kind of been self-taught and in a good part um had a lot of mentorship as well um from the cpo and from some senior developers in the

6:32company that really advocated for me and helped me kind of find my way into this role that now i really love so that's kind of what i hope is a short summary yeah that's quite a journey uh i could feel like i think like i can feel this need uh from a lot of people especially in my country uh like that they kind of know that they have to make themselves relevant because there is a lot of like media or graphic designers uh and uh like i think you explaining this is a really really good example

7:06like for them of how someone make a shift from graphic design to product design it's it's quite interesting story so like tell me yeah tell me you know so how do you explain now like uh your

Design Process

7:21design process like it doesn't like even like product design process i know now you're working like with developers and uh like with and more people in your team so how do you organize that but how would you explain that for yourself like years ago when you started so um i actually loved this question uh when i saw it come over in the google doc and it's because i think no matter what kind of

7:54design you go into whether it's a product design or a graphic design or any other any other style unless you're self-funded and you can just make whatever you want one of the first hard lessons to learn is that it's not about you okay and you have to get yourself out of the way um i think so especially people who are geared um towards you know being more artistic or more design oriented um even with design thinking or in product design sometimes there can be a little bit of an ego or a desire

8:27that gets in the way to like i really want to see my idea come to life and the reality is that when we're being paid to do a job like that it's not about me being able to see my idea or my design come to life it's about meeting the need of the customer or the company and that particular scenario through really elegant design so i think that that's um that's just something that i would mention to my younger self about the design process and um and i would also say it's really important to um

9:03to make sure you're identifying the right problems before you just jump into trying to design for them as i think like the problem part seems so small but is the most important part of this whole process yeah i agree it's like um i think people generally spend a lot of time on the kind of the back half of it where they've come up with a prototype or an idea they're really excited about it they test it they put all these resources towards it and you really need to spend

9:37a lot more time towards the front end of it making sure you've identified the right problems and going back and reworking that process until you know like this is the right thing to solve and then we can figure out what's the best way to solve it but so many times we're putting resources and time and energy and developers into things that it's like well we didn't even really validate that that was the right problem and now we're surprised that we're having trouble six nine months down the road yeah yeah yeah like uh that's a that's a like a very common problem that we face as designers especially when

10:15we we we are still in early stages of our careers uh so like you said like you have to know that it's not about you it's not about yourself it's about solving the client's problem how did you overcome that how long you told you to learn that i would say i'm still learning that okay but um you know lifelong learner but i had i was very fortunate to be able to participate in the leadership development company

10:49it's called drive at the company where i'm working now and i've been participating in that for the past five years and being able to have um someone really invest in your training like that has been a game changer okay we've done a lot of books together a lot of discussions as a group but just the i remember there was kind of a light switch moment that went off where i just started connecting these things and i had a mindset shift and i think i may have gotten there eventually on my own because i i just love to learn

11:22anyway but it definitely sped up the process of me getting there in a good way to be uh to participate with something like that um so i think it's about being open to other perspectives and not being so tied to your own self-perception that you can't invite um good feedback from people that you can trust i see that's nice uh like related to that i would ask which mistakes uh would you tell yourself to make

11:58i would say take risks okay can you be more precise which type of risks yeah so in your career especially when you're young and you don't have a lot of attachments maybe um that's really a time to take risk and explore things if you don't like if you get out of college or if you don't go to college and you're in some kind of position that you don't particularly like you know however you got there um if you don't like it you don't have to stay in it for the rest of your life it's the time to

12:36make those changes it's the time to start setting the trajectory for yourself so if you have an opportunity to go on a big trip take it like i love international travel it just really um broadens my perspective on the world and um there are opportunities that i passed on because i thought oh it's going to cost too much money when i was younger and now i think you know if i had just done that thing if i'd gone on that course or taken the class or taken the trip or something i'm sure that um

13:09that would have really been a wonderful memory or wonderful enhancement to my life or if i had kind of like jumped down on a limb a little bit like what's the worst thing that can happen like it doesn't work out right most of the time it's just you know things aren't going to work out and you're going to have failure but you're going to have failure throughout your whole career failure and it's better to get used to it early and be able to figure out how to process through it and learn from it than it is to kind of be hesitant about the steps you're making because

13:40you're afraid to fail so i'm not saying like go quit your job without any backup and you know travel the world or anything but okay there's definitely you know there's a line there of you know use wise judgment but make sure it's your own judgment and not other people telling you to do something safe just because they're risk averse did you do that oh no i have not traveled the whole world yet i've just been to a few countries no but like taking risks did you talking i did um the first school i went to

14:13was um i was in a different state from my hometown so that was a big deal i came from a small town very small town okay so going eight hours away to a different state was like felt like being you know not quite in a different country but you know not having family or anybody that i knew around um really forced me to kind of be self-reliant and learn some skills pretty quickly uh same with my work moving to a new city for work where i didn't know anyone really um had a couple family members but um

14:47um you know just having to kind of put myself out there on a limb and actually that's how i met my husband was putting myself out on a limb i went out with um some friends i didn't know very well i was a fifth wheel it was two other couples and me um and i was new to the city and i was like you know what why not i want to open myself up i want to meet people i want to do things and um he happened to be there and the rest was history so there yeah there are good things that can happen when you put yourself out there nice so what would you recommend your younger self to focus on like you know that

Valuable Skills

15:24that skills end up becoming something extremely valuable for you now yes uh so this actually ties into my book recommendations as well but relationship building and learning how to listen well okay are the two things i would say because i think when we talk about skills we often think about like learning a software or a particular tool or really mastering a language or something like that and those are all

15:54great things all those hard skills are fantastic but i think what's gotten me uh to the point where i am in my career and what will continue to take me farther is learning how to listen well and learning how to build good authentic relationships with people okay and i think those transfer to any kind of career that you're in but they will open doors for you um that that hard skills won't always open and they also make up for a lack of some things somebody with a good attitude who can build

16:29good relationships can learn some of those technical skills but someone with only technical skills who's difficult to work with it's going to be really hard for them to move up in their career i see so people skills yeah and i think that once you get to a certain point you also need to really practice the art of influence which is a lot of people skills and if you haven't been working on that before and you're thrust into that position that's going to make it a lot harder for you i see

17:05okay uh like you already mentioned about books uh so like which books you think you learn the most and you suggest your younger self to read them again and which one would you like to include on the list

Recommended Books

17:19yeah so um i actually picked up two here one is i know we're not doing the video but the zen of listening okay by rebecca shafir it's not a a business book in particular it's written by a speech pathologist but what i love about this book is she has a questionnaire at the beginning that you can fill out um that basically helps you identify where your gaps are with your listening skills and then she points you to different chapters that you can read to supplement your listening

17:54skills and learn how to increase um your ability to listen well can you repeat the title again please the zen of listening the zen of listening i'm adding that to my list right now it's also a great audio book i will say i got the paperback book as well just because i wanted to be able to you know go back and take some notes and things but i think it's also an audible and then the other one that i liked i read a few years ago is called ego versus eq and it's how top leaders beat

18:27eight ego traps with emotional intelligence so again just kind of that little kick in the pants reminder it's not about you and if you um if you always focus on yourself and you're not open to getting critical feedback especially as you move higher up in leadership it can become a real problem okay the ego versus you iq eq eq okay and that's by jen shirkhani so which uh people would

19:01you advise your younger self to follow like imagine if they are like good references yeah you know i took a walk in the park as i was thinking about these questions and um something i meant to mention on the books that i think ties into this question is i think it's important to to read and be well rounded so i don't just read business books or personal development books i also read fiction and i read um you know books to enhance my spiritual life as well and so i have people in my life that i

19:38would consider to be spiritual mentors i have an aunt um in particular that um i'm really close with i have some professional mentors that i follow that i've sort of gotten to know through networking um as i've grown in my product career who've been great resources to me to just bounce things off of but i think that whatever kind of person you want to follow um either as a mentor kind of informal mentor from a distance

20:10where you're just following their content um or that you're actually talking to it needs to be somebody who's authentic and willing to kind of give a hand to people that are coming up behind them um and is producing valuable content that really helps you not just um trying to promote a brand or an influencer if that makes sense i don't have anything against influencers but i think that it can be a little bit more difficult nowadays to sort out um what's really valuable and what's

20:41going to serve you well versus um what's kind of somebody who's just promoting themselves if that makes sense yeah so you want to make sure that you're really um following people who are not only telling you you know giving good advice but actually living their advice and proving that it works i see so you want to see the results yeah i see like that's that's very important yeah like you can see like authenticity and people which is kind of hard to find nowadays so uh which uh tools would

21:12you suggest you yourself to learn to become expert i think from a product perspective learning data analytics how to do analytics well is really important i'm actually taking a course on that right now because it's an area i have a little bit of a weakness in um and it's the thing i'm learning about data is you can just really play with it and cut it so many different ways but understanding best practices around that and ethical considerations and things like that is um it's very important

21:48especially if you're going to do anything that's you know make data-driven decisions it's not gonna tell you that there's an error it's not going to give you like a 404 error that you did something wrong you're just going to draw the wrong conclusion so it's i think particularly important um in product to not just you know look at data but really become an expert in understanding data um so i'd say that and then um i do think it's helpful personally to know enough of at least one coding language to be

22:26able to kind of translate or understand um some of what's happening in the engineering team even if they're using eight or ten different languages it just is it's helpful to know one it's kind of a baseline just as a framework to inform some of those conversations but that's just me i found it helpful to have a little bit of technical background um as i've moved into a position where i need to influence and help kind of make decisions around product development nice i think that is really

22:59really important uh like on the analytics part i also learned uh like actually uh from the beginning of my career i was forced to like to to understand data i didn't start as designer and when i started working as full-time as designer i realized how important like being able to read uh interpret and understanding data like to the design process because by the end of the day you're solving problems

23:29and you have to be able to qualify and quantify those problems and having those skills are extremely like important yeah definitely so yeah i underlined that so anna tell me what you wouldn't tell your younger self so as i was thinking about yeah i was thinking about this question um i would not tell my younger self that i can't do it and i would also tell not tell my younger self that i could do it all because i think you need to know that you can do it if you really want to but it it's also going to require

24:08some work and some sacrifices on your part so you might not be able to do it all at the same time but um you can do what you set your mind to if you work hard enough it's just are you willing to do the work nice that's that's a very philosophical philosophical answer my husband would like that he was a philosophy major before he became a designer so he's very philosophical okay nice you see i see where the answer comes from um so like how much from your current like professional success would you attribute to

Luck vs Hard Work

24:47luck and how much do you think it's because you worked hard well if i'm being honest i think a good part of it um is due to the fact that i was born into a place in a home where i had parents who prioritized my education and um paid for me to be able to attend college and do some other things and um they weren't super wealthy or anything but i definitely got a leg up from being able to have

25:21an education like that and i don't think college is always necessary for everyone that just happened to be the path that i took um but i would say that there was some either luck or providence that at work there um that i don't you know i wasn't responsible for being born in that situation you know so there was some some fortune that came to me through that i think in subsequent years of hardships after i kind of got my

25:51first my first boost i think most of my career transitions have been more of the result of hard work but i kind of had a boost to get there and then as i've i've come to know other people and networked with people um you know that always broadens your your opportunities as well um you never know who you know who you meet that could end up being a helpful relationship later and i don't mean that in the

26:24sense of you know just meeting people intending to use them but um as you build mutually beneficial authentic relationships throughout your career it just opens up doors that you might not otherwise have had so i would say yeah probably 50 50 to be honest okay so it's still important like working hard then nice uh that was like my my last question for you wanna so to close this uh do you have any any

26:55question for me yeah i would love to hear more about um what you do and your your kind of design philosophy and how you approach your work um that's that's tricky one because i i don't do much design i love design i wish i could like spend most of my time doing that but i spend most of my time like helping other people becoming designers because uh like i'm not sure if this is luck or is my curse

27:31i can't see the broader view so i feel selfish when i'm enjoying being a designer knowing that i can take

27:44other people like i can improve other people's lives i'm not sure if this makes sense so i spend my time most of my time like working in projects and programs that end up helping other people becoming a better designer i wish i could spend more time doing design work like i love like product design like designing software i love criticizing how people do like uh like software like interactions like ux

28:14writing micro micro micro changes uis animations and all those things i love delighting people through like a screen like with a really good experience but at the same time i can't do that because i know that it's not a good it's not a good way to use my time because by the end of the day the number of people that i touch like the number of people that i'm able to help uh it's more like gratifying uh

28:51like for me and like and i think it's also i see as my obligation for the world like to help other people having a better careers and a better future so yeah i love that and i think it's a very um unselfish way to use your gifts and your skills to help other people i wish i was selfish trust me i beat myself every day for not being able to do that

29:19yeah so but what can i do it's my calling i think it's important to know what your calling is and i appreciate the opportunity um to come on your show as well so this is my first podcast interview so that's pretty exciting for me yeah i saw i i saw you like in an event that i did with uh yeah decolonizing design yeah like i saw the questions that you you were putting there so i can see

29:52you know you know when you know when i think i can recognize smart people when i see one

30:01so i saw the type of questions that you put in there was like this is a nice person to know like not not not everyone can write this not everyone can think like this so you can you can kind of know how people uh based on how they communicate so this is what caught my attention well i just recommended that ego versus eq but thank you that was an ego boost i appreciate it

30:30yeah so and uh so where can people find you online um you can find me on linkedin hannah drear and um i'm a lurker on twitter so i don't i don't post a lot um but if you if you find me i will follow you back okay nice so anna thanks for your time to come into the show and uh hopefully see you next time all right sounds great thanks