Johan Berndtsson
June 20, 2023
Let me introduce Linn Morén, Design Manager for Customer Experience in Swedbank’s Baltic digital channels. Linn and her team recently joined Ambition Empower, and I’m excited to share her insights on why they made this decision and how it’s transforming their approach to competence development.
Q: Linn, why did you and your team decide to join Ambition Empower?
A: Competence development is crucial to Swedbank, and your setup caught our attention. The flexibility of remote learning, with just one hour per week, fits well into our busy schedules.
Furthermore, as a geographically distributed team—based in Tallinn, Riga, and Umeå—the remote setup offers a unique advantage. It enables us to foster collective growth and development, which would be challenging to achieve with other programs.
Q: How did competence development work before, and what changed with Ambition Empower?
A: We used to rely on seminars, conferences, and targeted interventions like feedback and pitch training. LinkedIn Learning was introduced to all Swedbank employees a few years ago. There is plenty of good material on disciplines such as business administration. However, finding valuable courses for specialized design and UX professionals was challenging, so instead, we used it to set up a basic design track suitable for non-designer.
My job as a leader is to lower barriers and help my colleagues to grow. Ambition Empower aligns perfectly with these goals. We aim to strengthen our design community, foster a learning culture at Swedbank, and ensure that the new insights we gain provide immediate value to our business.
Q: 19 people from your team have joined Ambition Empower. How have you organized your participation to maximize the benefits?
A: We follow the tracks each week and conduct internal meetings every other week to reflect collectively on our learnings and identify opportunities to improve the ways we work.
Each participant has chosen tracks based on their interests and expertise. However, to facilitate the discussions during our internal reflection meetings, we have merged certain tracks, such as Design Research and Behavioral Design. This ensures we always have sufficient participants engaged in enriching conversations and allows us to enhance our work methods based on the insights we gain.
Q: What has been the most rewarding so far?
A: The most fulfilling aspect has been seeing colleagues embrace and apply the program’s teachings. It’s inspiring to witness new ideas shaping fresh perspectives and approaches. Personally, I found Kim Goodwin’s latest session on the leadership track particularly impactful. Even as an experienced manager, I gained several insights. Learning really is a lifelong journey.
Thank you, Linn, for sharing your valuable insights! We’re thrilled to have you on board! 💜
Curious? Read more at: https://lnkd.in/dZEfcTCp
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