Mica Whitby trained at Makers in 2017. She’s a design leader and people-focused innovator at one of the world’s largest computer companies. Here, she reflects on her career to date and shares advice with aspiring developers.
I have always been passionate about creating stunning digital experiences that delight the people that use them. These days, I’m an Associate Design Director leading the Rapid Prototyping Team in IBM and also leading the Digital Skills Academy which is an induction course for new IBMers.
I lead designers, development teams, projects, programmes, communities, and enable the next generation of technologists. I love making creative spaces where impactful innovation happens.
I’d describe myself as a people-focused innovator, experienced from end-to-end of the software development process. This gives me a unique ability to understand and address both user needs and business needs, backed with knowledge of the underlying technologies needed to meet them.
I’ve had quite the journey to get to this position.
My career started with a business degree followed by the business management graduate scheme at IBM. I found myself focussing on user experience type consulting engagements and found that helping businesses by helping their users was what I wanted to do.
I transitioned into UX design and worked with many clients on various engagements and absolutely loved what I was doing.
However, I didn’t speak the language of the technical people around me, and didn’t feel like I understood the feasibility of my designs.
Photo by Carson Masterson on Unsplash
I was frustrated that although I’d been designing websites for years, I didn’t know how to build them.
Before Makers, I was in a design role at IBM, which is a huge company. I was a designer amongst about twelve developers. And I felt like I was struggling to understand the language that was being spoken around me.
Back then, I didn’t really know the art of the possible. We were working with these really cool technologies like AI and blockchain and all of these big technologies that felt intimidating to me.
I decided to train at Makers to build my technical understanding, but as it turned out, Makers simply helped me to become an even stronger designer and leader.
Initially, I just wanted to be a part of this club where everyone was talking about technology (that to me just sounded so intimidating). But when I came to Makers, I met all of these people and also learned how to learn again.
When I went back to IBM, having new skills and a new confidence meant that I could fully communicate with developers and the technical teams around feasibility. I could even contribute if the developers responded to a design with, ‘Oh no, that would take forever.’
Photo by UX Indonesia on Unsplash
From my training at Makers, I could contribute ideas of how to make things more feasible.
Being able to work better with the developers ultimately meant that I was eventually able to lead the whole team.
I ended up leading the rapid prototyping team. I wouldn’t have been able to do that, or to lead technical people, without technical base knowledge. Thanks to Makers, I could understand best practice, and know that test-driven development and pairing would be good for them and so on. It also felt authentic and meant I could take on a more authentic leadership role.
I believe that everything is about people.
This includes our teams and the people we work with, the support of mentors and leadership to help sponsor you and your career.
The technology we build has to serve people — whether it’s helping users solve a problem, employees to work better in their jobs, the person we’re selling to — maybe digital lead or sponsor looking to deliver on their goals at work.
Only when it does this will it become and product, service or business!
When it comes to a significant mentor who has helped me along my journey, I had a manager that gave me an opportunity to do something never done before.
We tried it and it worked, and so he has continued to sponsor me to give new things a try, and to try things in ways not done before so that I could continuously grow and learn.
You need to know you have support so that you can learn, and the knowledge that failing something is a learning opportunity to improve next time.
Having a manager that supported change and trying new things was invaluable to my career and being able to prove myself.
Recently, I was part of designing, building and delivering a series of fiveHackathons for all IBM Salespeople in EMEA to help them learn cutting edge ways of working, and get hands-on with IBM technology they’d never used before to prototype solutions that solved their clients’ problems.
It was a huge feat that seemed impossible when initially discussing — but the events led to 47 new client prototypes, new skills for 270 sellers and a new appreciation for user-centred design in our salesforce!
Looking back, Makers changed my life and turbocharged my career.
It allowed me to become a better designer, helping me to understand the tech behind what I was designing — it was no longer just making “pretty pictures”. It was understanding how technology can deliver enhanced user experiences and using technology as optimally as possible.
More importantly, it made me a better leader. I came out with a new enthusiasm and confidence I never had before. I was no longer scared of technical pieces of work and learning — diving straight in.
The advice I would give aspiring developers
Innovation uses technology to deliver user and business value. Without user value, no one will use it, and without business value, no one will buy it.
Make sure you’re cross-skilling and having an understanding of the business value of what you’re delivering, leadership skills and ways of working and user-centred design and an appreciation for design will only help you in your career.
Master your technical skills, but cross-skilling will help you to be a better leader, collaborator and help you to increase the amount of work you can do independently — and increase the value of the great technical work you’re delivering.
Photo by NEW DATA SERVICES on Unsplash
Interested in training at Makers? Learn more here.
