Senior Manager, User Research, Internal Tools

Lenovo is seeking a Senior Manager for User Research to join our growing User Experience Design team.

At Lenovo, we know that experiences are multi-faceted and driven. That why our Lenovo Experience Group (LXG) uses the Total Experience model to holistically understand the user, customer, and employee experience. In this role, you will lead our User Research efforts focusing on the employee experience. You will apply User-Centered Design principles to understand complex challenges and be part of the team developing world class user experiences for Lenovo employees.

To achieve these goals, you will collaborate closely with other Researchers, Designers, Developers, Engineers, and Product Managers throughout the design process. You will develop a deep understanding of our employee journey and the many touchpoints and stakeholders. By designing and running research activities to analyzing data and providing design direction to project teams, you (and your team) will own be an advocate for our internal users and ensure we are giving them the right tools to exceed our customer expectations. This role reports to the Director of Research and Insights.

DESCRIPTION

• Lead the user research team dedicated to our Internal Tools by managing, coaching, and mentoring a group of researchers to deliver actionable insights and drive our internal stakeholders to be employee centric and data driven.
• Advocate for research as a part of the design process, including educating others outside the User Experience Design team on UX design methodologies and advocate the benefits of good UX research and design.
• Leverage ideation and storytelling skills to bring the voice of the user to life for business stakeholders and prioritize those activities that maximize impact.
• Establish internal research operations, including internal recruiting, to ensure timely and repeatable processes for employee feedback.
• Lead individual research initiatives to identify meaningful and actionable user-centered insights to help the team drive change in our Internal Tools
• Define, plan, and execute iterative user research activities spanning a broad set of products (hardware and software) and involving multiple types of concurrent user research including but not limited to generative work (e.g. interviews, field studies, ethnography), evaluative work (e.g. usability studies, concept evaluations, benchmarking, heuristic evaluations), to summative or validation research
• Experience with various types of analysis techniques (e.g. synthesizing data, descriptive and inference statistics, classification, clustering).
• Work collaboratively with cross-functional project team members and business peers to propose the best experience for our end users

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor's degree (Master's preferred) in User Experience Research, Human Factors, Cognitive Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, HCI/Computer Science, or other equivalent fields
• 7+ years (10+ years preferred) of proven success conducting user research (qualitative and quantitative) in an industry setting or equivalent
• 3+ years of previous user research leadership, ideally in a large enterprise or SaaS company
• Strong portfolio demonstrating breadth and depth in UX research, conceptual thinking, creative problem solving, and deliverables (e.g. study plans, reports, and data visualization)

• Experience designing and executing longitudinal research activities and effectively communicating how multiphase research can drive to deeper understanding
• In-depth knowledge of various qualitative and quantitative research methods and techniques (e.g. interviews, ethnography, descriptive and inferential stats, classification, clustering, etc.)
• Strong analytical and synthesis skills with proven ability to drive research that delivers user-centered product insights and design directions
• Experience working directly with other user experience, research, and design professionals
• Experience directly managing stakeholders outside of the design workflow to balance research rigor with the demands of the business
• Detail-oriented with the ability to be pragmatic and keep the 'big picture' in mind
• Self-motivated and execution-orientated with the ability to work independently as well as take direction within established strategic and business guidelines
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, dynamic, and international multidisciplinary team environment
• Experience facilitating workshops, brainstorming sessions, or other techniques for taking insights and creating impact.
• Familiarity and experience executing a user-centered design (UCD) driven product (or concept) through a development process
• UX research experience in non-US markets