Saturday, May 17, 2025
You’ve been promoted to a management role, and now your most important task isn’t polishing prototypes or writing research reports—it’s building a high-performing team. The challenge? You were trained as a designer or researcher, not as a hiring expert. In this talk, I’ll show you how I applied my research process to build and scale a successful team. You’ll leave with actionable templates, strategies, and methods for growing your team even without a hiring budget. This session is for you if you are a manager, considering management, or just curious about how hiring managers make decisions.
She/Her
Senior Manager, User Research at Cisco
Barbara Shain is a Senior Manager of User Research at Cisco and leads a team within the cybersecurity division. With a background in both design and research, she’s passionate about collaborating with stakeholders to deliver research that drives successful products and features. Working in the fast-paced world of cybersecurity meant that Barbara had to learn how to hire the right people and scale research fast. She applied her research skills to build a high-performing team and is eager to share the insights she’s gained along the way.
