Meet Magali Amalla, Experience Director – Globant Buenos Aires.
Here at Globant, our Globers represent and live our culture. Cover Stories are a space to feature recognized Globers. In this edition, meet Magalí Amalla, Experience Director at the UX Studio.
– How did you find out about Globant?
Globant and I met in a bar at La Plata City. Globant was giving a talk, and I was trying to understand the course of things for the future. I think we met at the best time.
After a while, I participated in an open workshop held at Globant’s office, that was when I met some Globers that drastically changed my professional career path. Among them: Gabi Moirano (pregnant with a great mommy’s belly) and Ivan Wolcan (with his great ponytail, as usual).
– What was your first perception of the company?
I have always had the perception of Globant as a space that allowed me to experiment, with the good and the bad that this could be for some of us. What moves me the most is to have the ability to experiment, to find a space that constantly challenges me and that trusts that I will give my best, letting me do great things, it’s moving.
– What is the biggest challenge or most innovative project you and your teammates have had to face?
I think about that and my eyes get teary. The biggest challenge I had to overcome was as UX Director in a project for a huge client in Spain: comprised of 320 Globers in which 36 were designers, 14 offices. It was a big bang project, getting five products to the market simultaneously, all in 547 days. Doubtlessly, it was the biggest, most challenging and most amazing project I have been involved. I faced a world of new things, may be the most difficult one was going with the emotions of a great team with a goal of achieving excellence in a complex context.
I’m convinced that it was a difficult experience but completely gratifying, we learned a lot and I know that today it means a big lesson for all of us.
– Can you remember any anecdote on an initial project?
Despite there were designers from the Studio in different projects, I was the first UX formally assigned to a project with that role. You can imagine all that happened after that.
One day I went all in and we did shadowing at an industrial park. Shadowing is a users research technique that is based on an observation methodology, where you have to observe people in their context to learn about their behavior and detect their mindset. The key of this technique is to be inconspicuous. In this case , it was all the other way around: we had to wear blue helmets, it was something like taking a neon sign with us saying “we are visitors”.
– Define Globant in three words.
Create, Try, Learn.
– If you could say just one thing to people starting their professional path in UX , what would you say?
Think, ask and create in teams. Alone we can’t do anything that will really have an impact on people’s lives
– Which three books would you like to recommend a Glober?
It’s difficult, each book has its moment to be read. That in mind, I would recommend a book that I’m finishing at the moment: “Pensar con Otros” or “Think With Others”, by Guadalupe Nogués and edited by El Gato y la Caja. I started to read it because I was afraid, and when I’m afraid I read a book. We live in times where critical thinking and communication are key to fight the gap, they are a wire to earth and a survival tool, as the author mentions. I hope many more join us in thinking with others. To me, it’s still difficult, I’m training!
– How do you motivate your team?
I always try to find motivation from oneself, and not imposed by others. Motivation is something one has to learn to develop, the gas that one generates for oneself. Maybe my role is key to collaborate with this development, but its not my task to create that motivation, and that is completely different for every person that belongs to my team.
There are many necessary tools to develop motivation, but two that can’t be missing and I consider key are: help them to know themselves and build resilience.
Helping them know themselves is always the first step, to be sincere with the inner self and get to see difficulties as challenges and not as threat. On the other hand, without the ability to overcome defeats and gain strength from them is unlikely they will feel motivated.
– Tell us a little bit about the Design Center.
The reality of UX Design some years ago was completely different to the one that exists today. There was no official offer to study and prepare, the community was small and there were not enough job opportunities for people to get inspired with the topic. At the same time, at University we could perceive how an excellent student was overwhelmed and frustrated when entering the job market. And in this context, Globant had the need of inviting more UX designers to our Studio. We had to do something!
That’s when Gabi Moirano took the lead and together, started to build the Design Center. The Design Center is a training program that we developed at Globant. It’s available to senior-year students and recent graduates in fields like Design in Visual Communications, Industrial Design, Graphic Design, etc. The Design Center goes for its 8th edition as it’s developed since 2014. Its main goal is to give the design graduates the tools to develop in the professional arena. We do this in a format that involves 80% practical and as close to reality as we can.
To the attendees, the Design Center means a way of getting close to the reality of the professional context, to interact with other roles, work in teams and overall, to challenge theory.
To the organizers of the Design Center, it is the space where we challenge our knowledge. We learn where’s the professional market, our strengths and weaknesses and our passion. The majority of the people that do Design Center are teachers or passionate about sharing what we know. Having the possibility of generating this space at Globant, was amazing.
Today, more than 40 people of the Studio have graduated from the Design Center.
– Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Let’s talk and listen more.
