11 - Alicia Lippert
Alicia Lippert is the Head of Design Program Management and Engagement at Morgan Stanley UX
Welcome to Design People! We celebrate design people all around the world and share their inspiration, everyday essentials, and important lessons. After reading this, I hope you can learn something or at least smile 😄.
Meet Alicia
Today we’re hearing the design story of Alicia Lippert! Alicia is the head of design program management and engagements at Morgan Stanley.
But first, new to the term design program management? Here’s how Alicia explains her job to her friends and family:
“Well, normally I don’t because it encompasses a lot. Normally, I just say I work on Wall Street and they’re like ‘ah, I get it.’
But when I do, I usually compare it to other agile setups. Every agile team is set up with somebody to handle the work. Engineers have someone called a SCRUM Master but there’s never been anyone for design. A design program manager is that person for the design team.”
Alicia’s Journey to Design Program Management
Alicia’s path started out in political science which she studied at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She was never super interested in just one thing so she felt she didn’t really have a path forward.
“When I got out of school, I panicked a bit because I felt I didn’t qualify for anything - not even fast food! So, I decided to teach myself how to build a website. Specifically, with Lynda.com, I learned how to build Joomla! websites. I went to go work for my mom at her web design and development agency because I knew she couldn’t turn me down - she was my mom!”
Alicia ended up loving the opportunity of building something from nothing - especially the design side.
“Development is a puzzle and design is like magic.”
A couple months later, IBM recruited Alicia as a web developer. Over a span of about 8 years, Alicia took on many different roles all while staying close to the design team. Alicia worked as a web developer, design developer, software engineer, product owner, and eventually design ops manager.
“When a design opportunity opened up in the org, it was super vague and mysterious. It was more like, ‘Danielle needs some help. Do you want to help?’ But, it just kind of fit and I knew I loved the design org.”
Even though Alicia entered this new opportunity and finally got the chance to work in the design organization, she still felt confused.
“I always walked through doors that were opened to me. I never made an intentional decision. So, I ended up going to formal adult career guidance. I did extensive testing and worked with a career counselor.
When the results came, they basically narrowed in on my old job - design operations. This really solidified and hammered home that I actually liked it and I really enjoyed what I was doing.”
Alicia at Work
Today, Alicia works as the head of design program management and engagements at Morgan Stanley. There are 3 different pillars of her role: content design, design program management, and engagement programs.
Content Design
“I work with a team of content writers and designers. Finances, in general, are complicated. So we make sure everything we say to our clients and put out digitally is understandable and jargon-free.”
Design Program Management
“This is a new field in Morgan Stanley and we’re still building the team out right now. Currently there are two design program managers and hopefully one more in 2023. We are starting to track work for all design work at Morgan Stanley.
Since it’s a new team, we had to prioritize where to get our design program managers first. Our client facing platforms, E*Trade and Morgan Stanley Online, are our biggest priorities so we started there.”
Engagement Programs
“This is my favorite part of my job. Engagement programs are any kind of company-offered service or function that make you want to be on the team or continue being on the team. These are things like educational opportunities, intern programs, new grad programs, all hands, or team events.”
Alicia in Life
When I asked Alicia what she does for fun, her answer was simple: pottery and legos.
“Part of what I love to do in Michigan is pottery. During the pandemic, I built a pottery studio in my house - complete with wheel, kiln, and a sink.”
☀️ Q&A
How do you think your experience from all your different roles help you today?
Everything actually connected and went into what I’m doing now. From all my different roles, I learned things like how to work with other people, how to identify problems when you’re talking about them, or how to improve processes that don’t work properly.
When working on large scale or ambiguous projects, how do you make sense of the ambiguity?
I think a lot of ambiguity needs to just happen. A lot of people don’t like that. It makes people uncomfortable.
I think you need to let the fire burn a bit and let it sort itself out. Bigger problems are solved by a continuous process of finding out what you can solve now and making small improvements. Over time, you knock down the smaller problems and bigger problems don’t seem that big anymore.
What advice do you have for someone who wants to break into program management?
You can project manage yourself in a million ways. If you’re coming from a different field, you can show progress of things that you’ve tracked. Tracking process issues of your own or of your team can go a long way.
Thanks for reading this edition of Design People! If you liked what you read, please consider sharing it with a friend 😄. If you know someone you’d like to see featured next, please let me know!
- Allison
Nice studio, Alicia! Maybe someday you'll have a booth at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, and we'll run into you there!