Who am I? -
The Full Story
Content
The Engineering Years
A New Start With Coding
The Service Design Revelation
My Service Design Life/Skills
The Engineering Years
Norway
Born in Haugesund, Norway
1984
University
Master of ICT and Reservoir Technology
2003 - 2009
Shell
Production Technologist
2009 - 2015
The West Coast of Norway is known for Vikings, beautiful fjords and, of course, petroleum, so it shouldn't come as a big surprise that I studied Petroleum Engineering at university. Luckily I found a new study that sought to develop IT Engineers that would be suited to making better Petroleum Engineering software, thus combining my two interests at the time.
After university, I started to work for Shell, both in Norway and in The Netherlands, as a Production Technologist (PT), being responsible for production optimisation for oil and gas fields. In addition, I was part of teams that planned the drilling of new wells, which provided valuable experience being in a high-pressure work situation on rigs in the North Sea.
Production optimization demands a comprehensive understanding of the complex system of the petroleum production process. Petroleum is a multi-disciplinary work environment, ranging from operators, engineers, chemists, economists and communication specialists, so stakeholder mapping and leading workshops to find pain points and brainstorm solutions was an integral part of my work.
One aspect I uniquely bring from Petroleum Engineering is HS&E (Health, Safety and Environment). The high focus on HS&E has taught me to identify and mitigate potential health, safety and environmental risks to projects. I find myself doing this in daily life all the time also, either at home or when travelling.
Service Design Skills
Analytical, critical and system thinking
Analytical, critical and system thinking for complex production systems and problems
Multi-disiplinary work and stakeholder management
Working in a multi-disciplinary environment with internal and external stakeholders
Facilitation
Planning and facilitating workshops aiming to brainstorm optimization opportunities for oil/gas fields
Health, Safety and Environment (HS&E) Mindset
HS&E is always in the forefront of projects in the petroleum industry.
A New Start With Coding
After 6 years working in the petroleum industry, I decided to make a career change towards a more dynamic, creative and, personally, fulfilling workplace. I have always been fascinated with smartphones, how they can simplify our lives and provide services at the touch of your fingertips. I also really enjoyed coding at university, so, it was a natural choice to re-educate myself to become a mobile developer.
Getting back into coding and thinking of and designing apps energised me. Even though the course was mostly focused on coding, I particularly liked the designing of the apps we had to code. Thinking of the user interface and the features were something that suited my creativity.
After finishing two 3-months boot camps (iOS and Android), I had three different jobs in various app development companies in Amsterdam. During my time I worked on apps for organisations such as GreenChoice, Red Cross, Kinderpostzegels, HEMA and Jedlix.
I always tried to be as much a part of the brainstorming workshops for new or existing apps, finding that I had a knack for putting myself into the shoes of the user of the app and rooting out problems or pain points the user might have.
In these workshops, user research, analysis, ideation, prototyping and testing were all part of the process. And I slowly realised that this part of mobile development is where I truly enjoyed myself. I sometimes think my slogan should be «Ah yes, that makes sense» after hearing that so often after one of my comments.
When my last company, aFrogLeap/Merkle, had to shut down their whole app development section, I decided to follow this passion and signed up for a 9-week UX/UI Design Bootcamp at Ironhack.
Service Design Skills
Logical and systems thinking
Coding is inherently logical and analytical and requires the ability to synthesise large complex systems. systems.
Creativity
Creativity was important, both in solving coding challenges and in thinking about the UX for the app
User Experience Mindset
Improving the experience of an app or wanting to add value to a users life comes natural to me
Agile and Scrum
Agile and Scrum working methods are used in both development and service design projects
The Service Design Revelation
The UX Bootcamp was educational and fun. I particularly enjoyed the User Experience part of the course. Interviewing users, creating surveys, analysing the information, brainstorming solutions and then prototyping and testing energised me a lot.
The course confirmed to me that this was the path I wanted to follow further. But to where exactly?
Luckily we had a presentation from two Service Designers during the course that turned a light on in my head.
That there was a profession that did all that I was taught at this course, but then for services, was eye-opening. This is the career I have been basically, without me knowing, modelling my whole life after and where I can finally put my skills to use to help people.
Service Design Skills
Design Thinking
Research, Ideation, Prototyping and Implementation
Creativity
Creativity was important, both in solving coding challenges and in thinking about the UX for the app
Visualization
HS&E is always in the forefront of projects in the petroleum industry.
My Service Design Life
For as long as I can remember I have more or less designed my life with Service Design principles in mind. I didn’t realise before that there was a profession that encompasses my lifestyle. Whenever I am out, either shopping, travelling or going to events, I have always analysed the setup of different services. My boyfriend calls it my «practical voice» whenever something doesn’t make sense to me and I voice what could be improved or what is not working. And I have always done this.
In my daily life, I also analyse, listen and interpret different situations, whether it is with organising events or dinners with friends, travelling or simply tidying the house, to make sure everything makes sense for the people involved. I quickly connect the dots in any situation and know how to optimise it and make sure that there are as few pain points as possible.
My background in engineering and coding has given me a logical, analytical and creative mindset, where I can easily root out coding bugs, see engineering possibilities and connect information from many sources to understand a problem.
Empathy is very important to me, and I can easily put myself in others’ shoes, often being the sounding board for friends when they need advice or to talk about relationships, life or work. Reading books or listening to podcasts I tend to focus on stories about people and their lives.
I also enjoy escape rooms, code-breaking books, detective and puzzle-solving board games where you have to digest a lot of information and think creatively to find a solution.
Service Design Skills
Puzzle solving
Analysing codes and puzzles, plus weeding out unessential information, is essential to solving riddles
Empathy
Easily imagine how others are feeling or thinking, coupled with a strong urge to help others
Connecting the dots
Connecting all the dots (empathy, logical, creative, design thinking) that is required to develop great service concepts for users and clients