Hello there! I am

KD Singh Arneja

I am a ux strategist.

about me

Profile

Years of Experience

Years of Management

Largest Org Managed

Most products supported

UX Leader and Strategist

I help implement UX and Product Strategies using a player-coach model where I plan and coach as UX Directior, Research enabler and UX Architect, while guiding the team in making visions and ideas into tangible and delightful product offerings.

Product Designer/Manager

As a product designer and strategic product thinker I empower high performing teams to sustain smooth journeys from concept to backlog by using story telling, MVP mindset, product-ux prioritization and go-to-market strategies.

Convictional Agilist

At core, being an agilist and having extensive experience as Scrum professional, I enable teams and companies ramp up on an agile path and iterative approach to designs and products.

Blogger and Speaker

I write about UX, agile, tech and working with people. I love speaking at local and national events so that I can give back to a wider community by sharing my know-how and experiences, while learning from them.

My UX Strategy Approach

My UX Strategy and design team methodology is simple. We start from where we are and clearly understand where we want to get to. The pieces in between is what will forumulate the strategy and tactics. Along the way I follow Design Thinking mindset and frameworks associated with these to inform us on the where we need to go. This enables me to be flexible, adaptive and modern and impactful to my employers and clients. I have utilized this methodology for greenfield as well as existing products and services. I have found that I can tailor this approach as needed to meet the need and speed of any project at hand. I have also matured variations of this to scale. I have used this as ongoing Agile sprint-based model as well as in a Design Sprint setting. However, talking to customers and end users is at the core of it all. We are never our users, hence we need to talk to the folks who are.

My Product Management Approach

My product management approach is predicated on staying lean, informed and actionable. I like to guage and understand why and for whom we are making ths product and/or its increments. I like to work with UX team for this as User research needs to complement Market research. I then like to be very hawish on scope and more iteratively following MVP-Iteration mindset. And finally I measure on how the product increment performed. What we can't measure, we cannot change.

My Hiring / Team Development Process

When hiring, as situation demands, I like to hire UX generalists or specialists with a goal of having a balanced team of senior and early-carrer professionals.

When working in teams, I like to embed UX in product teams using dotted line reporting structure but belonging to a UX guild or central team. I like to operate as Player-Coach while practicing high EQ. Shared Understanding is key to teamwork. I strongly believe in quality over speed & speed over perfection. Practicing Psychological Safety and EQ in central to all my engagements.

skills & domain experience

SKILLS

UX Strategy

Design Team Management, UX Maturity, Design Sprints, Design Thinking, Design Systems, Journey Mapping, Lean UX

User Research

Interviews, Contextual Inquiries, Personas, Usability Testing, A/B Testing, Analytics

UX Design

User Centered Design, Design Thinking, Wireframes / Flows, IA

Management

Player-Coach, Hiring, Performance Reviews, Resource Budgeting

Design Tools

Sketch, Invision / Invision Studio, Framer X, Zeplin and Mural

Product Management

Omni-channel Product Strategy, Roadmap Planning, Story Mapping, Kano, MVP Development, Value / Risk Models, Competitive Analysis, Go To Market

Web Applications

React & Redux, HTML5 & CSS, Progressive Web Apps

DOMAIN EXPERIENCE

BioPharma & MedTech Analytics

Enterprise UX Strategy

B2C Ditial Health Care

B2B Individual & Commercial Health Care

BioPharma Lifecycle, Data Analytics

Digital Transformation

Population Health Management

Care Management

BlueCard

Portals

Medicare, Medicare Advantage

Medicaid

B2C Digital Health

Building Information Management

Big Data Analytics

Search Interfaces

Loyalty Information Platforms

CRM

Dashboards

Enterprise Asset Management and Change Control Management.

my journey

EXPERIENCE

May 2021 - Current

Founder and Principal Consultant

Neza

I lead a small team of UX ninjas who help super early stage startups get the UX right in their MVPs.

Latest startups served:

Jan 2020 - Current

Senior Director, User Experience

Decision Resources Group - Clarivate

Focus on multi-product UX strategy, Org UX maturity strategy encompassing user research, iterative design process, large scale design systems, Product Ops strategy using Pendo, and UX team management. Domain business focus is on empowering Big Pharma life sciences product cycles with on-demand data, reports, and analytics on biopharma market assessment, market access, Medtech, and digital market engagement.

Products powered by Big data and AI. Serving top 100 BioPharma customers. DRG was acquired by Clarivate in Jan'20202

Jan 2016 - Dec 2019

Director, User Experience / Product Manager

HealthEdge

I am currently overseeing the UX Strategy around Healthcare Payor and Care Management domains while managing two main products and multiple internal products/initiatives. I have established an experienced design team, setup a tool ecosystem, design systems and processes.
As Product Manager:

I have conceived and launched an MVP for a stealth initiative around Care Management domain.
I am leading conception and development of Configuration Management System.
I am also also helping commercialize integration offerings coming out of Professional Services

Sept 2014 - Apr 2015

Software Architect

Autodesk

Focus was on improving UX and leading UI/UX Architecture of BIM 360 Field SaaS targeted towards the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry.

Nov 2015 – 2018

UX/UI Advisor

Multiple Startups

Advising multiple founders on UI / UX aspects of MVPs.

Nov 2010 - Sep 2014

Principal Engineer

Attivio

Focus was on UX and leading full stack UI Architecture of Attivio's PaaS products including Active Intelligence Engine (AIE) in its Enterprise Search & Big Data/Big Content ventures. Applications included Search Interfaces & Analytics Dashboards, System Performance Monitoring, Dictionaries and Content Spotlighting.

Oct 2003 – Nov 2010

Advisory Software Engineer

IBM

Focussed as one of the technical leads for the core UI framework on MAXIMO platform. Worked closely with UX. At the time, MAXIMO was central to IBM's successful portfolio of Asset Management, Service Desk, Change & Configuration management & many other industry solutions. Projects were Agile with Scrum. Client facing role many times. Designed UI, APIs, Frameworks, Libraries and Tool Sets. Gained good team facilitation skills.

Nov 2004 – Nov 2005

Director

Boston Bhangra

Helped setup, grow and execute programs for the non-profit. Managing IT functions including designing and deploying up the competition websites.

EDUCATION

MS, Information Technology

University of Liverpool, UK

Majors: Data Structures, Databases, E-Commerce, Java, Information Security Engineering, Web Applications, IT Project Management, User Experience. Distinction in Dissertation: A KPI Based Approach To Software Defect Monitoring And Management.