• Job Description

  Req#: R-45201

  Your Journey at Crowe Starts Here:

  At Crowe, you have the opportunity to deliver innovative solutions to today’s complex business issues. Crowe’s accounting, consulting, and technology personnel are widely recognized for their in-depth expertise and understanding of sophisticated process frameworks and enabling technologies, along with their commitment to delivering measurable results that help clients build business value. Our focus on emerging technology solutions along with our commitment to internal career growth and exceptional client value has resulted in a firm that is routinely recognized as a “Best Place to Work.” We are 75 years strong and still growing. Come grow with us!

  Job Description:

  Crowe X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research

  Crowe LLP

  Crowe X-Lab is a human-centered DESIGN lab. We solve complex problems and invent new futures.

  X-Lab is a human-centered DESIGN lab inside Crowe LLP. We champion the human voice, particularly the voices of our clients’ clients and our clients’ employees. We mash together a creative design mindset with conventional and analytical approaches to strategy to invent new futures within our firm and for the firms we serve – new futures for offerings, markets, practices, structures, experiences, brands, and, last but definitely not least, people.

  A crucial part of the X-Lab mission: helping our people adopt a DESIGN mindset.

  The X-Lab solves complex challenges, both inside our firm and inside the businesses of our clients. While solving challenges, the lab also infuses new mindsets, methods, and tools into business culture.

  What’s our job? Simple. It’s challenging assumptions. Questioning the status quo. Provoking the imagination. We help our consultants, microbusiness owners, and intrapreneurs address unmet (and unarticulated) client needs with novel solutions that are meaningful, delightful, and friction-free.

  We’re looking for people who share the following mindsets. You don’t need to be convinced – you just get it:

  Always be learning; embrace experimentation.

  This is a mindset of curiosity, exploration, and discovery. It holds preconceived ideas loosely. It listens more and talks less. It allows for new insights to surface, giving birth to new innovations, new revenue, and new margin.

  Possess a bias toward action; fail forward.

  This is a mindset of always making and always doing, of building to learn (not to impress). It creates clarity through rapid prototyping and iteration. This mindset generates speed, creates alignment, and reduces risk.

  Have empathy; work collaboratively with stakeholders.

  This is a mindset of human-centricity. It’s about having compassion for customers and spending time with real users (not imagined ones). Any problem worth solving will be a human problem, so this mindset keeps us developing winning strategies using human-centered design methodologies.

  Get comfortable with ambiguity; let go of “expert” confidence.

  This mindset starts with not knowing the answers and pushes us to think beyond false certainty shaped by preconceived solutions. The design process is not fixed or linear, so this mindset keeps us flexible and inventive and moves us from iterative improvements to unprecedented futures.

  Embrace change; design it.

  This is an optimistic mindset – imagining, designing, and building better realities. It prizes integrative thinking and inventive strategy. It provokes new ways of thinking about tomorrow’s toughest challenges. It sees change not as an indictment of the past, but as fidelity to the future. This mindset breaks through boundaries and the status quo and fuels the discipline of design to do what it does best: bring into existence the right things that have never existed before.

  The business challenges the X-Lab takes on are ground-breaking and culture-making.

  Tectonic shifts are happening within our industry and across the industries we serve. Industry 4.0 is transforming nearly every business. This revolution is creating greater and greater complexity within every market sector, at rates we can't possibly keep up with.

  For this reason, our work cannot be about good-intentioned iterations on the way things were done in the past. Instead, it must be about using inventive and imaginative strategic business DESIGN to explode into an unprecedented future state.

  The X-Lab creates remarkable and meaningful experiences for humans.

  Technological advancements don’t come with a set of values. Without intentional design, the massive shifts caused by Industry 4.0 technologies will be void of humanity, compassion, care, and kindness. Our mandate is to preserve humanity in the client experience.

  For this reason, we are not driven by process and efficiency in the X-Lab. Rather, we are driven by empathy and compassion. We surface insights about humans – then we thoughtfully orchestrate end-to-end client experiences that anticipate unarticulated needs and create profound satisfaction.

  The result: remarkable experiences embedded within our services and technologies, caused by our marketing and sales, and delivered to our clients across their lifetime.

  Come join the X-Lab. Come change the world.

  At the X-Lab, you’ll be at the cutting edge of Crowe’s most critical strategic work. We have incredible plans for the future. We’re throwing off the has-been ethos of legacy professional services and turning to insight-driven, human-centric DESIGN as the fuel for unprecedented growth.

  The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research is a unicorn.

  The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research is a unicorn who lives in the dynamic interplay of analytical mastery and inventive originality. They’re rational as well as creative. They combine traditional logic with unconventional imagination. They find hidden insight. They collaborate with a broad team of designers and stakeholders to invent new strategies and business models. They reimagine and architect new structures.

  The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research designs and executes qualitative research that uncovers human insights — insights that fuel novel designs and prototypes that lead to new offerings, new experiences, new ventures, and new practice areas. They are researchers, facilitators, and strategists attempting to get work done at unprecedented scale and speed.

  Eight skills are required to be an amazing X-Lab Design Researcher.

  It is expected that an X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research has demonstrable skills across eight categories:

  Research. The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research has the ability to surface, assimilate, and consolidate relevant information through both structured and informal methods, and organize it in meaningful ways so that insight can emerge.

  Sensemaking. The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research has the ability to synthesize information from a broad spectrum of theoretical lenses using formal and informal design processes.

  Making. The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research has the ability to create novel work product that delights stakeholders — no matter the format of that work product — and they have the eagerness to learn new formats and design tools.

  Communication. The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research has the ability to interpolate ideas, concepts, and information, convey complex topics with clarity, and manage the flow of information in any setting and across any medium.

  Presentation. The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research has the ability to deliver X-Lab messages and work products, and to win over a room and change minds in any setting.

  Manifestation. The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research has the ability to work with team members and business unit, industry, and micro-enterprise stakeholders to bring to life the opportunities that surface in our strategic work.

  Mentorship and Management. The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research has the ability to foster strong teams capable of achieving our goals and to help the people around them achieve more.

  Trusted Advisor. The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research has the ability to strategize and consult with business unit, industry, and micro-enterprise leaders, market leaders, and offering owners on any aspect of their business, regardless if it relates directly to their current scope of work.

  Here’s a list of some interesting things an X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research does.

  The X-Lab Assistant Director of Design Research does many things, including these:

  Execute research.

  • Plan and conduct a wide array of primary and secondary research activities, ranging from stakeholder interviews and surveys to contextual inquiries and ethnographic studies.
  • Explore connections between user behavior and market dynamics using qualitative and quantitative research methods.
  • Gain a deep understanding of the context around a business challenge.

  Perform sensemaking.

  • Make sense of observations, data, and stakeholder inputs. Mine for understanding and insights. Blend insights with imagination.
  • Provide design teams with actionable insights that will inspire design that leads to greater human flourishing. Understand the soul of the data; uncover human motivations, behaviors, and stories that lie beneath the surface.
  • Ensure that research findings don't end up in reports that gather dust.
  • Translate research into visualizations, personas, compelling stories, journey maps, experience blueprints, etc. that engage designers, innovators, and business owners.
  • Ensure that design is rooted in a deep understanding of user needs. Ensure that the voice of the user/customer is present in design decisions. Ensure that insights and research findings are translated into concepts that align with user needs and business objectives.

  Be scrappy.

  • Adapt, combine, and create research approaches to fit within project timelines.
  • Employ scrappy — but nevertheless, sophisticated — research methods that can keep pace with rapid prototyping and iterative design.

  Facilitate discovery.

  • Create and facilitate discovery workshops, drawing on human-centered design principles to extract and synthesize insights. Lead workshops and ideation sessions to build a cohesive and empathetic understanding of users and unearth novel possibilities.
  • Lead multidisciplinary teams of designers, strategists, technologists, and business stakeholders through business design processes.

  Be playful, cause fun, and set the tone for a collegial environment that lowers defenses, creates trust, opens people up to insight and new ideas, and surfaces the best possible outcomes.

  • Explore and facilitate the design of business models that enhance and extend client experiences and create new revenue opportunities across the client life cycle.
  • Guide innovators and business owners through the “journey of an offering” including uncovering need, forming a vision, testing assumptions, assessing offering viability and desirability, finding channel and message fit, and driving market traction.
  • Work closely with business owners to prototype, craft and launch offerings, develop market strategies, and build new and differentiated ventures that are informed by client needs as well as organizational realities and aspirations, with an eye towards scale, revenue, and market success.

  Mature the X-Lab.

  • Lead the development of research capabilities within the X-Lab. Build out an X-Lab research function capable of qualitative, ethnographic, and design research. Develop a research framework/approach that becomes the backbone for all our design work. Develop basic standards for conducting research, ensuring that all research contributes to a rich understanding of humans and their needs.
  • Lead sense-making. Pioneer innovative research and sense-making methodologies. Own how the X-Lab transforms data into meaningful human insights, diving into the worlds of both qualitative and quantitative research.
  • Explore and integrate new research technologies and tools to enhance the quality and depth of insights, keeping the lab at the forefront of research innovation.
  • Champion human-centered design research across all projects. Collaborate with X-Lab project leaders and design managers to integrate research-driven insights into all aspects of the design process, ensuring that every project benefits from a deep understanding of user needs and behaviors.
  • Bring others into the research process. Encourage team members and stakeholders to make insights the foundation for design decisions. Mentor and grow team members to become curious design researchers, fostering a culture of empathy and relentless human inquiry where everyone is driven by a shared passion for understanding human behavior and using that understanding to create remarkable, meaningful design.
  • Understand emerging trends. Evaluate their potential impact on the X-Lab and our projects.
  • Establish collaborations with academic institutions, industry research groups, and technology partners to enhance research capabilities and bring fresh insights into the lab.

  Navigate the context.

  • Navigate the overly complex landscape of large corporate systems and, simultaneously, the ambiguous landscape of creativity, design, and innovation.

  Influence the firm.

  • Play a subversive role in transforming the organization's approach to research and design. Lead by example. Show how insights can lead to breakthrough offerings, drive workplace change, and transform human behavior.
  • Participate in shifting the firm’s culture by helping stakeholders understand the power of storytelling, design, and human-centricity in all that they do.

  Champion and elevate the voice of the user/customer within the organization. Advocate for solutions that are user-centric.

  • Champion the role, place, and importance of design research. Lift the role of design across the organization.

  The more of these statements that are true about you, the more success you’ll have in the X-Lab.

  • You have excellent facilitation skills with groups consisting of various levels of seniority.
  • You're genuinely curious about people, their behaviors, and what makes them tick, from the individual to the collective. The cornerstone of your career has been a passion for people.
  • You believe in the power of collaboration. You can work across disciplines. You understand different perspectives.
  • You can see the big picture.
  • You're recognized for your strategic thinking and creative problem-solving. You're known for your ability to take complex, contradictory insights and weave them into cohesive stories that can inspire innovation.
  • With imagination and design approaches, you can craft new strategic options that haven't existed from mutually exclusive strategic options that do exist.
  • You have originated frameworks and conceptual models that have become fundamental to how stakeholders think about their customers, innovations, offerings, businesses, and markets.
  • You can provide counsel to business stakeholders — counsel that will have a direct, positive impact on business success.
  • Dynamic environments excite you.
  • Adaptability and resilience are your superpowers. You excel in fast-paced environments. You can adapt research methods and strategies to meet evolving project needs. You can lead your teams to embrace change and pivot as needed.
  • Leadership for you is rooted in empathy. You lead by empowering others. Your empathetic leadership fosters growth and encourages exploration.
  • You can build, mentor, lead, and inspire multidisciplinary autonomous teams to deliver bold, fresh thinking and do things that haven’t been done before. You can unify a team around a common vision.
  • You have a contagious passion for ideas that can transform lives, transform business, transform an industry. You have the ability to stoke the fire of those around you.
  • You have led research efforts that span the full product lifecycle, from insight discovery through product prototyping to customer development through market traction.
  • Your career is a testament to continuous learning, driven by insatiable curiosity about new methods, technologies, and ideas.
  • You have an exceptional ability to live inside complex problems and mine qualitative and quantitative research for breakthrough insights. You have a proven track record of translating complex research findings into clear, actionable strategies, or powerfully compelling stories, or catalysts for groundbreaking ideas and innovations. You can combine human stories and needs with data to identify a compelling path forward for product, service, and venture creation.

  You can build a comprehensive research ecosystem that connects various sources of data, customer and user feedback, and market trends to offer a holistic understanding of a user experience and the competitive landscape in which it exists.

  • Innovation drives you. You're always exploring new research methodologies and are eager to apply them in creative ways.
  • You are an influential communicator. You bring research findings to life. Through storytelling and persuasive communication, you've changed minds, shaped strategies, and influenced the direction of projects and organizations.
  • You possess an entrepreneurial and collaborative mindset. You see opportunities for innovation in every challenge. You can advocate for the user while balancing business needs.
  • You have years of experience bringing complex new ventures to market from within startups, strategy consultancy firms, design agencies, innovation departments, marketing departments, etc.
  • You have experience developing growth, launch, and market strategies for new products and/or business ventures. You have fluency in designing business models, carrying out market research, and performing financial modeling.
  • You can sketch/visualize ideas in real time to create clarity and alignment and to engage stakeholders in the right conversations around any aspect of their business.
  • You can navigate and overcome internal barriers through drive, determination, friendship-building, positive engagement, and empathy.
  • You have worked in environments where design thinking, UX design, design sprints, digital innovation, and service design methods are used.
  • You have worked in greasy-fast environments where agility, building to learn, rapid iterations, and failing fast are honored over big bets, data paralysis, and risk avoidance.

  More about this position

  You won’t be in charge of anyone.

  This position has no direct supervisory responsibilities.

  It’s a fairly demanding full-time job, with flex.

  This position is full-time. On average, you’ll work around 45 hours a week. You may need to work the occasional weekend or respond to phone calls or emails in the evening. Once in a while, we have emergency projects and all bets are off. But it’s fun because we do it together!

  “I’m up for anything” could be your personal motto.

  Don’t think of this job description as covering or containing a comprehensive listing of activities, duties, or responsibilities that are required of you for this job. Other duties, responsibilities, and activities may be assigned by the team as needed.

  The benefits are great...

  At Crowe, we know that great people are what makes a great firm. We value our people and offer employees a comprehensive benefits package.

  And so are the opportunities.

  We nurture talent in an inclusive culture that values diversity. You will have the chance to meet on a consistent basis with a Career Coach who will guide you in your career goals and aspirations.

  Just who is Crowe, anyway?

  Crowe (www.crowe.com) is one of the largest public accounting, consulting, and technology firms in the United States. Crowe uses its deep industry expertise to provide audit and consulting services to public and private entities. We serve clients worldwide as an independent member of Crowe Global, one of the largest global accounting networks in the world. The network consists of more than 200 independent accounting and advisory services firms in more than 130 countries around the world.

  Crowe LLP provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

  Our Benefits:
  
  At Crowe, we know that great people are what makes a great firm. We value our people and offer employees a comprehensive benefits package. Learn more about what working at Crowe can mean for you!
  
  How You Can Grow:
  
  We will nurture your talent in an inclusive culture that values diversity. You will have the chance to meet on a consistent basis with your Career Coach that will guide you in your career goals and aspirations. Learn more about where talent can prosper!
  
  More about Crowe:
  
  Crowe (www.crowe.com) is one of the largest public accounting, consulting and technology firms in the United States. Crowe uses its deep industry expertise to provide audit services to public and private entities while also helping clients reach their goals with tax, advisory, risk and performance services. Crowe is recognized by many organizations as one of the country's best places to work. Crowe serves clients worldwide as an independent member of Crowe Global, one of the largest global accounting networks in the world. The network consists of more than 200 independent accounting and advisory services firms in more than 130 countries around the world.
  
  Crowe LLP provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

  Crowe LLP does not accept unsolicited candidates, referrals or resumes from any staffing agency, recruiting service, sourcing entity or any other third-party paid service at any time. Any referrals, resumes or candidates submitted to Crowe, or any employee or owner of Crowe without a pre-existing agreement signed by both parties covering the submission will be considered the property of Crowe, and free of charge.

• About the company

  Crowe Global, commonly referred to as Crowe, previously Crowe Horwath International, is a multinational professional services network.

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