Additional Blogs by SAP
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Former Member
0 Kudos

I spoke about the topic of Diversity by Design at the Managing Experience Conference in San Francisco on March 29th-30th, 2016. I am passionate about this topic, being a woman working in the Silicon Valley. However, my primary motivation to talk on this topic is so the next generation will not have to.

In this talk, I did a deep dive into the numbers behind Silicon Valley’s diversity problem, the implications, and how our implicit biases affects our perception. I ended with five practical tips to foster a culture of diversity that I practice at SAP’s Design and Co-Innovation Center (DCC).

· Reframe diversity as an opportunity

· Build the pipeline

· Remember bias goes both ways

· Avoid token hires

· Delight in diversity

Check out this video to learn more about these tips:

The talk was very well received and my biggest takeaway was the level of audience participation and the hallway conversations that it generated.

I hope these tips allow you to think about diversity in a new light and create a realistic action plan for your team. It is important to remember that diversity for its own sake is not worth much; however, diversity as a means of inclusion and giving people the space to be their authentic selves at work can help create a more colorful and diverse Silicon Valley.

Please share your own experience with fostering a diverse culture in your teams — I’d love to hear about different things that have worked and just as important, not worked!