Level-up your leadership and facilitation while deepening your understanding of the most advanced OOUX tricks. If the OOUX Certification gave your X-ray goggles, this program will turn you into an MRI machine for complexity.
Crystalize your OOUX practice with this small-group coaching program, delivered live by Sophia Prater — and 100% "highly recommended" by Advanced Strategists as the perfect next step to OOUX leadership and mastery.
The Advanced OOUX Certification Program is designed to let you practice leadership, coaching, mentoring, and consulting in a safe, supported container. You'll be learning facilitation skills that will position you as an effective leader in your workplace.
Continue to drop the guesswork — become even more confident in articulating your design decisions.
This program is not for everyone. It's tailored for Certified Strategists aspiring to lead with OOUX — at their organizations, with their clients, and in their own work. It's for those who already are (or who want to) start OOUX-consulting on the side and/or more effectively bring OOUX to their team.
Not only will you form deep connections with your mentees, you'll collaborate with and connect with your fellow mentors — the most skilled OOUXers and some of the smartest product design people on the planet. Speaking the OOUX language with your peers is a unique joy.
All the while, you'll continue to experience more seamless collaboration with your cross-functional team at work: even better conversations with your developers and even better questions to your stakeholders. More collaborative flow and even fewer frustrating miscommunications.
When you are facilitating the ORCA Process at work or charging a client for OOUX coaching, you want to be able to spot a Junction Object from a mile away. You want to see opportunities for conditional logic. You want to recognize a misplaced attribute, expertly shaking an Object Map into place. (Snap, snap, snap go the puzzle pieces.)
Most importantly, you want ORCA to be putty in your hands. You want to feel comfortable remixing it, flexing it, and making it your own. This program will take your existing expertise to the next level — helping you solidify and leverage advanced OOUX power moves.
If you are operating in an exceptionally complex environment and OOUX is helping but you feel like it could help even more — you are right. The Advanced Program will accelerate your OOUX skills in a way that might otherwise take years of practice.
THE, and I quote, "excellent" next step for Certified
OOUX Strategists looking to
amplify the power of ORCA.
Lively weekly sessions with Sophia and your fellow Advancies — interactive, collaborative training that you’ll look forward to each week. (Wednesdays at 11am EST — recordings provided.) You'll also be locked into lifetime access to the Advanced OOUX Masterclass, our newest online course that will accompany the program.
You'll be able to attend as many of the 10 live cohort office hours — asking your own questions ... and taking the opportunity to practice answering questions as well.
You’ll decide on your own advanced OOUX content-creation project to help position you as a leader in the field. Together, we’ll work through it to make it amazing. You'll also have the other mentors to help you work through your project.
The Advanced Program is a true commitment — you’ll be responsible for coaching a group of mentees through the program and providing feedback on their assignments, offering short 1on1s, and setting up 2-3 small-group office hours over the course of the program.
“What I did not expect is that mentoring a pod would have such a profound impact on my understanding of the ORCA process.” - Yavor Stoilov
Start preparing for the Advanced Program now with 15 Advanced Moves (which will become our new Advanced OOUX Masterclass). The cost of this course will go toward your Advanced Certification enrollment once you are accepted!
The Advanced Certification is for anyone who wants to go from an OOUX practitioner to an OOUX leader. The course teaches you how to twist, bend, and remix the framework to push the boundaries of what is possible with OOUX. Connecting with others practicing OOUX, as well as mentoring those going through the course, helps you grow from both sides – expanding your own understanding while shaping and supporting someone else’s.
I can highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to deepen their OOUX skills after the Masterclass. It is an amazing opportunity to go way deeper than applying the 16 steps of ORCA:
- by mixing and matching different tools and techniques.
- by exploring how OOUX applies to your business, using ORCA to explore complex structures beyond digital products.
- by running your own project at the edge of OOUX, stepping into new knowledge territory.
- and even by teaching it yourself.
Other than the intrinsic value of becoming an even more powerful complexity-wrangler and an even more graceful leader in OOUX-style collaboration and facilitation, we provide a laundry list of benefits to honor OOUX Advancies.
The Advanced Certification Badge on your OOUX.com profile, on your OOUX Forum profile, and on Linkedin.
A formal recommendation from me (Sophia) on your OOUX.com profile and as a Linkedin recommendation.
Testimonials from your mentees (I know they will love you!) on your OOUX.com profile.
Certificate double-stack! We’ll add your slick Black-Belt Advanced Certification above your core OOUX Strategist Certificate. So legit.
Your OOUX.com profile will become a landing page for you to sell your services. OOUX.com gets thousands of hits a month and we will be driving traffic to your profile. You’ll be able to add a paid booking link to your profile so that people can book consulting calls with you. We recommend charging ~$100/hour for these calls.
One of our top goals on OOUX.com is to promote our Advancies and their services. You’ll show up as a nestie in several places. On the “What is OOUX?” page, your definitions will be featured. You’ll be front-and-center on the “Community” page. Your Leadership project will also be featured there. Every chance we get, we will be linking people to YOU!
Paid opportunities with Rewired, as they arise … co-facilitating ORCA Sprints, co-leading workshops and events, coaching positions with company cohorts and more. (Basically, when I need help with anything, you are on my short list.)
I loved how the Advanced OOUX program balanced three key experiences: deepening my own OOUX skills, mentoring the Masterclass Cohort, and contributing to the future of the discipline through the leadership project. It’s incredibly rewarding to think that my project might help shape OOUX for years to come! Mentoring does require a meaningful time commitment, so I wouldn’t recommend the program to anyone who isn’t able (or genuinely excited) to take on that role. That said, the effort was absolutely worth it. I’m grateful for the growth it brought and for the opportunity to learn alongside such a talented, inspiring group.
When I was first certified in OOUX, I knew I was going to need more time getting into advanced concepts. Three years later and it's more beneficial than I thought back then. Just the pieces about OOUX and business strategies has helped level my skills up in the eyes of my leadership team. I feel more grounded and capable of finding a place for myself in an ever evolving industry and world. I feel like even if I left UX design, I would still find OOUX and the things I learned in this course invaluable.
The way the ORCA framework has evolved, and the more complex parts are super valuable. The business consideration is the best part, as it prepares you to be ready for questions and other aspects. And eventually a greater part in the whole decision-making process. Learning and being able to apply it to a job are the best ways, as it keeps your knowledge current and teaches you how to use it flexibly.
The OOUX Advanced Masterclass is for OOUXers who have a deep appreciation for OOUX and the community. It's for anyone who wants to expand their application of OOUX beyond product design. It's also for OOUXers who want to develop their leadership skills through mentoring and reinforce their own knowledge of OOUX by teaching and guiding cohort members towards learning and appreciating OOUX.
You'll get lifetime access to all video recordings and resources. And as we update the materials — you'll get those enhancements, too.
It's a big deal. During your core OOUX Certification, your only responsibility was you. If you didn't keep up with the program — only you were affected. In the Advanced Program, you must take your commitment to the program incredibly seriously! A group of strategists-to-be will be counting on you for timely feedback on their assignments.
That said, the time commitment of the Advanced Program is less than the core OOUX Certification! Expect to spend about ~4 hours a week receiving coaching and about ~3-4 hours a week giving coaching.
Yes! But this time, the test is on the front-end of the Program. You'll take an application test to qualify for the Program. At the end of the program, you'll need to have fulfilled your coaching duties to your mentees, completed all training content, and completed your OOUX Leadership Project.
The application test will ask you about how you are using OOUX in your work, your commitment to the program, and will also test understanding of OOUX.
Yes! Don't worry, we will always level-set before we go deeper into advanced concepts. That said, if you passed the application test and are accepted into the Program, please feel so confident that you are READY for this training! Also, you've taken the 15 Advanced Moves Course, riiiiight?
The Advanced Program is for Certified OOUX Strategists (with an unexpired Certificate!) who enjoy OOUX so much that that truly want this to be central to the work they do. Running ORCA Sprints, playing in Object Maps, and consulting on OOUX sounds like a dream job.
You are actively using OOUX in your work — even if you are "quiet OOUXing" right now. On the test, you'll be asked about your current OOUX practice and how much you are using it in the field.
You also want to help take OOUX and expand and grow it. You want to position yourself as a leader and a guide within this community — and within the wider UX and tech industry. You want to share OOUX and even add you own unique perspective or skills to OOUX.
You might be on a path to self-employment or creating additional income streams — and you'd love help growing your business and offering your skills.
YES! Receiving your Advanced Certification "counts" as Recertification. Meaning, you are in the "half-off" club for another 3 years. You can return to recertify in the core or the advanced programs for half-off the going rate.
... And I am so excited to get to know you more. Actually, my desire for an intimate coaching group of OOUX superstars is a big reason why I created this program. As OOUX scales and more people sign up for training (or get signed up by their bosses!), I've had to cut back on the amount of individual attention I can give during the core Certification Program. The Advanced Program allows me to refocus, connect, and trade notes with my people.
I started the mentoring program around Cohort 3 as a way to get much-needed help during the core Program, while giving mentors the opportunity to learn-by-teaching. Over the years, those mentors continued to ask me about a next-level certification. They also wanted deeper training on the stickiest (and often most valuable) OOUX concepts. And they wanted more guidance on facilitating ORCA Sprints and workshops.
It wasn't until a few months before Cohort 9 that I asked, "What if I formalized mentoring into that next-level certification? What if mentoring was actually part of this training?" I know what some of you might be thinking. Yes, from a business perspective, I'll admit — this clicked for me. Could I create a program so transformative and valuable that people would actually invest in the opportunity to mentor? They say that the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions. And that was a damn good question.
So, I began outline a new curriculum. With a few hours, I had poured out a detailed outline of powerful content that I knew would over-deliver and give my A+ systems-thinkers exactly what they were asking for. During Cohort 9, I brought my heart and soul into the creation of a robust new layer of training and coaching. And as it turns out, mentoring provides the perfect playground to integrate deepened skills and gain confidence in leadership and facilitation. Win-win.
So, are you ready?!
Thank you to all the mentors over the years, and special special thanks to Allie, Richard, CSJ, Yavor, Karen, and Alex who helped shape the program during Cohort 9.
You'll be in really amazing company! Here's our current roster of Advanced OOUXers.
