Summary
Most DesignOps practices, whether new or established, tackle a handful of common areas: hiring, workflows & process, culture & morale, among others. While you can find plenty of tools and best practices for these areas on- and offline, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Every company, team, toolset, and timeline is different, and the road to solutions is often, if not always, messy. Based on my experiences co-building DesignOps and Design Management practices at Pandora and Capital One, this talk will pull back the curtain on common problems we’ve been asked to solve and the scrappy, yet effective ways we’ve delivered early solutions, value, and measurable outcomes.
Key Insights
-
•
Design teams often face ambiguity and uncertainty after organizational changes, like mergers or acquisitions.
-
•
Creating a playbook can provide clarity around roles, responsibilities, and processes within a design team.
-
•
Using frameworks like Hackman’s Five Factor Model can structure the playbook for clarity and effectiveness.
-
•
A collaborative tool like Google Slides is effective for creating accessible and shareable resources.
-
•
The process of building a playbook can improve team morale by providing much-needed clarity and structure.
-
•
Incorporating vocabulary that resonates with the team and aligns with their projects can facilitate better communication.
-
•
Intentionally measuring clarity can quantify the impact of design operations interventions.
-
•
Getting scrappy and prioritizing progress over perfection can drive better results in dynamic environments.
-
•
The content of a playbook can be repurposed for various team needs, enhancing its value across the organization.
-
•
Design operations must continuously evolve, adapting resources like playbooks to remain relevant in a changing structure.
Notable Quotes
"I joined the team just about six months ago and in preparation for this talk, I've been jamming to a lot of Lizzo."
"Our chief product officer likes us to introduce ourselves by telling everybody what we're jamming to."
"The state of things when I first joined Pandora was compounded by a recent acquisition by Sirius XM."
"Creating the playbook was really an opportunity for our leadership to define and redefine and evolve what our goals and principles were."
"We knew that the team needed to feel a little bit more grounded in a common sense of greater vision and purpose."
"Without clarity, some of the smallest bumps in the road were becoming harder and harder to overcome."
"This makes me realize how much I take for granted. It's so useful to have a source of truth for all of this stuff."
"You illustrated it in a way that's easy to digest and understand."
"With the playbook, we were at a place where we didn't need to sell value to our leadership."
"Perfection is often a waste of time, so don't be afraid to get scrappy."
















More Videos

"I thrive in chaos. Life is boring if things are going along smoothly."
Catherine CourageThe Enterprise UX Journey: Lessons From the Voyage & The Opportunity Ahead
May 13, 2015

"Consider how assistive technology interacts with your design rather than just the aesthetics."
Sam ProulxPrototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You
December 8, 2021

"The right partnerships allow you to make a greater impact over time."
Dave HoraAdvice for Establishing Research
December 8, 2022

"A trillion dollars is enough to buy a million dollar home for a million people."
Kat VellosOpener: The Other L Word
January 8, 2024

"If I do nothing else with my career, it is gonna be helping this topic become the mainstream."
Robert Fabricant Sahibzada Mayed Nidhi Singh RathoreIndustry junctures: Paths forwards for UXR and the critical decisions that get us there [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
October 2, 2024

"The biggest challenge was alignment; we were discussing 90 people in three entirely different ways."
Ian SwinsonDesigning and Driving UX Careers
June 8, 2016

"The challenge is that people, even with the same information, will make different decisions over time."
Terry BuckmanWargaming (An Introduction)
August 10, 2023

"Our future is made up of today's decisions, today's relationships, and today's commitments."
Amahra SpenceDesigning for Liberation, Rehearsing Freedom
November 18, 2022

"I think investing in travel for teams is really impactful to help reduce feelings of isolation."
Jilanna WilsonDistributed DesignOps Management
February 26, 2019