The Design Conductors
Your Essential Guide to Design Operations
Your favorite apps and programs share one thing in common: they are all thoughtfully designed. Design Operations is the business practice that ensures great design and great designers thrive and deliver meaningful impact. The Design Conductors is your comprehensive guide to DesignOps. You’ll learn how to successfully advocate for, build out, scale up, and ultimately operate design organizations.
Who Should Read This Book
Although this book is definitely for designers, it’s also an essential field guide for product and project managers of all types. Anyone who works in the intersection of process and change management, such as healthcare, tech, or financial services, can learn the design methodologies used by DesignOps practitioners. People who work hand-in-hand with designers, particularly those in the field of software, hardware, or creative design, will also find this book useful. Finally, leaders in design, product, business, and engineering should read this book to learn how to create their own DesignOps culture where teams who build great user experiences can thrive.
Takeaways
- Learn what DesignOps is and where it began.
- Explore the most common backgrounds for people who want to become DesignOps practitioners.
- Define the eight career competencies that all DesignOps practitioners share.
- Discover how to build a DesignOps practice with a handy framework created by one of the authors.
- Highlight the different kinds of paths that DesignOps professionals can take in their careers (with real-world examples).
- Operationalize values by leading to effect transformative changes in teams and businesses.
- Show how the four most common DesignOps org models influence the ways in which teams can function and be organized.
- Uncover how different opportunities and areas of ownership are influenced by a network of related roles.
- Learn the practical application of building, running, and growing a DesignOps team—one that is already in existence or one that is built from scratch.
- Follow the comprehensive toolkit for anyone seeking to join a DesignOps team–from the interview process through a set of guidelines for hiring managers to conduct interviews of prospective talent.
Your favorite apps and programs share one thing in common: they are all thoughtfully designed. Design Operations is the business practice that ensures great design and great designers thrive and deliver meaningful impact. The Design Conductors is your comprehensive guide to DesignOps. You’ll learn how to successfully advocate for, build out, scale up, and ultimately operate design organizations.
Who Should Read This Book
Although this book is definitely for designers, it’s also an essential field guide for product and project managers of all types. Anyone who works in the intersection of process and change management, such as healthcare, tech, or financial services, can learn the design methodologies used by DesignOps practitioners. People who work hand-in-hand with designers, particularly those in the field of software, hardware, or creative design, will also find this book useful. Finally, leaders in design, product, business, and engineering should read this book to learn how to create their own DesignOps culture where teams who build great user experiences can thrive.
Takeaways
- Learn what DesignOps is and where it began.
- Explore the most common backgrounds for people who want to become DesignOps practitioners.
- Define the eight career competencies that all DesignOps practitioners share.
- Discover how to build a DesignOps practice with a handy framework created by one of the authors.
- Highlight the different kinds of paths that DesignOps professionals can take in their careers (with real-world examples).
- Operationalize values by leading to effect transformative changes in teams and businesses.
- Show how the four most common DesignOps org models influence the ways in which teams can function and be organized.
- Uncover how different opportunities and areas of ownership are influenced by a network of related roles.
- Learn the practical application of building, running, and growing a DesignOps team—one that is already in existence or one that is built from scratch.
- Follow the comprehensive toolkit for anyone seeking to join a DesignOps team–from the interview process through a set of guidelines for hiring managers to conduct interviews of prospective talent.
Testimonials
Bravo! A maestro’s manual! Finally, a comprehensive look at how to establish, scale, and mature DesignOps, no matter your org shape. Rachel and John say it loud for everyone in the cheap seats … DesignOps is Design!
—Dominique Ward
Former head of Design Operations, Atlassian
In true DesignOps fashion, Posman and Calhoun deliver a practical and inclusive guide, chock-full of useful frameworks, definitions, and tools. This is an incredible resource for practitioners and companies alike!
—Danielle Barnes
Co-author of Present Yourself and CEO of Women Talk Design
The Design Conductors illustrates how exceptional design teams are also culturally strong and well-supported teams. This is the blueprint for growing small orgs into large ones and transforming them into design powerhouses.
—Chris Risdon
Co-author of Orchestrating Experiences and senior staff designer, AI at eBay
Calhoun and Posman provide clear and comprehensive guidance for building a DesignOps program, which, in turn, enables design and research to be their most effective.
—Peter Merholz
Independent consultant and co-author of Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams
If you’ve been overwhelmed finding your place in the rapidly expanding universe of DesignOps, this book offers the ideal combination of broad perspectives and deep insights to give you direction on your journey.
—Jesse James Garrett
Author of The Elements of User Experience
Everyone needs this book—how is it possible we’ve not had anything like this until now? It’s well written and exceptionally well-thought-through. I am impressed with how much goodness they manage to pack in. It’s an essential guide for everyone!
—Patrizia Bertini
DesignOps strategist and leader
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The First Note
Chapter 2: Learning the Score
Chapter 3: Drawn to the Stage
Chapter 4: It’s All About Practice
Chapter 5: Composing Your Career
Chapter 6: Your DesignOps Crescendo
Chapter 7: Playing Your Part
Chapter 8: Shaped by the Orchestra
Chapter 9: Your Performance Partners
Chapter 10: From Soloist to Symphony
Chapter 11: Ready to Take Up the Baton
Chapter 12: Maintaining Your Rhythm
Chapter 13: The Wrong Notes
Chapter 14: Tuning Your Instruments
Chapter 15: Measure by Measure
Chapter 16: A Symphony of Talent
Chapter 17: Epilogue
Chapter 18: Encore
Frequently Asked Questions
These common questions and their short answers are taken from Rachel Postman and John Calhoun’s book The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations. You can find longer answers to each in your copy of the book, either printed or digital version.
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- What is the most important lesson in this book?
The lesson is easy to summarize but complicated to explain. Hence, we wrote this book to help readers of all backgrounds understand that “DesignOps is design.” - What’s the difference between Design Operations and design program management?
We generally use the term Design Operations (commonly shortened to DesignOps) as the highest-order label to refer to this practice. The name is inclusive of many aspects of design, such as user experience
design, content design, and research; we acknowledge variations and subtleties in this label in Chapter 1, “The First Note.” Our position is that the work of design program management is just one component
of DesignOps. That said, the role and title of design program manager (commonly shortened to DPM) is the best descriptor of someone who practices Design Operations, regardless of their skill, level, or day-to-day job responsibilities.
- What is the most important lesson in this book?
