Day 1 Session Notes–5 Antifragile Strategies for a DesignOps 2.0

— My name is Silke Bochat

 

— I’m coming from CPG space and joined Mars in 2011 and had eye-opening experience that running global programs at enterprise level, which inspired my entire career to not just think of product level, but enterprise impact

 

 

— I created a leadership framework with four-hundred pages on integrating and scaling design

• Reason shared as ops existed in several other design disciplines for decades
  • Brand design, industrial design can find shortcuts for ops, frameworks and approaches

 

— Last year joined Weleda, a company that thinks in terms of future generations and that inspired me with my own design career

• This new model inspire this presentation

— Noticed layers that was going on in design community

 

— People feel lost in application process for a job and wondering where this struggle is coming from

— Design has been disrupted and companies are shifting from good times behavior to fragile times behavior

 

 

— There is now a focus on risk-aversion and short-term thinking

• Less focus on impact for next 5-7 years, and more focus to this years cycle

— Enabling functions are no longer invested, and focus now on business relevant function, so quick layoffs to drive transformation

— Design was seen as enabling function, but now it’s much more about delivery and scene as resources are stretched

• Design maturity stepped down

 

— This will stick around, as economy is fragile

— Fragility is where any event can shake us up

• How can we move to anti-fragility and benefit from disorder and chaos

 

— DesignOps is all about reacting to fragility, but can we have more experimentation and comfort with ambiguity in DesignOps

 

— Five strategies, I’ll share with you: new work models, and hiring strategies

 

1. New Models— ten ideas to share
   1. Hiring Managers shouldn’t delegate hiring to HR and automated systems and set clear criteria on job descriptions
      1. HR typically won’t have design acumen for properly hiring employees
   2. Watch out for your own hiring bias, and look at diversity of team— focusing on age as well
   3. Consider complementary thinkers for the team, as opposed to just cultural fit
   4. Consider disruptive thinkers as well
   5. Emergency parachutes for re-orgs and reach out to people in case of first signals of re-org

 

1. New Work Models
   1. Springer Role to reduce work volume into roles that move work forward
   2. Job-sharing for two people to split
   3. Cross-org sharing and running shared programs for two companies
   4. Short-term assignments with product managers going into design and vice-versa to build empathy
   5. Hire design across different functions to get designers in and spread headcount across sponsors

 

 

— Scope of application, and looking at ops skills for other functions

— Look at scope of tasks, and whether you are working on org-level and if doing tasks can become operational helping had

 

— Free resources, as most stakeholders don’t know how much capacity designers have and you can invest excess capacity into pilots that you have sponsors for

• You can volunteer for cross-functional pilot, as well as joint enterprise initiatives

 

— Convert ops into evangelist to talk about design and educate people on value of design, and cross-functional positions in HR

• Then infiltrate and assimilate and send ops to other functions for period of time

— Will share two jobs in market to show cross functional design experiences

 

 

— Example of design role that redefines HR innovation and system tools and processes, and the roles are fascinating— spread design capabilities into other teams

 

 

— Would like to speak to enterprise design level work and the Edgy model based on the book Intersection

 

— To influence decision making, ask how it’s all connected

• Who decides what, when, where, and by which criteria?

 

 

— See the following stage gate process to filter out valuable ideas, and how AI can get into the role

• Phases might have different names, but similar process

— Gate of no return, once locked, where product goes to market

• Where are decisions made and when team is involved

 

— Decisions are not done by top managers at gates, but often done by junior people

• Need seat at table as AI is getting involved in process

 

 

— Next, let’s focus on Chief of Staff, leveraging analogy of soccer tactics

• Design teams mirror org structures, so where does chief of staff come in

 

— Will reference three roles

• The Whip
• The Quarterback
• The Forward

— Term of the whip and current role

 

 

 

— Have chief of staff, in whip role, as troubleshooter who does liaison and bridging work

• Not hands-on, but ears and eyes of current problems in day-to-day business

 

 

— There’s also a quarterback role that focuses on pipeline delivery and keeping chief design officer free for high-level tasks, and running project management so chief design manager has space to look into the future

 

— They also can have a strategic foresight and transformation

• CoS complementing chief design officer and inspire him or her

— Discovering new values spaces

 

— Two quotes for destination teams

• Don’t know what’s coming, or future, but doing nothing is not an option — if you don’t study future you can’t influence it

 

— Look at another model of leadership framework that focuses on working backwards from a general vision to get the results we want for today

 

— This thinking shifts you know from ad-hoc problems to the future

— Ad-hoc problems prevent you from thinking of future

• Focus on asymptote of destination thinking and keeping things going forward in right direction

 

— Can also leverage future studies, along with strategic foresight and think about likely future from improbable to desirable

 

— In context, you can then identify which roles will remain, and which will emerge and look at weak signals

 

 

— Identify skillset you need and future roles and identify pilot and proof value without asking for permission

 

— What if you applied all anti-fragile strategies to team?You would be anti-fragile for whatever comes