Day 3 Session Notes–Navigating Innovation with Integrity

— Hello everyone and excited to be here and talk about innovation and integrity in DesignOps field

— Love technology when we talk about innovation and have unit dedicated to emerging technologies and innovations and how to bring integrity into innovation as our duty

  • So what excites you to be in DesignOps
  • For me, it’s working with people and solving their problems

— We operate at intersection of people, frameworks, tools, and governance

  • Hard to think of ops as innovative but we are

— How we work, how we get work done, how we create impact are all things we innovate on

— We experiment with different ways to get things done and opportunity to experiment with people, and provide that invitation is to innovate

  • No pre-defined processes or frameworks, and as practicioners get to create and define them
    • This is innovation

— Not doing this in vacuum, but chance to innovate by joining insights from design business, product management and operation fields

— Innovate process from double-diamond to iterative process of service design to serve design teams

  • Make sure changes implemented align with core needs of design teams with support and integrity

— Innovate by adding people elements to metrics and report

  • Not just numbers, but grasping human element of metrics as well

— Even more curious consider ops frameworks like the Jobs-To-Be-Done framework

  • This is innovation

— Help teams develop OKRs and align with needs of business is integrity

— Help designers figure out career ladders and path for DesignOps practicioners and establishing a new career path

  • New career ladders shows novelty of field and highlights willingness to experiment and don’t know yet what’s right

— Adjust based on design org’s maturity, and refine career path with integrity

— Committed to support growth of design team while evolving business and reflect on strengths and shortcomings and changes to make adjustments

  • Where we are and where to improve and transparency and accountability to design

— Push way of thinking as most effective and efficient way

  • Flexible adaptive and resourceful and innovative how we work together

— Use automation and innovation to speed up work and how we get things done

— Impossible to not talk about AI, and how we get things done this day and panel discussions

— Let’s look at AI as innovations

— Few of us gathered in Config to see AI features in Figma and turned off feature for company-wide use

— Scared it would replace designers, but I wasn’t concerned

— Can bring order for Figma files

— Larger orgs can have more concerns like keeping data safe and working with design systems

— Narrative of replacement is more complex than you think

  • See AI-specific Figma plug-ins
    • Decide how to engage or not in AI— choose governance not fear

— Turned off AI feature at Config, and began process with legal and security team to make sure AI features met standard and gave feedback to Figma rep and granular access controls

— Figma only one set of design and research tools that incorporate AI

— Can and should we replace human interactions with AI, and can we collaborate without losing human touch?

— We know that great innovation comes with great responsibility, so let’s choose governance

  • As DesignOps we must be one to ensure tools and frameworks to enhance rather than diminish integrity of work

— So how are we using AI for DesignOps tool

 

— Quotes from DesignOps benchmarking survey

  • Overview on how practitioners are using AI.

 

— Automate, improve process, and development work with AI

  • Ask AI to think a little bit and consult with it to co-create

— Different from previous year, and treating AI as intelligence rather than a tool

  • Once as intelligence, face interesting questions

— AI can’t replace real customers, but when we can’t reach customers, is AI research better than nothing at all

  • Can we trust AI won’t hallucinate?

— If stop thinking of AI as tool to command, but intelligence to collaborate with what things are possible

  • Can we train like an AI like educating a child?
    • Most effective approach is guiding kids to explore and learn from experiences and nurtures and foster ability for decision making skills

 

 

— Do we provide discipline or guidance?

 

— We should nurture AI initially, but can we allow AI to grow into more reliable intelligence

— Working with human for design thinking as opposed to doing

  • Even while it lacks emotional consciousness

— I’ll close talk with questions, but we are pioneers setting pace for design operations

  • Embrace experimentation and exploration

— Making sure path we forge leads to innovative design practice

— Define future of DesignOps and remember our role of pioneers and stewards

  • By ensuring innovations align with core principles of human centered design, and manage delicate balance between exploration and care

— What does it mean to be DesignOps now

  • Not special, but not alone?

— So let us lead with curiosity and govern with integrity and courageously transform landscape of DesignOps

— Thank you!