Conference Program
Theme 1: DesignOps Craft
What critical skills and best practices empower designers and design teams to succeed? How might we improve upon the fundamentals of our craft? In addition to stories about your design team or org, we welcome perspectives on how operational practices can support broader impact and collaborative problem solving with partners in research, accessibility, security, and regulatory compliance.
What critical skills and best practices empower designers and design teams to succeed? How might we improve upon the fundamentals of our craft? In addition to stories about your design team or org, we welcome perspectives on how operational practices can support broader impact and collaborative problem solving with partners in research, accessibility, security, and regulatory compliance.
Break
Imagine working at a large company where there is no single design organization. Instead, it feels like an archipelago of design islands. Some large islands with an organization of designers and researchers. Others are smaller islands of just one team. And even, UX teams of one floating on rafts in between. Without a map, those islands are only aware of their immediate surroundings.
How can we bring the company wide design community of practice together if we don’t even know where to find each other?
This was my experience when I did my first design community mapping project. In this talk, I’ll share how we ended up crowdsourcing our design community map, and how it became an invaluable resource for the internal design community of practice. I’ll compare the differences for visualizing and thinking about organizations with a traditional org chart compared to a community map. Further, I’ll share how I brought my cartography skills with me to a new company, where I felt lost without a map, and why this map is my most important DesignOps tool.
Long Break
Before taking the Continuous Discovery Habits course, we were already experimenting with Design Sprints to solve tough problems and build momentum—but the course gave us the structure and language to reinforce a deeper culture of learning across product and design.
In this talk, I’ll share how I used DesignOps thinking to translate a course into company-wide behavior change. Building on our sprint foundation, I introduced new rituals, rhythms, and infrastructure to help teams shift from validation to true discovery—from asking “Will this work?” to “What might we learn?”
Break
In this case study, we’ll share how one large design org began reshaping its feedback culture by focusing not just on what gets reviewed, but how we talk about work. The turning point wasn’t a new tool—it was unlearning long-held assumptions: that critique is a milestone, that it’s only for finished work, or that feedback is something senior people give and juniors receive.
We’ll walk through how we introduced lightweight feedback rituals, role-based archetypes, and a simple starter kit to help designers ask for the feedback they actually need—earlier, more confidently, and with more clarity. Along the way, we’ll share the bumps, lessons, and shifts in mindset it took to make critique feel like a creative tool, not a performance review.
You’ll leave with practical ideas to build a culture of feedback—and a deeper appreciation for the messy, human side of improving our craft together.
Long Break
Driving large-scale design transformation within a 4,500-strong global organization requires more than just a vision—it demands a strategic, scalable approach to operational excellence. To meet the ambitious goals of our new Process Transformation (PT) vision and mission, we developed a powerful delivery vehicle designed to seamlessly integrate with stakeholders and clients while maximizing the productivity and impact of our extensive design talent.
Through a strategic fusion of DesignOps, process design, process transformation, user experience design, service design, and change management, we crafted the PT Method—a unified operating model that blends the most relevant practices into a single, efficient methodology. Led by Executive Leaders across IBM and CHQ in partnership with our DesignOps and Design Leadership team, this approach establishes a structured yet flexible framework, equipping teams with reusable templates and tools to consistently deliver value at scale.
Join for this case study to explore how this cohesive, multidisciplinary approach empowers teams to drive innovation and transformation while maintaining the agility and quality essential for long-term success.
Break
As digital organizations multiply their Ops disciplines — DesignOps, DevOps, ResearchOps, and more — true cross-functional alignment remains elusive. This panel examines the current landscape of Cross-Functional Operations: where integration succeeds, where it falters, and the path forward. We’ll discuss how to move beyond siloed approaches, envisioning an “OmniOps” model that unifies learning, delivery, compliance, and governance. Panelists from diverse Operations backgrounds will share insights on bridging gaps between technology, business, and human-centered design. Join us for an honest conversation about breaking down barriers, fostering organizational cohesion, and building operational models that drive agility, ethics, and user-focused outcomes.
Wrap up
Opening Remarks/Housekeeping
Theme 2: DesignOps Futures
How might we, as DesignOps professionals, extend design’s impact through cutting-edge applications of technology, novel collaboration models, and deeply integrated operational strategies that enable design to drive meaningful business outcomes across domains? How can we operationalize design not just within design teams, but across the full business ecosystem?
How might we, as DesignOps professionals, extend design’s impact through cutting-edge applications of technology, novel collaboration models, and deeply integrated operational strategies that enable design to drive meaningful business outcomes across domains? How can we operationalize design not just within design teams, but across the full business ecosystem?
Theme 2 Intro
DesignOps has matured practices, refined workflows, and scaled design systems.
But have we become too focused on design itself?
While optimizing pixels and processes, a transformative opportunity remains untapped.
As operational silos multiply across organizations and sector-agnostic regulations for digital products grow increasingly complex, a dangerous ambiguity emerges: Who actually owns compliance implementation?
A wave of regulations impacting all digital product organizations in Europe demands cross-functional action, yet ownership remains fragmented: legal understands requirements but lacks implementation expertise. Product prioritizes features over compliance. Design identifies constraints without solutions. Engineering relegates compliance to the backlog.
The result?
Compliance becomes everyone’s concern and no one’s responsibility.
This case study explores how the Eu Accessibility Act enforcement in June 2025 revealed this hidden dysfunction: budget disputes, role confusion, and mounting organizational friction. In this leadership vacuum, DesignOps emerged as the strategic architect that:
– Aligned product, design, legal, and engineering around shared accountability
– Embedded compliance directly into R&D workflows
– Became the connective tissue that unified previously siloed operations
This ownership gap will grow exponentially more dangerous for organizations navigating Europe’s complex regulatory landscape.
This talk explores how DesignOps must evolve from tactical facilitator to compliance-by-design architect: breaking down operational silos, reducing implementation costs, and delivering compliant innovation at market speed.
The question isn’t how well we can optimize design workflows. It’s whether we’re ready to lead the transformation our organizations desperately need.
Break
In the era of AI, the way we build products as a software company is now intrinsically and inseparably tied to our tools. As I’ve evolved my Design Ops practice at Microsoft to affect change to our collaborative workflows, I’ve unconsciously grown into a liminal space that sits at the confluence of Design and Engineering Operations. Driving audacious pilot programs that test novel tools, building business cases for CVPs and executives, and designing large-scale rollout strategies — I’m not just solving problems for designers, but for herds of engineers, and for skeptical business stakeholders who want to see highly-crafted products in the hands of our customers as quickly as possible.
Long Break
For over a decade, the team at the Lab at OPM has navigated the complexities of embedding design across the vast and varied landscape of the US federal government. Operating as a small, nimble consultancy serving large federal agencies, our team of 30+ designers faced challenges that resonate deeply with design teams operating in similarly complex environments:
– Real-time Accountability: Responding to the curiosities and scrutiny of senior leaders and managing internal communications often demands immediate access to accurate and impactful information about our work.
– Navigating Distributed Landscapes: We frequently collaborate with distributed teams, diverse stakeholders across federal agencies, and the public we serve, making consistent communication and shared understanding critical yet challenging.
– Tackling Increasingly Complex Challenges: The problems we address span legacy systems and processes to implementing emerging technologies, requiring our team to quickly onboard to novel domains and effectively engage with subject matter experts who may have established ways of working.
– Combating Knowledge Loss: With the inevitable ebb and flow of personnel, the risk of losing invaluable project history, contextual understanding, and tacit knowledge is a constant concern.
– The Pressure of Speed and Documentation: The urgency of design projects with federal agencies often clashes with the time required for thorough documentation, leading to a “”Groundhog Day”” scenario of repeated problem-solving and inefficient knowledge transfer.
– Breaking Down Silos: Despite our collaborative nature, the potential for siloing across project teams and functional areas within client agencies can hinder holistic solutions and shared learning.
These challenges are not unique to the public sector. Design teams within large organizations across industries grapple with distributed collaboration, complex domains, knowledge retention, time and resourcing pressures, and the need to demonstrate value to diverse stakeholders.
Break
Over the past few years, we faced the intense challenge of adapting to aggressive, continuous scaling. As our design org at Commencis grew rapidly—from a humble team to over 70 Designers and Researchers—it became clear that headcount and tooling alone weren’t enough. We risked losing the human connections, clarity, and culture that made us strong to begin with—especially in a remote-first environment.
As a DesignOps team of one, I led the creation of a full-spectrum talent journey that balanced structure and belonging—from candidate experience and onboarding to career frameworks, leadership models, OKRs and team rituals. I collaborated closely with design leads, managers, and cross-functional stakeholders to co-create systems that would not only support our growth but also reflect who we wanted to become as a design org.
This period was both a major challenge and a defining opportunity. My goal wasn’t just to manage growth—it was to design for it intentionally, without sacrificing empathy, clarity, or culture.
Long Break
How do our peers truly view DesignOps? This panel brings together product managers, chief design officers, research leads, and others to share their candid (and not always positive) perspectives on the evolving role and value of DesignOps. Some see DesignOps as essential and growing, while others have shifted focus to ProductOps or have even given up on their efforts to establish DesignOps within their organizations. While attending this panel might make you uncomfortable, you’ll come away with insight into how you’re really perceived by important peers—and you’ll learn practical ideas for building stronger relationships, demonstrating value, and adapting to shifting organizational priorities and expectations.
Break
As DesignOps matures into a critical driver of business value, we’re once again at an inflection point—this time shaped by accelerating technologies, and shifting business priorities. Executive design leader Doug Powell will explore what’s next for DesignOps—drawing from decades of design leadership including his tenure at IBM during the expansion of that global design program, and insights from his consulting and training practice. With a hopeful but grounded perspective, Doug will share emerging signals from the field and reflect on the cycles and patterns of the past to offer a practical vision for how DesignOps leaders can lead through uncertainty, deepen cross-functional influence, and amplify the strategic potential of design.