DesignOps 2020- Leveling-Up: A Single-Player’s Guide to the DesignOps Team-of-One (Session Notes)

Speaker: Jackie Ajoux, UX Program Manager, Electronic Arts (EA)

It takes head and heart to lead DesignOps on one’s own.

 

The talk will be about what it meant for her Jackie to function as a DesignOps team of one at EA Games, as well as a practical strategy guide for what to do in first year

 

Jackie is a DesignOps Manager at EA Games. Loves video games and humbled to work together with the EA team to make the world play.
DesignOps team of one is set to hard mode by default and special in its own regard. You are a Brand Manager, Relationship Manager, and Entrepreneur.

 

Role demands grit, persistence, and resilience

 

Challenging place where you are sole ops person, but you get chance to steer direction of the organization as a whole.

A Brief Biography

Jackie was responsible for delivering high quality products as product manager.
  •  The shift to DesignOps relied heavily on product management, and using design team as product
Jackie was esponsible for delivering high quality products as product manager.

 

Shift to DesignOps relied heavily on product management, and using design team as product

 

She has a love affair with design,  and the “how” of designops relies on training in UX. Applying design thinking with organizational problem

 

Her experience as a program manager gave her skills in Organization and ability to lead  the team.

 

Challenge #1: New Terrain

Jackie had a new role at  a complex organization, at a scale she wasn’t used to

 

For those who who are in a new role,  Jackie says to trust yourself that you are capable.

 

More broadly, she had the following tips:
For Jackie, this strategy involved conducting one-on-one sessions with designers and key stakeholders, and developing a repository of what she learned.

 

She applied the user-research technique of structured interviews for her one-on-one sessions, and outlined the following objectives that she wanted to achieve.
She then created an affinity map of the information she received from each one-on-one, to detect any common themes.
The affinity map helped create and cultivate connections. Jackie used what she heard to build her understanding of the design organization.

 

Relationships were important tools in her tool-belt to help manage the new terrain.

 

Challenge #2: Triage

It’s hard to know what projects to take on first, as you are filtering through design leadership requests, Slack messages, and emails.

 

The solution is to create ecosystem of tools to manage work and have a structured operation.
Build out a designers back-log for people to list out ideas, pain-points, and observations for  the design team.

 

Each issue in back-log is any issue that can be taken on by DesignOps.

 

Tips for addressing the log will include:
— Keeping track of what is added to log
— Identifying what teams will benefit (this will influence issue priority)
— Knowing individual who contributed ideas
— Grouping items in back-logs like themes/epics or designops pillars to assess if work is evenly distributed
— Providing short description of opportunity
— Prioritizing back-log (find prioritization method that works for you), include design leadership as they will provide context
— Providing an assignee and a status for each project

 

Some thoughts about the log include:

Challenge #3: Feedback

So now that you have an active project, how do you get the design team’s time and attention?

People are laser-focused on products, and value of getting initiative you are working on is comparatively low.

 

To solve these issues:

 

 Learn you orgs business strategy- know strategic vision and goals
  • Talk to network to figure out what you are trying to achive

 

Use 1:1s to provide data-points

 

 Become more familiar with organizational change management models
  • John Kotter’s 8-step
  • Prosci’s ADKAR model

As the team of one, engage with a mixture of top-down (people with influence create urgency and support for projects, i.e. announcement at all hands) and support of the bottom-up (enlist volunteers to bring change).

Challenge #4: Loneliness

Large issue is feeling of loneliness, and it is hard/pervasive as a team-of-one.
If you connect with people in network, you can lean on them. Have a natural network of people who get your struggles, and remember you are not alone.

Challenge #5: Visibility

As a team of one, you are communicating down upwards and laterally

 

You have the issue of communicating your work along with several high priority initiatives, and release dates—hard to be advocate for yourself and daily.

 

The advice? Assume you already have a seat at the table and that what you do matters.

  • You are Marie-Kondoing Design Team with a focus of “Will This Make Life Better for Team?”
  • What you do is intrinsic to scaling effort of design team and improve outcomes

 

People need to feel time spent is a good investment. Be comfortable presenting value proposition of DesignOps.

  • Share context and problem statement
  • Shared proposed solution to problems identified
  • Connect solution to company’s strategic objectives
  • Add 3-5 key improvements for how solution will benefit team and company

Design playbook can reduce friction, and can make Designops standards transparent.

You will develop a relationship where your voice is heard.

Challenge #6: Scale

How can you multiply the impact of your work?

 

Reduce, reuse, recycle whenever you can, and make it asynchronously accessible to others

Example included creating a remote design sprint template in Miro, decks, and even a Spotify design sprint playlist. Jackie also made the remote design sprint available within the learning management system.

Core takeaway  is to think scrappy to achieve the most value with the least effort.

 

Final Takeaways and Year 2

Biggest takeaway is that you are capable and not alone

For Year 2:

— Expect more focus on communication
— Remember people rooting for your strength

Questions

  1. Is the DesignOps back-log more or less an in-take form?

 

It can be. The form is meant to be revisited over again, as priorities change and projects shift. Good for in-take but also can be revised further.

 

  1. How to navigate burn-out and share impact before you exhaust yourself?

 

You need to be reasonable, and know who you are and how you recharge. For Jackie, unplugging and playing video games works best for her to recharge. Her job is very social, and  you need to think of what best recharges you, and don’t let others take away your recharge time.