DesignOps Summit 2021 – DesignOps and Content Strategy: Envisioning the Future Together (Natalie Dunbar)

Senior Content Strategist, Agile Six

We’re going to spend a little time looking towards the future together as we consider how you can scale content strategy along with and as part of DesignOps in your organization

DesignOps Summit in 2019 – you may recall Alastair Simpson’s talk “Debunking the Myths of Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration”

  • This quote is part of the description for that talk, and it captures what it sometimes feels like to plan and collaborate across teams and disciplines
  • The description continues with Alastair saying that as we add more specialized functions to the mix including content strategy things can get a bit tricky
  • Alastair unwittingly gifted all of us content strategy folks, with recognition and inclusion in this thing called DesignOps

Another take on cross-disciplinary inclusion from Nielsen Norman Group’s (NN/g) DesignOps 101

  • “DesignOps applies to anyone using user-centered and design-thinking processes to solve problems.”

NN/g continues, note the inclusivity of many disciplines

  • The point is that we are designing experiences together, contributing to the end user experience
  • ALL have a shared interest in creating DesignOps organizations that are both sustainable and scalable

Where does content strategy (CS) sit in your organization, if at all?

  • Is it part and parcel of DesignOps?
  • Is it a separate team, entity, department, or practice that provides content as a service?
  • Do you have a plan to ensure you have enough CS resources to meet future demands?

I want you to think about where content strategy sits in your organization

NN/g’s 3  DesignOps Goals:

  • list of goals for your org might look a little different but If we can agree that this is a good starter list, then it’s crucial to have a plan for how to ensure that content strategy gets built into the mix, and how it can scale with DesignOps

But how?

I’m offering you a plan to help foster collaboration across different teams, inclusive of content strategy, in way that helps build both literacy and fluency in content strategy as part and parcel of your design operations

To build and scale a structure safely and sustainably requires a plan: A blueprint

  • Applies to organizational structures
    • DesignOps and content strategy teams
  • A detailed plan of action or program of action
    • A blueprint that you can use to scale your content strategy operations as part of DesignOps in your organization.

Content Strategy Blue Print

Five components comprise the content strategy practice blueprint

This blueprint is the foundation of a book I’m writing about building sustainable content strategy practices

  • My goal of sharing it with you today is so you can refer to it you start (or continue to) build and scale DesignOps in your business or organization

Making the business case

  • Where you begin by identifying the need, and by showing examples of how a strategic approach to content adds value to the experiences you create

Building strong relationships with cross-functional teams

  • Introducing content strategy and its benefits, especially on cross-functional design teams is a crucial component to establishing longevity
    • This speaks to the goals of “how we’ll work together” and “how work will get done”
  • At the early stages, you’ll want to ensure that every member of the DesignOps team understands how content strategy will impact their work
    • Make sure everyone sees the value
  • Involvement of and collaboration with cross-functional teammates to ensure alignment is critical at this point

 Creating frameworks and curating tools to build with

  • Helps to inform what I call an end-to-end process framework that can help identify responsibilities, dependencies, and critical handoffs between disciplines

What to capture

Agile or waterfall methodology for both you’ll want to capture:

  • Product development stages
  • Duration of each stage
  • Team(s) responsible for activities and deliverables
  • Critical overlaps or handoffs between teams (important)

How to capture

  • Gantt chart
  • A service blueprint approach
    • Map out each activity and deliverable in a visual way that allows input from the entire team
  • An exercise that everyone has a part in
  • May identify gaps in your process as you map out touch points

Right sizing the practice to meet client or project demand

  • Invites you to think beyond the current plans and projects
  • Asks you to consider how intentionally planning for future expansion can help ensure that content strategy grows and keeps pace as you grow your DesignOps

Establishing individual, shared, and meaningful success measures

  • Less about KPIs at the project level,
  • More about Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) at the team/organizational level
  • Establishing measures that are meaningful to the success of content strategy as a practice
    • Demonstrating how the discipline has or can contribute to the overall success of DesignOps in your org.

Remember these persistent principles as you create your future together:

Always be educating

  • You will always be called on to educate (or re-educate) clients, stakeholders and team members about the value content strategy brings to your digital experience capabilities
    • Example: Holding office hours every week or two hold space for product, design, and anyone who’s interested to bring content conundrums to the practice that you talk through and help solve
    • Helping them see and understand in real time

Goals and success measures

  • Always keep content strategy goals and success measures in mind as the size and scope of your DesignOps changes, to ensure you’re tracking together, and in ways that demonstrate how your work together creates impact
    • Example: Working together to establish OKR’s that apply to all the disciplines in DesignOps that you can all own and shape together

Community: you are not alone

  • There’s a vibrant community of content strategy practitioners who are both experienced and eager to share their knowledge to help ensure DesignOps scalability within your organization
    • Come together and learn ways to pair with and learn from each other, there are many opportunities for us all to come together and help each other

Maintaining a strong core is vital to ensuring the future we’ve envisioned together is sustainable and scalable

As you’re building a future together that includes content strategy:

  • Consider how to avoid burn-out before it happens, through continual training, cross-functional pairing, and ensuring that you have enough resources to handle the demand for their services
  • Consider how the content lifecycle fits into the product development lifecycle so DesignOps peers and partners understand that embrace that the successful completion of a client project or an enterprise-wide digital experience is a repeatable process that everyone contributes to, can learn from, and get better at
  • Practice for the greater good – Work together to foster DesignOps fluency
    • Hold inclusive design or innovation sprints with stakeholders
    • Let them see first-hand how you operate together as a cohesive design operations team
    • Be sure to learn from things that didn’t go as planned

Celebrate the wins together!