DesignOps Summit 2021 – Have we Reached Our Peak? Spotting the Next Mountain For DesignOps to Climb (John Calhoun)

Senior Director of Design Operations, Salesforce

Establishing a DesignOps practice is not an easy feat some of you may have already done it some of us may still be on that path

Wherever you are on that journey let me ask you what did it feel like getting to where you are today?

Wherever you are on that journey let me ask you what did it feel like getting to where you are today?

I have been doing designed by whole career and DesignOps for the last five and mountain climbing sounds like the perfect metaphor to describe our practice

DesignOps takes:

  • Agility
  • Goal setting
  • Peripheral vision
  • The word scaling gets used a lot

But mostly I love the mountain climbing metaphor because I just love the moment when you’ve reached your peak

  • Your peak may look different depending on your practice and the goal of your DesignOps team

The thing about finally reaching your peak is it begs the question have we reached our peak? is this it?

You did the thing, you established your practice and built a team

Now what? – How do you decide what’s next for your design Ops team?

Deciding what to do next is just requires knowing where and what to look for

The next opportunity for your practice will be revealed by examining the following four things

  • Adjacent peaks and valleys
    • Examining the adjacent design functions in your company
  • Your map
    • Your organizational structure
  • Your climbing party
    • The operating model and roles of your DesignOps team
  • Established trails
    • Established Ops disciplines

These are the four areas you’ll want to examine before setting out and in doing so you’ll likely discover not just where your DesignOps team should go next but also which path, people, and tools you’ll want, and probably need to get there

The first place to look is at the adjacent design functions at your company

Adjacent design functions represent a prime destination for expanding your DesignOps practice

If these nearby peaks sound interesting here’s what you should be asking yourself:

  • “What services does my Ops team excel at that could be of value to these groups?”
  • “What do those services look like in the context of these group’s day-to-day work?”

To figure this all out the easiest thing to do is codify your design Ops services and shop them around

Salesforce example – How we represent our design suite of services

Do all these services resonate with all design functions? – Absolutely not

  • The surest way is to find out and to crystallize and codify the value your team adds to the practice of Design
  • Seek to understand their problems first before ever proposing design Ops as a solution
  • once you understand the other teams goals and gaps it’s easier to see which ops services will be relevant and to frame those solutions in that team’s native language

Takeaway

Your next DesignOps peak might lay beyond the valleys of your current design practice

Instead, it may be among the mountain tops of adjacent design functions at your company so:

  • Pull out your binoculars
  • Be crisp about how you talk about your services
  • Understand the problems before evangelizing Ops

*The intersection point of those teams needs and your Ops teams strengths might just be the destination of your next big DesignOps endeavor

The second thing to look at is the structure of your product teams by this I mean the product teams that have designers or design teams that your Ops team currently supports

For many of you the path may be revealed by studying the map that got you this far

  • A map of your product organization

Your product organization and how it’s structured relative to your design stakeholders and partners is fertile ground to explore for any design Ops practice

When you look at your map your organizational structure what we should be seeking out the broken areas, the organizational cracks, not to avoid them, but these obstacles in your structure are like trail markers, signs that you’re on the right path

Organizational cracks I’ve experienced

Siloed

  • A product org that tends to create silos

Matrixed

  • A very common broken area perfect opportunity for DesignOps to clarify accountability design ownership and accountability

Dispersed

  • The product org that is geographically dispersed or working hybrid
  • The opportunity here might be to establish centralized time management for the designers to maximize maker time and to make efficient use of face-to-face meetings

Lacking strategy

  • Trickiest hazard
  • Comes in all shapes and sizes

Biggest value that DesignOps adds – We built strategic programs that helped designers collaborate with multiple partners, we’re the strategy people

  • Opportunities here might include managing quarterly vision workshops
  • Leading long range plans
  • Developing processes for holding teams accountability for those proper product requirements

The harder challenges to spot are the ones that require us to use our peripheral vision – the power to look sideways looking sideways means we can see across silos it means that the negative space in your organizational structure which is so often cracked and ignored that’s a positive place for you to explore

These broken areas are often underserved points of commonality between our design teams and our partners

Maybe your organization needs to rebuild its career ladders or invest in programs that drive DEI engagement these aren’t always the noisy problems that doesn’t make

Your next design OPS peak might be discovered by examining the hazards mapped out in plain sight in your product team structure

Takeaways

The third thing to examine is the operating model and roles of your DesignOps team

  • “How is my Design Ops team shaped and organized?”
  • “What does my Design Ops team look like at 2x scale? 5x scale? Global scale?”

If you’re DesignOps team structure feels shaky when doubled it’s going to breakdown when it gets larger or already did it works bored wives our model is this there’s another so worldwide

Let’s switch from design Ops operating models to DesignOps roles

These team rules got you to where you are today but they got messy fast

  • Are these the roles your team wants to carry forward?

Takeaways

Who are the other Ops teams?

What do they do & What value do they add?

Why should DesignOps care?

Takeaway

Before you set out on that adventure here’s one last thing to remember

  • Growing your DesignOps Team is a human journey it’s a challenge that requires preparation and care both physically and mentally
    • Hold your destination in mind
    • Have an intention to succeed
    • Break out the long tracks
    • Embrace the hard parts
    • Focus on what’s in front of you but it’s OK to wander
  • Be intentional about the trails we make your choices now will have an impact on those who follow your footsteps
  • Make the decisions and leave the right markers for others to find