Summary
You have heard of DesignOps. You know how it can benefit your team. Your designers are tired of chasing requirements and dealing with tooling. But you have no idea where to start with establishing the practice in your organization. This session will help you evaluate what parts of DesignOps you need to implement, and how you can start to introduce the concept to your team.
Key Insights
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70% of design ops teams consist of just one person, making Amy's solo-employee experience relatable.
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Understanding the catalyst behind your design ops hire clarifies priorities and scope of work.
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Setting clear boundaries early with the head of design prevents overlapping responsibilities and conflict.
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Building strong, cross-functional relationships is critical to uncovering and solving process problems.
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Frequent one-on-ones with designers build trust and help address career development and morale.
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Identifying gaps, such as lack of research tools and training, enables targeted improvements.
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Implementing a remote research platform requires compliance coordination, especially across regions (e.g., GDPR).
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Honest communication around what you don’t know creates realistic expectations and collaborative problem solving.
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Design ops impact is often measured qualitatively, such as improvements to leadership trust scores.
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Not being a people manager can allow design ops to act as an objective counselor without direct authority, which has advantages.
Notable Quotes
"Design ops teams are mostly a team of one, so many of you are probably in the same boat I was."
"Find out the root cause why you were hired, because that will make your job easier."
"Set up clear boundaries early on with your head of design on what lives in your world and what lives in theirs."
"Making friends is about 75% of the game in my job because we solve problems together."
"People will tell you what frustrates them, so listen and prioritize what many people complain about."
"We had to negotiate getting Figma behind our single sign-on to ensure security, and it took multiple calls."
"Leadership trust score went up by 22 points after design ops was established – that’s how we measured impact."
"It’s okay to say I don’t know, but always follow it with I’ll figure it out."
"Not being a people manager means I’m kind of an objective third party who can help with career conversations."
"Bring blockers into the process so they see firsthand the value of what you’re trying to do."
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