Rosenverse
Cultivating Design Ecologies of Care, Community, and Collaboration

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Cultivating Design Ecologies of Care, Community, and Collaboration

Gold
Wednesday, October 4, 2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Share the love for this talk
Cultivating Design Ecologies of Care, Community, and Collaboration
Speakers: Sahibzada Mayed and Lauren Lin
Link:

Summary

“How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale” (Adrienne Maree Brown). To truly put humans in “human-centered design,” we must be care-centered. And how we practice care in our own teams or the “small scale” will influence the downstream impacts of our design work. This session is an invitation to explore how we practice and build ecologies of care, community, and collaboration to shift towards mutual power and symbiotic relationships throughout the design process. Drawing from a perspective of trauma-centeredness and harm reduction, we will all engage in deep (sometimes complex) reflection about what it means to care for yourself, with others, and develop an ethics of care to guide design teams. If the purpose of DesignOps is to build systems, processes and tools to support stronger design teams and individuals, this is the case for care: to show up as humans first, before we are designers, researchers, employers/the employed, technologists, or however you define your role.

Key Insights

  • Viewing an organization as an ecology reveals fluid, interdependent relationships beyond rigid hierarchical charts.

  • Decentralizing power is essential to foster genuine care and collaboration within organizations.

  • Care is a relational and reciprocal practice that moves beyond transactional exchanges.

  • Collective care and interdependence are crucial for the health and wellbeing of any organizational ecology.

  • Care looks different for every individual, making autonomy and self-determination foundational to inclusive workplace cultures.

  • Small-scale behaviors and relational practices can scale up to systemic change by following the principles of fractals of change.

  • Pod mapping helps individuals and teams visualize and reflect on their care networks and relational needs.

  • Implementing care practices in corporate settings requires intentional conversations and sometimes challenging established power hierarchies.

  • Practicing anti-urgency and setting boundaries are acts of care that improve wellbeing and productivity.

  • Care-centered relationships enable safer, more accountable, and more just workplace communities.

Notable Quotes

"What would a personal cheer team that wants you to grow and blossom look and feel like? Is that the future of design ops?"

"An ecology is about examining relationships among humans, more than humans, and the environment."

"Decentralization of power is really important because power impacts how we practice care and collaborate."

"Knowing that you love the earth activates you to defend and protect, but feeling that the earth loves you transforms it into a sacred bond."

"How we are at the small scale is how we are at the large scale—our personal care practices scale to community care."

"Care is a relational practice, a form of reciprocity, and a way of being in community and kinship."

"Care can go in multiple pathways; it’s not always one-way. There’s multiplicity and duality in how care is practiced."

"In corporate settings you have to get buy-in for care—it’s strange to think about, but that’s part of decentralizing power."

"We practice care by being anti-urgency—questioning if things really need to happen when we think they do."

"You need to show up as humans first before we show up as employees."

Ask the Rosenbot
Kevin Bethune
Gatekeepers and Servant Leadership
2020 • DesignOps Community
Meredith Black
Scaling Design Culture
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
JP Allen
Navigating the UX Tools Landscape
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Jack Behar
How to Build Prototypes that Behave like an End-Product
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Dr. Jamika D. Burge
How UX researchers can partner with (and not be replaced by) AI [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2023 • Advancing Research Community
Benjamin Real
Showing the Value of DesignOps by Not Having a DesignOps Team
2020 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Prayag Narula
HCI 2.0: Humanity Deserves the Attention that UX Research has to Offer
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Marc Rettig
Discussion
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Alana Washington
Theme 3 Intro
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Margot Bloomstein
Fostering Trust in Your Brand and Beyond
2020 • Enterprise Community
Husani Oakley
Theme Three Intro
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Anat Fintzi
Delivering at Scale: Making Traction with Resistant Partners
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Ana Ferreira
Designing Distributed: Leading Doist’s Fully Remote Design Team in Six Countries
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Elizabeth Sklar
Co-creating research enablement with your tech org: a case study
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Christian Crumlish
Afternoon Insights Panel
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Emily Williams
When UX Research and Institutional Racism Collide: A Case Study
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold

More Videos

Carl Turner

"The biggest problem was to solve the engagement problem first with the sponsor, then the team, then external stakeholders."

Carl Turner

You Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project

March 28, 2023

Karen Pascoe

"How many people here actually know how their company makes money? 100% should understand this to lead effectively."

Karen Pascoe

Developing Experience Teams and Talent in the Enterprise

June 8, 2016

Jilanna Wilson

"Having cameras on during meetings, even for those in the same room, really helps remote employees feel included."

Jilanna Wilson

Distributed Design Operations Management

October 23, 2019

Shawna Hein

"Designers contribute experimental patterns back to the design system early, making their work visible even before full validation."

Shawna Hein Kevin Hoffman

Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts

November 17, 2022

Barb Spanton

"I still kind of pause in my tracks when I see our corporate vision: a world without fear of cancer."

Barb Spanton

Doing Work That Matters: A Look Beyond The Idealistic Notion of 'Doing Meaningful Work'

June 10, 2022

Briana Thomas

"If a feature didn’t align with our core UX principles, it probably didn’t belong in our application."

Briana Thomas

The Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams

September 24, 2024

Gina Mendolia

"Therapists create space for clients to reflect and discover insights in a safe environment."

Gina Mendolia

Therapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems

December 3, 2024

Lija Hogan

"Regulations are design problems, not just technical ones, influencing how we create products and experiences."

Lija Hogan Milan Mijatovic Sam Proulx Louis Rosenfeld

Three Years Out: Perspectives on the Near-Term Future of User Research

March 15, 2024

John Calhoun

"As your design practice matures, your design ops team will reach inflection points, and it’s okay to flip the coin and explore the other side."

John Calhoun Rachel Posman

Two Sides of the DesignOps Coin: Teams Ops and Product Ops

January 8, 2024