Design Ops Metrics
Summary
This session will detail how we are capturing metrics on product development and resource allocation. We will discuss how we are capturing people’s time on task to get us to a standard set of recipes that we can use when planning and budgeting for new products. We will discuss how we captured and identified tasks that could be handled by a 3rd party offshore vendor to free up our in-house designer who needs to be focused on strategic and innovative work.
Key Insights
-
•
Legacy Excel files fragmented by chapter and supplier caused inefficiencies and inaccurate budget forecasts.
-
•
Switching to SmartSheet templates allowed real-time aggregation of asset logs and invoices across multiple projects and vendors.
-
•
Embedding complexity codes and unique invoice IDs in SmartSheet enabled automatic line item calculations and budget variance alerts.
-
•
Design managers gained evidence-based visibility into budget usage relative to project timeline, improving scope and cost decisions.
-
•
Resource planning improved by scheduling tasks at a granular level and calculating designer allocation percentages per week.
-
•
Visual dashboards revealed workload peaks and valleys, helping managers balance resources and prevent burnout.
-
•
A year-long time study with Toggl captured designers' real time spent on 18 standardized tasks aligned to the product lifecycle.
-
•
Data from the time study exposed variable task durations by discipline and grade level, invalidating one-size-fits-all resourcing.
-
•
Toggle’s user-friendly interface and searchable preloaded tasks minimized friction in time tracking adoption.
-
•
Effective training, transparent communication, and time-boxed pilots helped overcome 'big brother' concerns among designers.
Notable Quotes
"We didn't actually overspend our budget. The allocations simply fell short of our expenditure."
"Saying on budget is every project goal, and in design it can be the hardest, especially with ever-changing requirements."
"At the beginning, academic designers give their best guesses for scope, but those numbers rarely hold."
"Sometimes projects are requesting less than anticipated, sometimes much more; forecasting is always a challenge."
"SmartSheet magic is really just frosty if statement formulas connecting 75 columns of metadata."
"Design managers can see how much budget has been used versus project progress to make evidence-based decisions."
"The yellow 80% allocation guide reminds that designers shouldn't be expected at full 100% project time due to meetings and breaks."
"Time study serves designers by preventing over allocation and helping organize their daily energy management."
"Some designers forget to stop the Toggl timer, which skews data but is easy to spot and correct."
"There's always something to learn from a time study, no matter how mature your design ops team is."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Slides are hitting a brick wall; video clips make findings much more interactive and engaging for stakeholders."
Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex KnollRepository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research
March 9, 2022
"How we orient ourselves to the future impacts how we experience the present."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"Nordstrom decided that innovation needed to be a corporate value, not a lab value."
Jeff GothelfInnovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation
May 14, 2015
"Meeting designers where they spend their time, like integrating accessibility plugins into Figma, is the most effective way to make progress."
Saara Kamppari-MillerDesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility
May 26, 2022
"If you don’t have the basics taken care of, infinite promotions and ping pong tables are just noise."
Tess DixonC'mon Get Happy
September 29, 2021
"Cross-functional relationships often matter more to output than relationships within the immediate team."
Liam ThurstonWhy Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It
June 10, 2022
"If you’re amazing at your job but no one listens to your research or design, does it really have impact?"
Ian SwinsonDesigning and Driving UX Careers
June 8, 2016
"When negotiating, bring plan A—show what you need and what good looks like—even if it seems outrageous."
Leisa ReicheltOpening Keynote: Operating in Context
November 7, 2018
"UX research is a team sport and our research process is cross-functional and non-negotiable."
Rachael Greene Alison DavisBuilding a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)
October 2, 2025