Rosenverse
DesignOps Community Sensing Session

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

DesignOps Community Sensing Session

Thursday, May 13, 2021 • DesignOps Community
Share the love for this talk
DesignOps Community Sensing Session
Speakers: Bud Caddell , Kristin Skinner and Alana Washington
Link:

Summary

Join us to explore the future of the DesignOps role, as well as the joys and challenges folks are facing in that role.

Key Insights

  • Design operations struggles less with ideas and more with organizational culture and ways of working that hinder idea adoption.

  • Many design ops practitioners feel isolated as 'teams of one,' facing challenges defining their role and gaining recognition.

  • Leadership support is a crucial variable influencing design ops success, with some having strong champions and others lacking basic resources.

  • Scaling design ops functions risks losing the humanity and startup agility that early-stage teams enjoy.

  • Internal organizational operations directly influence customer experiences externally, creating a feedback loop of impact.

  • Community events and cohorts foster solidarity and shared learning invaluable to those navigating ambiguous roles.

  • The COVID-19 pandemic has driven shifts in work practices, emphasizing remote efficiency but also risking increased bureaucracy.

  • There is tension between adopting bureaucratic scaling systems and maintaining human connection within growing design ops teams.

  • Iterative development in design ops means many contributions build foundations for future success even if not immediately visible.

  • Active curation of conference content grounded in real participant feedback ensures relevance and practical usefulness for the community.

Notable Quotes

"Organizations weren’t suffering from a lack of ideas, they were suffering from ways of working and culture that didn’t allow good ideas to get heard."

"I see design ops as deeply linked to how internal operations influence what our customers experience."

"The biggest challenge I see is scaling without losing our humanity."

"There’s still folks who are entering saying I’m a team of one, no one knows what I do."

"Having a 'dope' leader who champions design ops changes everything."

"Sometimes you’re just laying the foundational bricks so an idea or process can get off the ground."

"We want to prevent our community from the dehumanizing impulses often brought on by bureaucratic scaling."

"This conference is a polished snapshot of conversations already happening at scale in the community."

"We’re seeing a bifurcated experience between teams ready for virtual work and those struggling with it."

"Evangelizing and doing design ops day-to-day is a tough balance when resources are slim."

Ask the Rosenbot
Louis Rosenfeld
Do you want to work on climate? (Climate UX Discussion Series)
2023 • Climate UX Interest Group
Todd Healy
Driving Change with CX Metrics
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Kyle Godbey
Non-linear service design for complex adaptive systems
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Bria Alexander
Theme Two Intro
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Dan Donald
Design Systems as a Vehicle for Systemic Change
2023 • DesignOps Community
Brigette Metzler
Scaling ResearchOps: Helping Researchers do Their Best Work
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Dane DeSutter
What co-speech gestures reveal about users’ thinking during interviews
2023 • Rosenfeld Community
Harry Brignull
Beyond Clicks and Tricks: Why deceptive design has grown into a regulatory faultline
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Rusha Sopariwala
Remote, Together: Craft and Collaboration Across Disciplines, Borders, Time Zones, and a Design Org of 170+
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Jaime Creixems
Best Practices when Creating and Maintaining a Design System
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Shanti Mathew
Civic Design at Scale: Introducing the Public Policy Layer Cake
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Sarah Sgarlato Pierini
From Passion to Execution: A Story of Evolving Research Maturity at LinkedIn
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Elizabeth Sklar
Co-creating research enablement with your tech org: a case study
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Product and Design at Bloomberg: A 15-year Evolution
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Victor M. Gonzalez
Practicing Learners and Learning Practitioners
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Tricia Wang
From Users to Shapers of AI: The Future of Research
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold

More Videos

Sofía Delsordo

"Children are advanced in design topics like UX because they see them in their everyday apps and games."

Sofía Delsordo Kassim Vera

Public Policy for Jalisco's Designers to Make Design Matter

December 8, 2021

"Providing context to designers leads to much better design outcomes."

Product and Design at Bloomberg: A 15-year Evolution

December 6, 2022

Liza Pemstein

"We have the quantity of research work; now we’re focused on building up the quality."

Liza Pemstein Jane Davis

Scaling Research Via an Ops First Model at Clever

March 27, 2023

Kara Kane

"Design ideas come back around again and again, waiting for leadership or new contexts to take root."

Kara Kane

Theme One Intro

November 16, 2022

Mark Interrante

"AI can accelerate prioritization tasks, but the final judgment must come from humans who understand context."

Mark Interrante Harry Max

AI for Prioritization (3rd of 3 seminars)

July 11, 2024

Sam Proulx

"Multiple payment providers aren’t just a feature; they’re an accessibility lifeline for people who can’t read or reach their credit card easily."

Sam Proulx

Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience

October 3, 2023

Rich Mironov

"If you want to make one slice bigger you have to make another slice smaller — executives hate the exclusive or concept."

Rich Mironov

How Can Product Managers and UXers Help Each Other (and Why are Product Folks so Annoying Sometimes)?

December 6, 2022

Juhan Sonin

"Civic stamina is the grind of hearing no a lot while pushing toward yes."

Juhan Sonin

Design Now! The Agenda for Action

September 4, 2025

Mansi Gupta

"Snow clearing policies choose to clear roads before pavements, deeply ignoring responsibilities that are likely to fall on women."

Mansi Gupta

Drawing from Feminist Practice to Make Inclusive Design Operational

September 9, 2022