Summary
We will cover some of the key principles and guidelines of collaborative DesignOps and share experiences of setting up design operations using a tech platform. You will know more about how to: Define a design process and convert it into a design roadmap. Share design goals and measure impact. Manage design processes and activities. Get started with curated set of tools, templates and best practices.
Key Insights
-
•
Design teams are scaling rapidly, with design recruitment growing tenfold in the past two years, demanding new tools and processes.
-
•
Current DevOps tools like Jira are inadequate for managing Design Ops due to fundamental differences in work styles and workflows.
-
•
There is a significant gap between strategizing design, executing it, and measuring its impact, which Design Ops platforms must bridge.
-
•
Design Ops encompasses multiple user roles including design managers, Design Ops managers, product managers, and design producers, each with distinct needs.
-
•
Design managers focus heavily on maintaining team health while achieving goals, whereas Design Ops managers emphasize process standardization and knowledge reuse.
-
•
Product managers seek transparency into design timelines and deliverables, viewing design as a black box without clear visibility.
-
•
Design producers prioritize creative autonomy and prefer working within beloved tools like Figma, resisting workflows that interrupt their creative process.
-
•
Qubits enables quick creation of standardized design roadmaps by offering flexibility in process choice (Agile UX, Clean UX, Design Sprint) and team assignments.
-
•
Tracking design metrics aligned to business outcomes is crucial for demonstrating design’s ROI and justifying design investments.
-
•
Integrations with tools such as Jira, Slack, Google Drive, Figma, and analytics platforms are essential for seamless collaboration and data-driven insights in design teams.
Notable Quotes
"Design teams are growing really fast, and design recruitment has gone 10x or more in the last two years."
"Design Ops being pushed under the umbrella of DevOps with tools like Jira is not right; the playgrounds are incompatible."
"Design managers care deeply about team health and achieving goals simultaneously."
"Design Ops managers want to standardize the design process and organizational knowledge to bring clarity and confidence."
"Product managers feel design is a black box, with no visibility into timelines or accountability."
"Design producers want to stay in their favorite tools like Figma and avoid being forced into additional tools or reporting."
"You can create a design roadmap in Qubits in just half a minute based on your chosen design process."
"Our platform aligns the entire design team with a process so everyone knows their activities and timelines."
"Design metrics are how businesses measure design’s ROI, so tracking these is essential."
"We aim to integrate deeply with Jira, Slack, Google Drive, Figma, and analytics tools to remove silos and improve collaboration."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Process can make things scalable and bring folks together in ways that are not even imaginable."
Jennifer KanyamibwaCreating the Blueprint: Growing and Building Design Teams
November 8, 2018
"Most organizations are using a stack of tools like Google Drive, SharePoint, or Airtable, not mature repositories."
Brigette Metzler Dana ChrisfieldResearch Repositories: A global project by the ResearchOps Community (Videoconference)
August 27, 2020
"Sometimes you just have to do what you can and come back to it later when analyzing culture versus delivery demands."
Carl TurnerYou Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project
March 28, 2023
"Often we designers are in IT departments, separate from the larger organization; that boundary is a hurdle to overcome."
John Mortimer Milan Guenther Lucy Ellis Patrick QuattlebaumPanel Discussion
December 3, 2024
"Onboarding is a marathon, not a sprint; knowledge needs to be spread out over a feasible timeline."
Dante GuintuHow to Crush the Talent Crunch
September 8, 2022
"Sustainability is dead because we don’t know what to sustain; we need to create flourishing communities instead."
Richard BuchananCreativity and Principles in the Flourishing Enterprise
June 15, 2018
"Shemus Bern is going to talk about how you drop into a client site and grok what’s going on without losing why they hired you."
Dan WillisTheme 3: Intro
January 8, 2024
"The worst thing that could happen is we get cake — this encourages boldness."
Dan WardFailure Friday #1 with Dan Ward
February 7, 2025
"There's no better time to advance research than now."
Chris GeisonTheme Two Intro
March 28, 2023