Summary
As the move to establish in-house design teams accelerates, it turns out there’s very little common wisdom on what makes for a successful design organization. Books and presentations tend to focus on process, methods, and tools, leaving a gap of knowledge when it comes to organizational and operational matters. Kristin Skinner, Head of Design Management at Capital One and co-author of Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams, will shine a light on the unsung activities of actually running a design team, the operational challenges and considerations, and what works and what doesn’t. Drawing on her experience managing design teams and organizations at Microsoft’s Pioneer Studios, Adaptive Path, and Capital One, Kristin will discuss how what happens “behind the scenes” and how a focus on design management and operations can ultimately affect a design organization’s output, quality, and effectiveness.
Key Insights
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Even the best teams, like the 2013–2014 Golden State Warriors, can fail without healthy, inclusive leadership and collaborative decision-making.
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Design success depends not only on the quality of design but crucially on the underlying organizational design and operations.
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Most design organizations evolve through stages—from solo designers to distributed teams—which requires progressively specialized operational roles.
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Introducing dedicated design operations roles relieves design leads from overwhelming managerial tasks and prevents burnout.
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Effective design organizations balance output quality with management of internal operations such as coordination, staffing, and decision-making clarity.
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Design program managers often serve as the 'GPS' for the design org, navigating priorities, intake, and collaboration across multiple teams.
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Operational issues like fragmented decision-making, duplicated efforts, and unclear roles are warning signs that design ops is needed.
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Small, well-connected design ops teams can have an outsized impact on the health and effectiveness of large, rapidly growing design organizations.
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Hiring a mix of backgrounds—including people with design experience and others with complementary skills like finance—builds stronger design operations teams.
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Sharing failures and learnings openly is key to progressing the relatively new practice of design operations and improving industry-wide understanding.
Notable Quotes
"The plan always changes, but we need to be ready."
"Under Steve Kerr’s leadership, the Warriors welcomed respectful disagreement and focused on decision-making as a team."
"It’s not just design or strategy that matters, but the unseen organizational factors behind the scenes."
"Don’t go it alone. If you’re the first designer, hire a partner."
"Design managers make things go. They’re the GPS of the design organization."
"There is no one size fits all. Go in, do your research, find failure points, and address those directly."
"Much of what causes designers to stress is a result of flawed operations."
"The head of design can’t manage a design organization of 20-plus people alone—it’s a very different role."
"A relatively small design operations team can have an outsized impact on a large design organization."
"Be a diplomat. Help people do their jobs better. Design operations can drive organizational change for the better."
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