Summary
Science orgs typically lack designers and for good reason; there is no product. The focus is on data. The currency is discovery. Why spend money on a designer when we need to buy a new microscope? So how do we create a better experience through design for science? In this talk, Mark will outline his approach to operationalizing design in science orgs, first in CERN and now at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
Key Insights
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Scientific organizations like CERN and EMBL operate without profit motives and measure success through published research, not product delivery.
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Leadership in these organizations is bottom-up, lacking top-down yearly objectives or strict product roadmaps.
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Research groups are siloed and protected due to external funding and the priority of uninterrupted scientific work.
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Many digital creators in scientific organizations don’t identify as designers, requiring a broader definition of design teams.
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EMBL estimated about 500 people across 200 teams are effectively designers despite not holding that title.
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The philosophy of marginal gains, popularized by Dave Brailsford, drives continuous small improvements across systems.
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Bruce Lee’s idea that fixed patterns can't adapt to reality inspires an adaptable, experimental approach to organizational change.
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Design ops success comes from working with existing organizational culture rather than trying to impose new frameworks.
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Committees, though often ineffecitve in other contexts, are essential to debate and scrutiny in scientific organizations.
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Effective communication is critical; repeating key messages is the core of managing design ops in complex, decentralized environments.
Notable Quotes
"In science, success is publishing. The product isn’t the output; a Nature paper is."
"The organization is bottom up. There’s no top down hierarchical guidance on where things should go."
"People making digital things here often don’t call themselves designers, but they are designers to us."
"We went from a handful of designers to about 500 overnight, by redefining who a designer is."
"If we make tiny little inconsequential changes across the whole system, they aggregate to better outcomes."
"My job is 90% saying the same thing over and over and over again."
"Committees never work, but in this context, they are how debate and scrutiny happen."
"We have to go with organization culture instead of against it, and see what sticks."
"User researchers can’t be called researchers here, because scientists are researchers already."
"Who is a designer anyway? If we think differently about that, we can think differently about design ops."
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