Scaling Design through Relationship Maps
Summary
Design groups are no longer fringe in large corporations. We’ve grown up, and our numbers have multiplied; which is exactly what we wanted. However, we now face the challenge of integrating—at scale—with our organization’s cultural and operational fabric. Understanding which stakeholders are most needed to support our DesignOps ambitions is a great place to start garnering influence and yielding intended outcomes. Relationship maps are a powerful tool to humanize the process and chart the course.
Key Insights
-
•
Design has evolved from individual craftsmanship to system design with greater collaboration and communication across companies.
-
•
Relationship maps go beyond org charts by focusing on necessary interpersonal and cross-functional relationships rather than formal reporting.
-
•
Design leaders act as translators and managers of relationships between designers and other departments to facilitate design at scale.
-
•
Creating purposeful relationships with mutually beneficial outcomes sustains volunteer task forces in large organizations.
-
•
Leveraging executive support, such as from Maria Gideese and finance partners like Kim, helps facilitate company-wide tool adoption.
-
•
Single sign-on integration reduces barriers to adoption and increases cross-disciplinary participation in design platforms.
-
•
A manageable relationship map with clear roles (e.g. program manager Christina as captain) helps coordinate complex initiatives.
-
•
Expressing gratitude publicly and privately maintains morale and encourages continued contribution in a thankless environment.
-
•
Decentralized design teams can still provide centralized services and influence through networked relationships rather than direct authority.
-
•
Quantitative business cases focusing on cost savings and broad user adoption are crucial to convincing stakeholders to invest in design tools.
Notable Quotes
"We are outnumbered by engineers maybe a dozen to one, but things are improving all around."
"Designers are now represented in executive leadership, which was unheard of five years ago."
"An org chart is about formal reporting; a relationship map is about networking and collaboration across silos."
"Relationship maps help you get stuff done with people who don’t report to you and aren’t accountable to you."
"Design is frequently misunderstood; sometimes it’s just about explaining why it’s important to get others involved."
"Single sign-on was going to be really important because I didn’t want any barrier entry for people."
"Mutual benefit and agreement on the definition of success upfront are critical to long-term team effectiveness."
"Expressing gratitude publicly and privately gives people a sense of purpose and acknowledges their contributions."
"I worked through a volunteer task force of 15 people across the company to drive radical design collaboration."
"Not a single person on this relationship map reported to me. That’s how I affect design at scale at Autodesk."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"The biggest problem was to solve the engagement problem first with the sponsor, then the team, then external stakeholders."
Carl TurnerYou Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project
March 28, 2023
"If you have somebody on your team for three years, for five years, that’s amazing from a longevity perspective given enterprise legacy and complexity."
Karen PascoeDeveloping Experience Teams and Talent in the Enterprise
June 8, 2016
"We couldn’t find just one word to describe our third value so we made one up: humbladent—humble and confident together."
Jilanna WilsonDistributed Design Operations Management
October 23, 2019
"Reliable access to veterans and other users is fundamental to running quality, inclusive research across many teams and products."
Shawna Hein Kevin HoffmanCreate a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
November 17, 2022
"Quick fixes rarely exist in these domains because beneath every problem are layers of complexity."
Barb SpantonDoing Work That Matters: A Look Beyond The Idealistic Notion of 'Doing Meaningful Work'
June 10, 2022
"Generative fill is now the most used tool in Photoshop, with 3 million users and over 2.3 billion images generated."
Briana ThomasThe Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams
September 24, 2024
"Taking ugly notes together without worrying about making things pretty lowers barriers and increases engagement."
Gina MendoliaTherapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems
December 3, 2024
"If you press the exact same button today and tomorrow you get two different results, that’s non-deterministic UX."
Lija Hogan Milan Mijatovic Sam Proulx Louis RosenfeldThree Years Out: Perspectives on the Near-Term Future of User Research
March 15, 2024
"With our new operating model, partners are more confident funding UX ops because of increased clarity and focus."
John Calhoun Rachel PosmanTwo Sides of the DesignOps Coin: Teams Ops and Product Ops
January 8, 2024
