Summary
Tired of juggling a dozen different tools? Join us for a live conversation about the rising trend of tool consolidation in DesignOps, led by Great Question CEO Ned Dwyer. He'll be joined by Jadyn Aguilar, Head of Design Operations and UX Research at Gusto, to discuss the benefits, challenges, and opportunities of tool consolidation in DesignOps. If you're part of a team aiming to streamline workflows and reduce overhead, this session is a must. You’ll walk away with practical insights and advice for consolidating your own toolstack.
Key Insights
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Gusto used a design thinking approach to map their entire research tooling ecosystem before consolidating.
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They identified 10 different tools used for various parts of the research process, causing inefficiency and access issues.
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Close collaboration with IT was critical to understand organizational impact and avoid tool redundancy.
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Empathy and curiosity toward IT and procurement teams fostered smoother conversations and decision-making.
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Tool consolidation improves participant experience by creating a consistent research touchpoint and building trust.
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Automations in the consolidated tool set saved researchers significant manual effort and enabled deeper collaboration.
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Change management leveraged surveys and frequent feedback to align stakeholders on shared goals and benefits.
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Consolidation decisions involved clear trade-off analysis, recognizing that no tool is perfect but optimization matters.
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Piloting tools with real users before full rollout helped identify the best path forward and gain buy-in.
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Procurement required a strong, data-driven business case outlining cost savings and improved workflows to approve consolidation.
Notable Quotes
"We found that it was like 10 different tools to do bite-size pieces and solving different parts of the flow along the way."
"The IT team has been phenomenal in giving us visibility into what the entire tooling ecosystem looks like."
"The relationship with IT is really empathetic and in service of each other, not gatekeeping."
"The biggest impact has been a large cultural shift that opened up space for conversation and collaboration."
"We’re not seeking perfection, we’re seeking optimization."
"If we consolidate six or seven tools out of ten and can live with the other three, that’s still huge progress."
"Participant experience was a non-negotiable feature in choosing tools to build trust with customers."
"Context switching was a huge pain point; mapping out the end-to-end journey brought clarity to where the gaps were."
"Change management starts from the mutual understanding that we all want quality insights and proximity to customers."
"Building a strong case for procurement that highlights trade-offs and savings helped get buy-in quickly."
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