Rosenverse
The Many Paths Of Design Operations

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

The Many Paths Of Design Operations

Gold
Thursday, September 8, 2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Share the love for this talk
The Many Paths Of Design Operations
Speakers: Rachel Radway , Katie Bingham and Joe Wiertel
Link:

Summary

When Rachel pivoted from content design to design operations, it turned out that she had a different understanding of what this meant than her VP, who envisioned a conventional program manager. Rachel brought a very different perspective and set of skills to the role — which was a learning experience for both of them. In becoming involved with the various design ops communities, and later, when she was interviewing to hire three new team members, Rachel was fascinated by the variety of backgrounds of people both already practicing and looking to enter the field. Some are more like what her VP expected, focused on milestone planning and tracking, resource allocation and budgeting. Others design and implement processes and manage shared toolsets. Some serve as chiefs of staff (which can also mean many different things). Some plan and host team meetings, ceremonies, and retreats. Others focus on research ops. And many — especially teams of one — do a little bit of everything. More and more leaders are beginning to understand the value of design operations — but some think the function should look or behave a certain way. DesignOps pros, though, know that every team and organization is different, and the only way they and their teams can succeed is by tailoring their approach to address those specific needs. This facilitated conversation will explore what brings people to DesignOps, how their backgrounds inform their practice, and how design ops practitioners can give themselves the permission and fuel they need to make this argument and structure things the way they believe will have the most impact.

Key Insights

  • Design ops professionals often come from highly diverse and non-linear career paths, including architecture, education, and communications.

  • Transferable skills like communication, stakeholder management, and user experience knowledge are key assets in design ops roles.

  • Listening tours and stakeholder interviews early in a design ops role are critical to understand team needs and priorities.

  • Hiring candidates with unconventional backgrounds brings unique perspectives and strengthens design ops teams.

  • Imposter syndrome is common but can be reframed as discovering superpowers and strengths.

  • Quick wins are essential for demonstrating the value of design ops and securing additional resources and buy-in.

  • Systems thinking and service design skills are valuable for improving internal design team experiences such as onboarding.

  • Building genuine relationships with colleagues is crucial for design ops success and collaboration.

  • Sharing and celebrating wins through communication and change management plans increases design ops visibility.

  • Communities like Design Ops Assembly provide critical support and knowledge sharing for those developing their design ops careers.

Notable Quotes

"Relationships are a currency and if you have strong connections, you’ll be rich in your career."

"I’m not looking for cookie cutter candidates; I want to hear someone who’s taken the less traveled, maybe more challenging route."

"I dreamed about work every night for a year as I was learning the language of corporate tech jargon and ux terms."

"Once I got my foot in the door, the biggest challenge was learning the vocabulary and culture."

"Imposter syndrome was my superpower; the gaps I saw were actually strengths."

"Start with quick wins, show value, and communicate loudly to get buy-in for more design ops capacity."

"Each design org has unique needs, but discovery and listening tours uncover where we can make the biggest impact."

"Hiring people who are relentlessly seeking improvement will grow your team and your work."

"Service designers on our design ops team focus on improving internal designer experiences like onboarding and hiring."

"Don’t fight who you are meant to be; your background and story are your superpowers."

Ask the Rosenbot
Florence Okoye
AfroFuturism and UX Research
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Satyam Kantamneni
Do You Have an Experience Vision?
2023 • Enterprise Community
Shan Shen
Translating UX Terms into Business Contexts
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
John Maeda
Making Sense of Enterprise UX
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Jeff Gothelf
The Intersection of Lean and Design
2019 • Enterprise Community
Jemma Ahmed
Collaboration: learning from other fields beyond our own [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Christian Rohrer
Research Operations at Scale
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Lin Nie
When Thought-worlds Collide: Collaborating Between Research and Practice
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Mariesa Lenz
What Beekeeping Taught me about Product Teams
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Nathan Shedroff
How Will Design be Taught When the Schools Shut Down?
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Nathan Curtis
Beyond the Toolkit: Spreading a System Across People & Products
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Dave Malouf
The Past, Present, and Future of DesignOps: a 2-part DesignOps Community Call (Part 2)
2022 • DesignOps Community
Jon Fukuda
Theme One Intro
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Helen Armstrong
Augment the Human. Interrogate the System.
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Jodi Forlizzi
Design and AI innovation
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Susan Weinschenk
Evaluating the Maturity of UX in Your Organization
2020 • Enterprise Community

More Videos

Lavy Kumar

"Employees can take as much or as little time off as they want, so long as their job gets done."

Lavy Kumar Kat Temple Shan Sebastian Tara Jensen Jenn Chou

Future of Work

June 9, 2021

Andreas Huebner

"The pandemic pushed us to be creative, and it’s been fun for users to participate remotely in the design process."

Andreas Huebner Amy Takata Craig Brookes

What Is It Like To Be Part of The UX Team at Compass?

March 11, 2021

Ricardo Martins

"Conjoint analysis was used by Apple and Samsung to determine the financial value of specific product features."

Ricardo Martins

Unlocking the power of advanced quantitative methods

March 12, 2025

Monty Hammontree

"The fastest way to gain influence is to get somebody else promoted."

Monty Hammontree

The Future of UX Research

December 3, 2020

Benjamin Real

"The designers started to send notes of thank you to the ex members of the design ops team for making their life easier."

Benjamin Real

Showing the Value of DesignOps by Not Having a DesignOps Team

October 21, 2020

Kate Towsey

"Research ops is like the most punk thing you can do in the experience design space."

Kate Towsey

Ask Me Anything (AMA) with Kate Towsey

April 2, 2025

Steve Portigal

"When you look at data without training, confirmation bias makes you just find what you already believe."

Steve Portigal Chris Chapo Kelly Goto Christian Rohrer

Discussion

May 13, 2015

Sam Proulx

"The more payment providers you offer, the higher the chance everyone can pick what works best for them."

Sam Proulx

Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience

March 28, 2023

Sam Proulx

"Screen reader users need semantic structure that graphical prototypes typically don’t have, like labeled headings, controls, tables, and landmarks."

Sam Proulx

Prototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You

October 1, 2021