Summary
The speaker opens by praising contributors Dante, Courtney, Olney, and Gonzalo for their dedication and excellent presentations on scaling design organizations. The talk focuses on sharing career-defining experiences from scaling both large and small design teams. Key themes include the critical role of empathy in driving business outcomes, practical advice on defining design ROI, and best practices to retain employees. The speaker stresses the importance of clarifying design’s intersection with operations, especially within product and engineering contexts. They acknowledge the current industry challenges and murky path forward but emphasize optimism and community support as vital. Through collective expertise and engagement—both from speakers and remote participants—this conference aims to guide the industry’s future and shorten the route to success for emerging design leaders.
Key Insights
-
•
Empathy plays a vital role in connecting design efforts to business outcomes and the bottom line.
-
•
Defining and communicating design ROI is crucial for justifying scaling and investment.
-
•
Scaling design organizations requires balancing growth with employee retention strategies.
-
•
Design’s relationship with operations teams is complex and often misunderstood within product and engineering functions.
-
•
Collaboration and peer feedback among design practitioners strengthen outcomes and innovation.
-
•
Navigating times of uncertainty in design demands optimism and mutual support within the community.
-
•
Career-defining experiences of design leaders provide valuable, practical lessons for scaling teams.
-
•
Virtual and in-person feedback sessions both contribute meaningfully to design team growth.
-
•
A collective and engaged community of design practitioners is essential to lead the industry forward.
-
•
Scaling design is a shared challenge that benefits from diverse perspectives across organizations and roles.
Notable Quotes
"I am so incredibly proud of Dante, Courtney, Olney, and Gonzalo for their care in the curation process and outstanding presentations."
"Each speaker shares career-defining experiences scaling design organizations large and small."
"You’re going to get the importance of empathy to the bottom line."
"There is tactile guidance on defining ROI and best practices for employee retention."
"We hope you gain optimism that not all is lost in these trying times."
"The path forward may not always be clear, but we forge the future together through expertise and engagement."
"The importance of this community of practitioners is echoed throughout today’s conference."
"We help each other, support each other, and guide each other through murky times."
"We chose scaling design organizations as a theme because we need each other to grow and scale."
"Your engagement, even out there at home in the Slack channel, is part of guiding those who come after us."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"I wish I could tell my 22-year-old self what to stop doing and what to embrace to be a better designer."
Adam Cutler Karen Pascoe Ian Swinson Susan WorthmanDiscussion
June 8, 2016
"Knowing your subject matter as a UX leader is just as important as knowing your craft."
Peter MerholzThe Trials and Tribulations of Directors of UX (Videoconference)
July 13, 2023
"If you don’t tune it properly, sometimes you just don’t get what you want."
Lisa WelchmanCleaning Up Our Mess: Digital Governance for Designers
June 14, 2018
"The solutions are out there; we just need the will to implement them."
Vincent BrathwaiteOpener: Past, Present, and Future—Closing the Racial Divide in Design Teams
October 22, 2020
"Growth and learning is your long term change management plan."
Brenna FallonLearning Over Outcomes
October 24, 2019
"We are all experiencing a spatial collapse, a disruption of our mental models of how we navigate physical and virtual spaces."
Tricia WangSpatial Collapse: Designing for Emergent Culture
January 8, 2024
"Creating hypotheses from pain points with measurable success criteria helped prioritize which to pursue."
Edgar Anzaldua MorenoUsing Research to Determine Unique Value Proposition
March 11, 2021
"Our brains are terrible at operating only on one type of information, whether object-oriented or context-oriented."
Designing Systems at Scale
November 7, 2018
"Design is the rendering of intent — bringing ideas into a form people can interact with to solve problems, as Jared Spool said."
Erin WeigelGet Your Whole Team Testing to Design for Impact
July 24, 2024
