Summary
TIn their first 60 days at Zendesk, Briana and Christina, a 2 person design ops team, conducted a Program Manager Audit looking at these 3 key areas: People, Process, and Portfolio. 90 days later, Product Design has transformed from a siloed, disjointed team into a well-organized, collaborative environment with a unified tool strategy, inclusive team spaces and more focus on design craft. In this talk you will learn how to not only conduct a thorough and data-centric Program Manager Audit, but how to come in H.O.T. (Humble, Orchestrated, and Timely.)
Key Insights
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Ops-focused discussion guides tailored to people, practice, and portfolio help extract actionable feedback from diverse roles and levels.
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An effectiveness scale with criteria like audience, purpose, and culture can objectively evaluate meetings and rituals for redesign.
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Meeting engagement can deteriorate over time due to high volume content and irrelevant slide sharing, including spam.
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Quick, strategic execution on recommendations is critical to maintain trust within design teams.
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Project charters are effective tools for documenting goals, success criteria, and timelines, fostering accountability.
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Involving leadership early with transparency about evaluation criteria increases buy-in for ops-led changes.
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Evangelizing positive aspects during feedback sessions builds credibility and motivates change rather than just highlighting negatives.
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Ops roles serve as connectors who orchestrate processes and fill gaps across teams to create cohesive workflows.
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Handling ineffective tools or rituals outside of design’s direct control requires identifying stakeholders and articulating organizational impact.
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Scaling meetings for large global teams requires shifting from individual updates to curated, practice-focused content and shorter cadence.
Notable Quotes
"Coming in hot means being honest, orchestrated, and timely."
"We had no idea what our producer roles were supposed to do when we started."
"We started seeing more pictures of dogs and even spam in slides — that was the moment to rethink UX Weekly."
"An ops-focused discussion guide is different; we have to nerd out on people, practice, and portfolio."
"Always conclude with a thank you and what you’re going to do with the data because people hold us accountable."
"We created an effectiveness scale with seven criteria to ground our recommendations in real data."
"Sometimes meetings are happening too often or not enough; cadence really matters."
"When leadership is busy and misses feedback deadlines, unapologetically move forward and use surveys."
"Project charters are our best friends for accountability and showing when and how we'll get work done."
"The new Product Design Biweekly blends practical insight, growth, project work, and new initiatives perfectly."
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