This is an introduction to the concepts of DesignOps presented at the BigDesign Conference in Dallas, TX, Sept. 2019

1. Everything you ever wanted to know about
DesignOps and were afraid to ask
Elisa Kaplan Miller

2. Knowing my audience
How many of you:
• Work in enterprises?
• Work in agencies?
• Work in start-ups?
• Work in government organizations?

3. About your teams
• Do you have more than 25 designers on your team?
• Do you have more than 10 researchers on your team?
• Do you use a design system?
• Do you have a knowledge management system?
• Do you offer a UX/Design orientation for new team
members?
• Do you have a consistent hiring process for your team?

4. DesignOps in your company
• How many of you have a designOps
team or person?
• What are they responsible for?

5. What is Design Operations?
It is the department (or single
person) that plans, defines &
manages the design process within
an organization.
Fabricio Teixeria

6. What is Design Operations?
DesignOps is everything that
supports high quality crafts,
methods, and processes.
Dave Malouf, IXDA
DesignOps Summit

7. What is DesignOps?
DesignOps refers to the orchestration
and optimization of people, processes,
and craft in order to amplify design’s
value and impact at scale.
-Kate Kaplan, NNG

8. What do DesignOps people do?
• Workflow: how the design work flows within the company
• Process: how design fits into product development
• Tool Chain: what tools do they need to get the job done
• Design System: maintaining consistency in look/feel and how
it works
• Knowledge Management: where to keep and access all design
assets
• Governance: who needs to see the work, and when

9. What do DesignOps people do (2)?
• Infrastructure: what the team needs to work more efficiently
• Budget: how much running that team costs, and why
• Headcount: how many people are needed, with which skills
• Pipeline: projects coming up and how well staffed the team is
• Retention: how to make people want to stay
• Education: what skills are needed and how to learn them
• Evangelization: help the org understand the value of design

10. Where do DesignOps people come from?
• Designer
• Production
• Project Management
• Operations
• Product

11. What is Design Operations?
“DesignOps is not a new design department.
It’s ‘how’ interfaces between design,
product, engineering are managed. Also
DesignOps is about creating a culture of user
centricity and agility over time. It puts design
not as just another step along the way, but as
a continuous ritual of handovers and
feedback.
Gus Correia

12. How DesignOps Brings Value

13. How I ended up in DesignOps
• Our team grew and it seemed like the WildWest
• My manager asked me to create a job architecture
• We started creating a Design System
• We started looking at expensive collaboration tools
and we wanted everyone to use them

14. Some of the projects I took on
• Facilitated a team of designers to evaluate the tools
we were using
• Worked with HR to create a job architecture
• Worked with leadership to create a playbook
• Supported the marketing and storytelling of our
successes
• Supported a new hiring program for our managers

15. Some of the projects I took on
• Facilitated a process of assessing UX maturity of our
product teams
• Evaluated knowledge management tools
• Created an orientation for our new designers and
researchers

16. Building a DesignOps practice
• Work with your leadership to outline why this would
be good for the team.
• Find people who may already be responsible for
some of these tasks.

17. How can you get started?

18. Goals of DesignOps
• Operationalizing
• Optimizing
• Influencing
• Directing

19. How to get there
• Define a tool chain
• Create and follow a design system
• Conduct training
• Integrate with other teams
• Measure effectiveness
• Create sustainable structures
• Network with other operations people

20. DesignOps Commuity
• DesignOps Summit:
https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designopssummit2019/
program/

21. What is Research Operations?
• Knowledge management for research assets
• Managing research participants
• Recruiting participants
• Scheduling testing participants
• Managing (or scheduling) usability lab

22. Research Ops Commuities
• Research ops Community
https://medium.com/researchops-
community?mc_cid=89862b6ee8&mc_eid=1c3fb7ac
64
• Advancing Research Community:
https://rosenfeldmedia.com/advancing-research-
community/

23. Resources
• DesignOps Handbook: https://www.designbetter.co/designops-handbook/
• DesignOps: the questions you’re probably asking yourself now
https://uxdesign.cc/designops-the-questions-youre-probably-asking-yourself-
now-fdac491bfe4f
• Peter Merholz and Kristin Skinner (2016) Org Design for Design Orgs
• Design Ops community: https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designops-community/
• Bryn Ray (2018) What is Design Operations? Medium
https://medium.com/nyc-design/what-is-design-operations-66f69eab1098
• DesignOps 101-Nielsen Norman Group
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/design-operations-101/

24. Contact information
Elisa Kaplan Miller
elisakm@sbcglobal.net
214-681-9888