DesignOps Summit 2024

DesignOps Summit 2024

September 23-25, 2024 • Live online conference

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About

The term “DesignOps” first surfaced in March of 2017—and by that November, the Rosenfeld team hosted this emerging profession’s first conference. Since then, attending the Summit has been an annual “must do” for people who make DesignOps their business.

The DesignOps Summit is where you find your true peers, stay up-to-date on the state of the art, and make new connections—regardless of where you are in your career or on planet Earth. Regardless of how long they’ve been in DesignOps, attendees walk away with new ideas, tools, and colleagues.

Videos

September 23, 2024

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

From Costly Complexity to Efficient Insights: Why UX Teams Are Switching To Voxpopme

Andy Barraclough • CEO, Voxpopme
Betsy Nelson • Head of Product, Voxpopme

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Integrating Accessibility in DesignOps

Kate Kalcevich • Head of Accessibility Innovation, Fable

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

The Future of DesignOps is Tool Consolidation

Ned Dwyer • Co-founder and CEO, Great Question
Jadyn Aguilar • Head of Design Operations and UX Research, Gusto

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Beyond Buzzwords: Adding Heart to Effective Slack Communication

Laura Gatewood • Lead Design Program Manager, Central DesignOps, Salesforce
Laine Prokay • Principal Design Program Manager, Salesforce

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Zero to One: Co-Creating Operating Models with your Team

Daniel Orbach • Executive Director of Design, Small Business Credit Card, JP Morgan Chase

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Hiring in DesignOps: A Critical Study on How to Hire and Get Hired

Corey Long • Senior Manager, Design Operations, Adobe

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Healing Toxic Stress

Alla Weinberg • CEO, Spoke & Wheel

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Louis Rosenfeld • Principal, Rosenfeld Media
Bria Alexander • DesignOps Curator

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Bria Alexander • DesignOps Curator

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Leading Change with Confidence: Strategies for Optimizing Your Process

Deanna Smith • Design Program Manager, Adobe Design

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

The Big Question about Resilience: A panel discussion

Bria Alexander • DesignOps Curator
Laura Gatewood • Lead Design Program Manager, Central DesignOps, Salesforce
Corey Long • Senior Manager, Design Operations, Adobe
Daniel Orbach • Executive Director of Design, Small Business Credit Card, JP Morgan Chase
Laine Prokay • Principal Design Program Manager, Salesforce
Deanna Smith • Design Program Manager, Adobe Design

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

5 Antifragile Strategies for a DesignOps 2.0

Silke Bochat • Global Head of Design, Weleda AG

Monday, September 23, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

ReDesigning Wellbeing for Equitable Care in the Workplace

Zariah Cameron • Co-Director of Community + Research, Aroko Cooperative

September 24, 2024

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

The Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams

Briana Thomas • Senior Design Producer, Zendesk

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Meaningful inclusion: Practicing accessibility research with confidence

Kavana Ramesh • UX Researcher, Fable

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

The Intersection of Design and ResearchOps

Ned Dwyer • Co-founder and CEO, Great Question
Emily Stewart • Senior Research Operations Lead, TravelPerk
James Wallis • Senior Design Operations Manager, Brex

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Scale Smart: AI-Powered Content Organization Strategies

Jorge Arango • Author of Living in Information and Duly Noted

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Stronger Together: Lessons Learned from UX Research Ops

Emily DiLeo • Founder, The Current
Maria Taylor • CEO & Principal Consultant, Limina

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Increase Productivity and Drive Business Impact

Rima Campbell • VP, Experience Research & Strategy, UserTesting
Amrit S Bhachu • Principal CX Consultant, UserTesting

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

10k Screens Later: How We Became a Data-Driven Design Organization

John Paul de Guzman • Chief Creative and Founder, Frost Design and Consulting Group

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Bria Alexander • DesignOps Curator

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Frances Yllana • Senior Manager, Design Operations, Coforma

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Meters, Miles, and Madness: New Frameworks to Measure the (Elusive) Value of DesignOps

John Calhoun • Co-author of The Design Conductors
Rachel Posman • Co-author of The Design Conductors

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Developing and Deploying Your Design Operations Strategy

Cassandra Piester • Staff Program Manager, Design Program Management, Adobe

Tuesday, September 24, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

The Big Question about Impact: A Panel Discussion

Frances Yllana • Senior Manager, Design Operations, Coforma
Jorge Arango • Author of Living in Information and Duly Noted
Maria Taylor • CEO & Principal Consultant, Limina
Briana Thomas • Senior Design Producer, Zendesk

September 25, 2024

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

The Big Question about Innovation: A Panel Discussion

Jon Fukuda • Co-founder, Limina.co
Amy Evans • Strategic Design Operations Leader, Mooncake Consulting Inc.
Ignacio Martinez • Associate Director, Grand Studio
Joe Meersman • Partner, The Collective

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Navigating Innovation with Integrity

Changying (Z) Zheng • Head of Product Experience Operations, Cloudflare

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

"Ask Me Anything" with Rachel Posman and John Calhoun, Authors of the Upcoming Rosenfeld Book, The Design Conductors

Rachel Posman • Co-author of The Design Conductors
John Calhoun • Co-author of The Design Conductors

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

It was the Best of Times. It was the Worst of Times.

Brendan Jarvis • Managing Founder, The Space InBetween

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

How to Create Change

Amy Evans • Strategic Design Operations Leader, Mooncake Consulting Inc.

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Use These Words and Count These Things

Jules Monza • UX Consultant, Jules connects dots

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Fair and Effective Designer Evaluation

Ignacio Martinez • Associate Director, Grand Studio

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Sturgeon’s Biases

Adrian Howard • Coach, Quietstars

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Use AI to Drive Outcomes that Go Beyond the Design Sprint

Joe Meersman • Partner, The Collective
Pooria Sohi • Creative Technologist/Industrial Designer, Sohididthis

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Bria Alexander • DesignOps Curator

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024

Jon Fukuda • Co-founder, Limina.co

Speakers

Resilience

Understanding how to build and sustain resilient operations is crucial for any organization, especially in the face of ongoing challenges and uncertainties. Day 1 will help you grasp the importance of maintaining stability and strength in their DesignOps practices, preparing you to innovate and make impactful changes. Curated by Bria Alexander.

Impact

Day 2 will guide you on how to effectively measure and demonstrate the value of their DesignOps initiatives. You’ll learn how to leverage stable design operations to drive significant and measurable improvements within your organization. Led by Frances Yllana.

Innovation

After the talks on Days 1 and 2, you’ll have a solid understanding of building resilient operations and measuring their impact. Now you’ll be ready to explore and embrace innovative practices that push the boundaries of DesignOps. Curated by Jon Fukuda.

Quotes

"UX research teams spend significant time manually analyzing interviews, limiting capacity to focus on higher-value tasks."

"If you only have five people with disabilities available for research, it can be hard to get the scale you need."

"We think holistically about the impact of introducing or removing tools across the org."

"The words we use should enable clear paths of understanding so recipients know their role, what to do next, and why both easily and quickly."

"What if all designers were design operators?"

"I submitted 710 applications throughout the year and only 7% of those resulted in interviews."

"Our biological bodies are hardwired to prioritize survival above everything else."

"This is a great opportunity. This is a gift to yourself to dig in with other design ops peers and really learn together."

"Corey’s story of resilience during his 2023 to 2024 job search ends well because we accepted his offer at Adobe."

"Leading change is like shopping—take time to find the right store before you buy."

"Always approach from a place of kindness and think about the experience you want people to have as the water that keeps trees bendable."

"Please don’t delegate hiring to HR—hiring managers must set clear criteria and be personally involved to avoid bias."

"Your breath is the most powerful thing; it reminds us of the power and agency that we do have as individuals."

"What our users see is the perfect plate, but there is so much unseen work behind it."

"Trying something new can feel very daunting, especially if you rarely interact with people who use assistive technology."

"At Brex, design ops supports a broad range of design disciplines and also partners with engineers and marketers."

"Search alone doesn’t cut it, particularly when people don’t know what they’re looking for or lack context."

"Repositories were meant only for researchers, not for stakeholders, and a lot of them failed."

"Why do we struggle to have impact even when we know we should?"

"Our file is a visual representation of our entire workflow and mirrors the structure of our board."

"Sponsor sessions are optional but incredibly high quality content, not sales pitches."

"We’re building and securing better frameworks and futures rather than tangible, countable, easy-to-quantify widgets."

"Design ops isn’t rocket science, but between us it might actually be harder."

"When you set out to build your own design operation strategy, pieces of the puzzle already exist—you don’t have to reinvent the wheel."

"The reason some of these tools aren’t embraced right now is a little bit of fear and lack of understanding."

"We’re lucky if we solve a single thing; everything else has to be parking lot."

"Experimentation gives us the permission to innovate and is in fact an invitation to innovate."

"How are executives going to invest in you if you don’t show the work? If they can’t see it, they won’t invest."

"Fair is a choice, and we have better ones to make if we bring them into focus to build a better future."

"Change is messy and it can be uncomfortable, much like baking bread—it’s hard to imagine sticky dough turning into a perfect loaf."

"When design ops is asked for early on, and specifically as design operations or a design program manager, that’s a real mark of maturity."

"We built a career path to make evaluations as fair and consistent as possible across roles."

"The best people in a community experience 90% awesome when the reality is 10%."

"If you think of sprints as a playbook, that playbook needs improvement."

"We talked all about resilience, curated by myself yesterday."

"Innovation isn’t just a buzzword in design ops; it’s at the core of how we shape the future of the design practice."