"Ask Me Anything" with Rachel Posman and John Calhoun, Authors of the Upcoming Rosenfeld Book, The Design Conductors
This video is featured in the Rosenfeld Authors Answer Your Questions playlist.
Summary
Key Insights
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Making design ops work visible to leadership is critical to securing investment and recognition.
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Saying no is the most powerful skill for design ops practitioners to focus effort on meaningful work.
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The conductor metaphor captures design ops as a leader orchestrating harmony, not a player doing design.
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Design ops professionals arise from varied backgrounds: design, program management, business, or specialist domains.
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Design ops competencies evolve by career stage; not all skills are required immediately.
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The heroes framework categorizes impact metrics into health, effectiveness, readiness, outcomes, ecosystems, and sentiment.
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Design ops and product ops share many functions and skillsets but serve different organizational areas.
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Collaboration between design and product leadership, potentially rebranded as user success leadership, is an ideal future state.
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AI will transform design ops by becoming part of tooling, collaboration, review, and even end-user roles.
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Design ops roles are commonly individual contributor positions, though some may evolve into embedded or managerial roles.
Notable Quotes
"Designers deserve support and infrastructure so they can really excel in their work."
"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."
"The most powerful word in the design ops vocabulary is no."
"It’s okay to be bossy because we need leaders who are opinionated and thoughtful and have a point of view."
"Design ops isn’t just a support role; it is a strategic partner involved in decision making."
"Only one of the four common design ops backgrounds is design; others include program management and business skills."
"The heroes framework helps show the specific contribution design ops makes through measurable impact categories."
"Design ops and product ops are way more alike than dissimilar; they differ mainly in the orgs they serve."
"Why pick sides between product and design ops leadership? Why not both as user success leadership?"
"AI is not just a tool; it will be a worker, a reviewer, or even an end user in design processes."
Or choose a question:
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