Summary
Personal story of how we not only improved the way of how designers worked with the other team members and external stakeholders but also found the ways to automate the routine work. The goal of the story is to motivate other people to build custom scripts, plugins, extensions, and products. Also, we’ll cover how open source projects can help to increase brand awareness to attract the best talents in the world. Actionable insights to boost up the automation process. Farid will share some insights on how to analyze and find the weak spots in the design teams’ processes. Then he will provide an action plan on how to automate different aspects of the work as well as simplify the onboarding process for the newcomers.
Key Insights
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Design operations consultancy focuses on processes both inside design teams and across other disciplines to amplify design impact.
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A four-phase framework — assess, optimize, scale, automate — helps organizations systematically improve design workflows.
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Assessing design handoff reveals communication gaps and a high amount of manual work suitable for automation.
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Plugins and scripts in tools like Figma can dramatically reduce designer workload, e.g., replacing styles layer-by-layer in 30 minutes instead of 2 days.
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Scaling design operations requires detailed onboarding materials, educational resources, and continuous feedback channels like Slack support.
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Automations can save teams dozens of hours weekly and improve deliverable quality by removing error-prone manual tasks.
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Design operations maturity can be tracked with a framework of more than 30 focus areas and 200 checkpoints to guide growth.
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Community sharing of automation tools and insights not only aids discipline evolution but also boosts employer brand awareness.
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Development skills are helpful but not mandatory for design ops roles; collaboration with developers can yield quick, impactful automations.
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Speed and quality in design operations are major competitive advantages as companies adapt fast to changing market demands.
Notable Quotes
"Design operations focuses not only on designers but on how designers work with other disciplines to increase speed, efficiency, and quality."
"Previously Alina spent two days fixing styles in Figma; with plugins, she now does it in 30 minutes."
"Our goal is to automate routine tasks so designers can focus more on research, creativity, and innovation."
"Scaling practices requires well-prepared onboarding materials and a support channel where teams can ask questions."
"By automating deliverables analysis, we saved 12 hours per week within one design team alone."
"Automation isn't about replacing work but about freeing time for more important, creative efforts."
"Sharing your automation scripts and articles can get four times more attention than traditional case studies."
"Design operations maturity has levels: defined process, scaling practices, and finally automation investment."
"Tools are evolving fast; it's crucial to analyze which tools will remain market leaders before heavy integration."
"Speed and quality are the new competitive advantages; doing the right thing is no longer enough."
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