Rosenverse
Creating Consistency Through Constant Change

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Creating Consistency Through Constant Change

Gold
Monday, January 8, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Share the love for this talk
Creating Consistency Through Constant Change
Speakers: Maggie Dieringer
Link:

Summary

The hustle of “Uber 1.0” (moving fast and breaking things) is still remnant in parts of Uber's culture today. As a DesignOps team of two to start, Maggie had to break through many barriers to help quickly and effectively implement a new practice. Within one year, the team grew to 14 Design Program Managers working across 6 global, distributed design studios. How does a team scale and find their voice amidst many cultural challenges, negative news cycles, and multiple rounds of layoffs? This talk will explore how DesignOps can remain a constant pillar of reliability when the structures around a Design team are constantly evolving.

Key Insights

  • Building a resilient design ops team requires creating consistency amid constant organizational and external change.

  • Shifting responsibilities to new roles is often met with skepticism that must be overcome through partnership and demonstrating value.

  • Operationalizing processes like stakeholder reviews and launch characterization can bring order and visibility to design work.

  • Engagement models clarifying time commitment and prioritization help teams focus on high-impact work and avoid burnout.

  • Self-service UX research toolkits empower cross-functional teams to independently conduct research when resources are limited.

  • Bringing clarity to internal policies, budgeting, and headcount creates calm and control during times of external chaos.

  • Maintaining structured flexibility allows team members to quickly shift roles to where work is most needed.

  • Operationalizing inspiring but unfunded ideas helps sustain team motivation and drive cultural initiatives like design for social good.

  • Having a core, consistent design ops team serves as a stabilizing pillar in a fast-moving and frequently changing startup environment.

  • The ability to say no to low-priority tasks is a crucial outcome of constrained resourcing and helps refocus efforts on meaningful work.

Notable Quotes

"Working at Uber requires grit."

"Not a week has gone by in my four years at Uber that something slightly shocking or jarring did not happen."

"Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."

"We had to show rather than say why design operations roles existed."

"Getting designers into a cadence of reviewing work with senior stakeholders was not a muscle the team had built."

"Ship Magic raised the bar on quality across our writer experiences with monthly bugbashes and cross-functional support."

"We created a self-service UXR hub to empower teammates with research fundamentals amid downsized research teams."

"When the world outside is crazy, the team needs to know that at least design ops has things under control internally."

"We maintain structured flexibility so we can move people where the work is regardless of politics or whatever else is going on."

"The power to say no has been a blessing in disguise, helping us refocus on high priority work after layoffs."

Ask the Rosenbot
Leisa Reichelt
The Five Dysfunctions of Democratized Research at Scale
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Mike Brzozowski
UX in everyday products: Empowering climate conscious choices
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Alana Washington
(Remote) Service Design: A Transformation Case Study
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Peter Van Dijck
Building impactful AI products for design and product leaders, Part 3: Understand AI architectures: RAG, Agents, Oh My!
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Nick Cochran
Growing in Enterprise Design through Making Connections
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Nina Jurcic
The Design System Rollercoaster: From Enabler and Bottleneck to Catalyst for Change
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Bob Baxley
Theme 4: Discussion
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Sarah Flamion
Complex Problem? Add Clarity by Combining Research and Systems Thinking
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Brendan Jarvis
Framing Tomorrow by Questioning Today
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Sohit Karol
Designing Delightful Listening Experiences: Mixed Methods Research in the Age of Machine Learning
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Kristin Skinner
Group Activity: A Deep Dive Into Value and Outcomes
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Sean McKay
Coexisting with non-researchers: Practical strategies for a democratized research future
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Trisha Causley
[Demo] Complexity in disguise: Crafting experiences for generative AI features
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Daniel Gloyd
Designing Warmth
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Kristin Skinner
8 Types of Measures in Design Operations
2020 • DesignOps Community
Bas Raijmakers, PhD (RCA)
What Design Research can Learn from Documentary Filmmaking
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold

More Videos

Husani Oakley

"Ideas that get sold without knowing how they work or how they’re made reflect a cultural problem in the team."

Husani Oakley

Bias Towards Action: Building Teams that Build Work

June 14, 2018

Bob Baxley

"I hammer on information architecture probably more than almost any other interviewer because I believe it’s the central part of the system."

Bob Baxley

Leading with Design Operations Past and Present

December 19, 2019

Adrian Howard

"Question your assumptions. What bubbles are we living in?"

Adrian Howard

Sturgeon’s Biases

September 25, 2024

Bria Alexander

"Even though we’re virtual, we are still a community and obligated to treat each other with kindness and respect."

Bria Alexander Louis Rosenfeld

Welcome

September 8, 2022

Sam Proulx

"If you want an accessible app on iOS and Android, using the standard native APIs and controls will get you there."

Sam Proulx

Mobile Accessibility and You

June 9, 2022

Etienne Fang

"Connecting strings of Christmas lights is a mental model for connecting teams’ insights without superseding their systems."

Etienne Fang

Power of Insights: Why sharing is better than silos with Uber’s Insights Platform

December 16, 2019

Melissa Tsang

"The partnership with AIGA has blossomed into a year-long virtual event series focused on relationship-building by design."

Melissa Tsang

From Insights to Action: Driving Business Values through DesignOps

January 8, 2024

Leisa Reichelt

"Ratios always start on the premise of spreading people too thin, which is not a great way to get success."

Leisa Reichelt

Opening Keynote: Operating in Context

November 7, 2018

B. Pagels-Minor

"I woke up one day and just chose myself. I changed my name in Apple’s directory and it was the best moment ever."

B. Pagels-Minor

Breaking the Tension: The Power of Enabling Your Employees to Show Up Authentically

June 10, 2022