Creating Consistency Through Constant Change
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
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Building a resilient design ops team requires creating consistency amid constant organizational and external change.
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Shifting responsibilities to new roles is often met with skepticism that must be overcome through partnership and demonstrating value.
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Operationalizing processes like stakeholder reviews and launch characterization can bring order and visibility to design work.
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Engagement models clarifying time commitment and prioritization help teams focus on high-impact work and avoid burnout.
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Self-service UX research toolkits empower cross-functional teams to independently conduct research when resources are limited.
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Bringing clarity to internal policies, budgeting, and headcount creates calm and control during times of external chaos.
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Maintaining structured flexibility allows team members to quickly shift roles to where work is most needed.
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Operationalizing inspiring but unfunded ideas helps sustain team motivation and drive cultural initiatives like design for social good.
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Having a core, consistent design ops team serves as a stabilizing pillar in a fast-moving and frequently changing startup environment.
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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."
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