Rosenverse

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.

Design Staffing for Impact

Gold
Monday, January 8, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Share the love for this talk
Design Staffing for Impact
Speakers: Patrick Commarford
Link:

Summary

The IBM CIO portfolio is comprised of thousands of tools and services. Given the organization’s obsession with the IBMer experience and their desire to positively impact IBMer productivity, it is extremely important that they allocate their scarce Design & Research talent to the projects that have the greatest impact on IBMers' work experience. To this end, they have refined their staffing processes and developed a new metric, The Design Staffing Score, that allows them to measure the degree to which their staffing approach aligns with project priority. Patrick will describe their refined approach to staffing, how progress is measured, and the tangible benefits they’ve realized.

Key Insights

  • Demand for UX support at IBM's CIO org outpaced capacity, despite team growth.

  • Lack of documented prioritization criteria caused stakeholder confusion and dissatisfaction.

  • Using two objective variables—number of users and usage frequency—made prioritization more quantifiable and aligned with mission.

  • The team developed a design staffing score metric correlating staffing with project priority to measure alignment and success.

  • Visible, agreed-upon priorities enabled smooth reallocation of designers to higher impact projects.

  • Introducing a tiered support model improved communication and set stakeholder expectations for lower priority projects.

  • Leadership, especially CIO Fletcher Prev, strongly prioritizes employee (associate) experience, easing adoption of prioritization.

  • Automating staffing data and weekly score tracking made ongoing prioritization upkeep feasible and visible.

  • Cross-domain design advisors act as knowledge hubs and liaison points for staffing and portfolio understanding.

  • Continuous reassessment of project scope and staffing needs ensures resources adapt to changing priorities.

Notable Quotes

"If you’re like us, you’d love to have 100% of the UX talent every project needs, but your team isn’t large enough."

"We never documented our criteria, leaving stakeholders feeling our decisions were mysterious."

"The two variables that stood out were how many people the project impacts and how often they use it."

"Anything below zero on the design staffing score indicates we’re staffing lower priority projects over higher ones."

"We immediately transitioned designers embedded on lower priority projects to higher priority ones."

"We created a tiers of support model so even low priority projects get some level of guidance, even if just a 45-minute consultation."

"Our CIO, Fletcher Prev, has always made the employee experience his North Star."

"Before transitioning designers, we reviewed and agreed on a prioritized list with all executive leaders."

"We automated everything — now we click a button weekly to produce updated staffing and priority alignment scores."

"When project scope changes, designers or design advisors raise their hand to reassess and adjust staffing accordingly."

Ask the Rosenbot
Sarah Flamion
Complex Problem? Add Clarity by Combining Research and Systems Thinking
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Maish Nichani
Sparking a Service Excellence Mindset at a Government Agency
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
John Calhoun
Have we Reached Our Peak? Spotting the Next Mountain For DesignOps to Climb
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Matt Duignan
Atomizing Research: Trend or Trap
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Vanessa Varin
Feedback: The Other F-Word
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Jemma Ahmed
Democratization: Working with it, not against it [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Benjamin Wiedmaier
Redefining Toolkits: Unbundling to Create a Perfect Match
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Kate Kalcevich
Integrating Accessibility in DesignOps
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Steve Baty
Discussion
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Deanna Washington
Scaling Success: Paving the Path from DesignOps to VP
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Elena Naids
The Power of Difficult Conversations: A Case Study on How We Introduced Design Ops in the Federal Government Space
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Gabriela Barneva
Operationalizing Inclusive Design in Service Design
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Jon Fukuda
The Big Question about Innovation: A Panel Discussion
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Roberta Dombrowski
5 Reasons to Bring your Recruiting in House
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Jon Fukuda
All the Ops: Successful cross-functional collaboration
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
JP Allen
Navigating the UX Tools Landscape
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold

More Videos

Bria Alexander

"This conference is the opportunity I saw to design an experience that felt personal to our community."

Bria Alexander

Theme Two Intro

October 3, 2023

Ariba Jahan

"On days with many user interviews, the team wanted internal meetings video off to take a break from 'smiling all day.'"

Ariba Jahan

Team Resiliency Through a Pandemic

January 8, 2024

Cornelius Rachieru

"Many big companies now have roles related to ecosystem design like VP or senior managers of ecosystem."

Cornelius Rachieru

Handling Complexity: Framing a Scale of Design

June 9, 2021

Megan Clegg

"Situational use cases help us consider the realities outside the business problem that impact user success."

Megan Clegg Michael Haggerty-Villa Alexis Morin

Space for Everyone: Reframing Accessibility Through a Wider Lens

June 10, 2021

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"Crowdsourcing the map meant anyone in our community practice could edit, and it worked beautifully."

Saara Kamppari-Miller

Cartography for Design Communities

September 10, 2025

Kara Kane

"I’ve worked with international counterparts through 30 calls with designers around the world."

Kara Kane

Theme One Intro

November 16, 2022

Natalia Radywyl

"How do we become facilitators who can encourage and model true power sharing? That’s the big question."

Natalia Radywyl

Co-Designing New Power in Australia's Public Sector

November 16, 2022

Nancy Douyon

"Google’s photo algorithm mistakenly tagged Black people as gorillas, which was called out by Jackie Elsene."

Nancy Douyon

We'll Figure That Out in the Next Launch: Enterprise Tech's Nobility Complex

June 15, 2018

Peter Van Dijck

"The Rose Bot has read everything—every piece of Rosenfeld’s knowledge—to help users access it."

Peter Van Dijck

Building the Rosenbot

June 4, 2024