Summary
DesignOps is all about scaling up design teams while creating organizational efficiencies yet it is not always evident how impact and gained efficiencies can be quantified and measured. There’s a certain confusion around what are the inefficiencies and there is no established process to determine those metrics. This session is not about providing a list of metrics to be replicated. It’s about providing a tested approach on how to identify, quantify, and measure inefficiencies and how to define measurable and realistic targets. This approach can be applied and replicated in any context to support the DesignOps community to gain additional credibility and to ensure DesignOps professionals are able to demonstrate the value of their work to the business with objective data points and quantifiable gains.
Key Insights
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Design ops must align with an organization's strategic goals to maximize impact.
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Value is perceived through relationships and context, not just monetary worth.
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Operational efficiency can significantly enhance design quality and team satisfaction.
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KPIs should be tailored to the unique context of each organization.
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System thinking allows us to understand and influence complex relationships within design operations.
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Understanding customer needs—design teams, design leads, and businesses—is crucial for measuring success.
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Addressing inefficiencies requires a hypothesis-driven approach to identify and prioritize changes.
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Data-driven insights are essential for legitimizing design operations decisions and their impact.
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Design ops can be a bridge between design and business, ensuring that both languages meet.
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Continuous experimentation fosters innovation and improves operational performance.
Notable Quotes
"I like trying new things, I like experimenting, I like imagining ways of doing all things."
"Value is not equal to worth, but it’s how much people perceive something’s worth."
"Value is a quality that comes out of a relationship."
"Context changes our perception and guides how we create strategies."
"Efficiency is a performance peak, defined as output minus input."
"There are no design ops KPIs; only the KPIs that work for you and your team in this moment."
"The magic of design ops is getting into this system and finding out where to start."
"What we miss today is not applying a system thinking but a linear thinking."
"A relational model is how operations create value."
"Everything should be value-driven and relational."
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