Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

Establishing Design Operations in Government

Thursday, February 18, 2021 • DesignOps Community
Share the love for this talk
Establishing Design Operations in Government
Speakers: Michael Land
Link:

Summary

Join us for a discussion about Michael's path into the federal government, working to solve problems and design better products and services for the American public and attempting to establish design operations at a government agency and across government.

Key Insights

  • Design in government is nascent and misunderstood, often seven or more years behind private industry.

  • Design efforts in agencies like USCIS tend to be fragmented, resembling mushroom patches without coordination.

  • Most government designers are contractors with limited voice and influence over processes and tooling.

  • Government hiring categories lack modern roles for designers, making federal design career paths nearly nonexistent.

  • The US Digital Service uses a 'tour of duty' model, akin to Peace Corps for nerds, bringing rotating experts for impactful projects.

  • Building design operations requires diplomacy and relationship management across multiple teams and leadership levels.

  • COVID-19 and budget constraints have posed significant challenges to building design teams and conducting in-person collaboration.

  • A centralized design system and research operations are critical to unify dispersed design efforts and share learnings.

  • Service design is largely undeveloped in government but essential for improving the delivery of public services beyond digital aspects.

  • Bureaucracy hacking and adaptability are vital skills for advancing design functions within the complexities of government processes.

Notable Quotes

"It's kind of Peace Corps for nerds – people come in for a tour and try to have impact at scale."

"Government is seven plus years behind industry – not bleeding edge, more like the dull butter knife edge."

"There are lots of little mushroom patches of design sprouting up, but they're disconnected and not sharing."

"Most of our designers are contractors; they have limited voice because they’re bound by contracts."

"In government, the org chart really matters – it influences who talks to whom and who gets to interface."

"You don’t want so much governance that people can’t be creative, but you need just enough to help their process."

"Hiring specs for federal designers don’t exist as we expect—jobs are often classified as public affairs or other unrelated titles."

"We’re trying to build a design operations role that balances top-down governance with bottom-up community building."

"The biggest bottleneck is the bureaucracy, like the Paperwork Reduction Act, we have to creatively navigate that."

"Design Ops in government requires a lot of diplomacy – it’s about managing relationships and stakeholder expectations."

Ask the Rosenbot
Ben Davies
Expert Panel: The Principles of Research Repository Design
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Vicky Teinaki
Short Take #3: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Dave Malouf
The Past, Present, and Future of DesignOps: a 2-part DesignOps Community Call (Part 1)
2022 • DesignOps Community
Ren Pope
Building Experiences for Knowledge Systems
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Jon Fukuda
All the Ops: Successful cross-functional collaboration
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Etienne Fang
The Power of Care: From Human-Centered Research to Humanity-Centered Leadership
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Alla Weinberg
Healing Toxic Stress
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Andreas Huebner
What Is It Like To Be Part of The UX Team at Compass?
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Jason Mesut
Unmasking Design Leadership: Navigating leadership without neglecting ourselves
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Jesse Zolna
Inviting the Whole Org to Come See For Yourself
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Theresa Neil
Designing for Wellness: Specializing in Healthcare
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Paul Pangaro, PhD
Systems Disciplines: Table Stakes for 21st Century Organizations
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Uday Gajendar
10 Years of Enterprise UX: Reflecting on the community and the practice
2025 • Enterprise Community
Rikki Teeters
Concept to code: Transforming ideas into functional products with Kiro
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Sam Ladner
Methodologies: Beyond the interview [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Steve Baty
Discussion
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold

More Videos

Yunyan Li

"We encourage everyone to think big first then trim down based on priorities and keep a backlog of good ideas."

Yunyan Li Anna Le Jen Kim

UX Best Practices

June 11, 2021

Allan Lowson

"If you can’t beat them, join them—I got Cursor seats for my design team."

Allan Lowson

Rehashing the Double Diamond: Collaborating across functions with AI-assisted prototyping

June 9, 2026

Denise Jacobs

"Designers are change agents. This is part of your passion and what gets you up in the morning."

Denise Jacobs Nancy Douyon Renee Reid Lisa Welchman

Interactive Keynote: Social Change by Design

January 8, 2024

Renee Bouwens

"The sum is greater than the parts—how qualitative and quantitative research play together."

Renee Bouwens

Landing Product Impact: Aligning Research as a Foundational Driver for Delivering the World’s Best Products

December 15, 2023

Jemma Ahmed

"Knowledge multiplies the more it is shared; enabling others makes your insights stronger, not your position weaker."

Jemma Ahmed Steve Carrod Chris Geison Dr. Shadi Janansefat Christopher Nash

Democratization: Working with it, not against it [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]

July 24, 2024

Sam Ladner

"You have to have a point of view, and you have to lead in order to get that impact in strategic foresight."

Sam Ladner

How Research Can Drive Strategic Foresight

March 9, 2022

Yoel Sumitro

"The wrong learning pedagogy might be fueling impostor syndrome among design researchers."

Yoel Sumitro

Actions and Reflections: Bridging the Skills Gap among Researchers

March 9, 2022

Dave Hora

"Introducing insights into a system is just adding a new actor; without managing interactions, nothing changes."

Dave Hora

Research in the Face of Complexity: New Sensibility for New Situations

August 27, 2025

Daniel J. Rosenberg

"Garbage in, garbage out—if the requirements are wrong, the AI will instantly create a useless UX."

Daniel J. Rosenberg

Designing with and for Artificial Intelligence

August 11, 2022