Flex Your Super Powers: When a Design Ops Team Scales to Power CX
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
Verizon CX Ops transformed from a design ops team to a global CX operations team powering 300+ roles across the enterprise.
-
•
Super speed represents rapid onboarding and resource planning to match the right designers to priority projects quickly.
-
•
Telepathy is a metaphor for proactive and consistent communication, resource capacity planning, and recruitment process improvements.
-
•
Super gadgets include operational tools like Jira, Airtable, and dynamic reporting, critical for scaling CX operations.
-
•
Flight symbolizes adopting multiple frameworks (predictive, agile, hybrid) and flexible working at global scale.
-
•
Super intelligence is embodied by CX Ops acting as a knowledge hub, oversharing communications to avoid gaps.
-
•
Super strength is demonstrated by strong cross-team partnerships and repeatable scalable processes that enhance customer experience quality.
-
•
Capacity planning in uncertain environments relies heavily on design systems, iterative planning, and quarterly forecasts with business partners.
-
•
Defining and tracking anti-patterns helps identify inefficiencies, such as ineffective meetings or communication breakdowns, enabling quick corrective action.
-
•
Crypto nights like burnout, silos, and too many priorities are actively managed through transparency, communication, and team support.
Notable Quotes
"We are super ops — powering 300 plus designers, researchers, and strategists globally."
"One of our superpowers is super speed: moving at the speed of light almost in onboarding and resource planning."
"Telepathy means mind-reading—proactive solutions through expanded resource capacity planning and recruitment."
"Super gadgets are our operational tools that we get really geeky about, like Jira and Airtable."
"Flight means adopting multiple models—predictive, agile, hybrid—to empower design at global scale."
"As the keepers and gatherers of knowledge, we empower others by sharing and sometimes over-sharing communications."
"Our super strength comes from partnerships and scalable, repeatable processes."
"We have crypto nights like people pleasing, perfectionism, silos, and burnout—which we watch out for carefully."
"Capacity planning is always through ever-changing uncertainty, requiring quarterly resource planning and business partnership."
"Defining anti-patterns helps us quickly identify and remedy issues like ineffective meetings or misaligned priorities."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"We’re building in the attribution of ideas to authors and speakers, emphasizing the humans behind the expertise."
Peter Van Dijck Louis RosenfeldCoffee with Lou #4: Taking a Peek Under the Rosenbot's Hood
June 14, 2024
"Design teams need diverse perspectives because our own experiences cloud our judgment about user needs."
Lija HoganContexts of Use: A Framework for Connection
December 9, 2021
"Government forms need to represent identity and respect privacy so we can better serve all people."
Amy Paris Danielle ThierryDelivering Equity: Government Services for All Ages, Languages, Sexual Orientations, and Gender Identities
December 9, 2021
"We choose to measure design ops value not because it is easy, but because it is hard."
John Calhoun Rachel PosmanMeters, Miles, and Madness: New Frameworks to Measure the (Elusive) Value of DesignOps
September 24, 2024
"Talking about UX ROI as reducing failure is like opening a new restaurant and saying please come because we won’t make you sick."
How to Identify and Increase your "Experience Quotient"
June 15, 2018
"One operations person for every ten designers is when you start to feel the pain of coordination."
Jacqui FreyScale is Social Work
March 19, 2020
"Start small, try to learn as you go, and set realistic expectations to avoid being humbled when things go live."
Shan ShenTranslating UX Terms into Business Contexts
November 29, 2023
"Managers don’t have to go it alone; principal ICs can be key partners for coaching and strategic initiatives."
Edward CuppsThe Principal Path: Journeying from Management to Individual Contributor
June 11, 2021
"No one just wakes up and decides to climb a mountain; every step is intentional and planned."
Neema MahdaviOperationalizing DesignOps
November 7, 2018
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How does deep engagement with backend data improve front-end UX design for complex home systems?
What are effective use cases for AI in prototyping UI interactions according to senior designers?
How do current pressures like AI tools and offshoring affect designers’ sense of purpose and warmth in design?