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
"Sometimes the power lies in choosing not to give energy to certain system dynamics."
Luke Roberts Christian Bason, Ph.D. Amanda Woolley Ben ReasonPanel Discussion
December 4, 2024
"Steve just talked about humans being humans in a world full of humans."
Susan Simon-DanielsWar Stories LIVE! Susan Simon-Daniels
March 30, 2020
"Our buyers want their research directly and quickly, with AI."
Peter Van Dijck Mary AvilesThe Bag of Skills: Building Resiliency into Your UX Career While the Market Catches Up
August 26, 2026
"We need to turn our skills toward observing the culture of the companies we’re in."
Christopher GeisonTheme 1 Intro
March 25, 2024
"Starting small, pick your closest collaborator, provide and prove value before trying to scale."
Andy WarrUnder My (Research) Umbrella: The Benefits and Challenges of Building a Unified Insights Function
March 25, 2024
"If accessibility is buried three levels deep in a checklist, it’s going to get missed."
Samuel ProulxFrom Standards to Innovation: Why Inclusive Design Wins
November 19, 2025
"Inclusion and representation help us be both socially relevant and novel in our work."
Theme 3 Intro
March 11, 2022
"I recommend asking about user needs rather than disability, like whether someone needs captions or larger fonts."
Kate KalcevichIntegrating Accessibility in DesignOps
September 23, 2024
"We mapped like this for three solid days playing the map forwards, eliminating steps, mitigating risks."
Gordon Ross12 Months of COVID-19 Design and Digital Response with the British Columbia Government
December 8, 2021