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
"Green spaces are not just aesthetic; they are essential for the health of urban populations."
Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine MarinDesigning a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access
October 23, 2020
"Sometimes the most ethical and just path for humans is also the most effective for preserving natural systems."
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW Llewyn Paine Nishanshi Shukla David WomackAI: Passionate defenses and reasoned critique [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
September 18, 2024
"You can’t jump from UX maturity rung one to six; it’s a deliberate climb focusing on your current challenge."
JJ KercherA Roadmap for Maturing Design in the Enterprise
June 15, 2018
"When I was head of product, I wasn’t enough of a domain expert or business model expert to scale the company."
Christian Crumlish Aditi Ruiz Johanna Kollmann Catt SmallMorning Insights Panel
December 6, 2022
"People spend about 60% of their time on the work about the work."
Kristin Skinner Kamdyn Moore8 Types of Measures in Design Operations
April 16, 2020
"Accept that in research with vulnerable groups, you will always encounter the unknown and you can prepare to handle that uncertainty."
Jane Reid Janice HannawaySelf-care in User Research
April 2, 2020
"Changing course based on evidence of actual human behavior is what agility really means."
Jeff GothelfWho does what by how much?
November 20, 2025
"We created a Slack bot that automatically created tickets from UX bug reports to help design managers discover issues faster and track recovery time."
Peter BoersmaHow to Define and Maintain a DesignOps Roadmap
October 3, 2023
"Impact of research is not always immediate or linear; it can be a long-term, complex process to measure."
Taylor KlassmanShaping the Next Era of UX Research: Collaborative Forum
March 11, 2025