Flow and Superfluidity for Design Orgs
Summary
As DesignOps leaders, we face the challenge of establishing industry practices, organizations, and roles new to our businesses and to design. At MailChimp, we’ve outlined a strategic roadmap and metrics to communicate and execute our vision. Jacqui Frey shows how MailChimp stepped outside of design and drew from patterns in nature and human behavior to envision DesignOps programs, frameworks, systems, and metrics to scale their design organization.
Key Insights
-
•
MailChimp’s design ops evolved from a single-person role in marketing operations to a multi-branch team of nine within a few years.
-
•
Jackie’s background in sociology and sports influenced her approach to design operations strategy.
-
•
The concept of flow, from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, was key to understanding optimal performance in teams.
-
•
Superfluidity, a physics principle of zero friction flow, was adapted as a metaphor for eliminating workplace friction.
-
•
Design ops’ main mission became conditioning the environment to reduce friction and enable optimal performance.
-
•
Dividing design ops into business operations, CX practice, and design production helped organize responsibilities effectively.
-
•
Onboarding programs are critical to improving designer ramp-up time and enabling flow.
-
•
Measuring outcomes with metrics like attrition rates, satisfaction scores, and cross-functional NPS is essential for validating design ops efforts.
-
•
Leadership needed to shift from having all answers to empowering team members to own the flow and superfluidity strategy.
-
•
Studying human behavior patterns from social sciences offers valuable insights for structuring and innovating design ops functions.
Notable Quotes
"Design ops really is the story of design’s role within the business at MailChimp."
"It’s breath not death. Don’t try to solve for the system. Try to understand the request and help the business."
"I was driving home in silence and remembered playing volleyball, feeling focused and in the zone."
"Optimal performance is about making external conditions match your goals."
"What if design ops’ job was to condition the environment and remove friction?"
"Superfluidity means zero viscosity—flowing without loss of kinetic energy, no friction."
"If we improve areas of friction on behalf of the design department, people’s ability to achieve goals will increase."
"Our motto at MailChimp is change fast, listen hard."
"Community building has been happening for millions of years—there are patterns we can learn from."
"Leadership is not about having all the answers, it’s about empowering others to own the strategy."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"No matter what your contract says, once your data is in the cloud connected to an LLM, you have to accept the risk it could be exposed."
Kate Towsey Basel Fakhoury Oren Friedman Graham GardnerParticipant Recruitment and Management Tools
March 12, 2026
"We believe cognitive biases like frequency bias and expectation bias affected how users perceived AI errors over time."
Jennifer KongJourneying toward AI-assisted documentation in healthcare
June 5, 2024
"Project management is the ecosystem connecting everyone to deliver the best branded dog communication technology."
Kevin M. HoffmanTheme 2: Enterprise Team Journey
June 3, 2019
"We use Alexa’s personification for good, fun, and delight, but we don’t advertise, especially because there may be kids listening."
Amy MarquezINVEST: Discussion
June 15, 2018
"Designers can be really paranoid and very precious."
Gretchen AndersonScaling the Human Center
June 8, 2017
"We're building bridges not only for ourselves but for the generations who will come after us."
April ReaganLook, Think, Act: The Futures-Smart Design Organization
October 1, 2021
"Candidates sometimes got rejected within hours despite active recruiting efforts, and recruiters lacked visibility into the system issues."
Dante GuintuHow to Crush the Talent Crunch
September 8, 2022
"Document your design decisions and architecture visually so new team members can quickly understand your system."
Jaime CreixemsBest Practices when Creating and Maintaining a Design System
June 7, 2023
"If you had to visualize what you thought you agreed to in a meeting, a lot of times there’s misalignment."
Billy CarlsonPrinciples of Team Wireframing
October 2, 2023
