Summary
DesignOps as a practice is still relatively new—but the activities have been around long enough that we’re increasingly challenged to justify and quantify what we do. Accordingly, we need to address not just what is DesignOps, but how do we prove its value? What outcomes can we genuinely promise? And how do we know we are successful? In this group exercise, we’ll identify techniques, tactics, and tools for proving (and even measuring) value, and describing the outcomes that matter most.
Key Insights
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62% of surveyed design ops professionals admit they haven’t figured out how to measure value effectively yet.
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Common barriers to measuring design ops value include limited time/resources, difficulty involving the right stakeholders, and a lack of proven metrics.
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Measuring value in design ops is complicated by each organization’s unique constraints and its stage on the design ops maturity journey.
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Behavioral resistance can undermine measurement efforts, such as inconsistent or inaccurate time tracking despite its importance.
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Non-financial and sentiment-based measurements are crucial as data alone often misses behavioral context.
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Established frameworks like Google’s HEART and Facebook’s mixed methods provide adaptable foundations for design measurement.
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An eight-type taxonomy of design ops measurement emerged from research and community input, organized around people, practice, and platform domains.
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Effective measurement frameworks link activities to predictable outcomes (like happier designers, better designers, and more effective teams) enabling targeted metrics.
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Retention and staffing remain central concerns tied to measuring design ops impact; qualitative tactics like stay interviews yield actionable insights.
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Community collaboration and shared standards for design ops measurement are essential to evolving beyond the 'we don’t know yet' phase.
Notable Quotes
"When I was asked how I measure success, I said the day I no longer have to convince you."
"62% of people said literally we don't know how to measure the value of design ops yet."
"Limited time and money is not unique to design ops; it’s every single function I’ve ever seen."
"People really hated using Harvest to log billable hours, some just put the same hours week after week."
"Non-financial, non-data measurements can reveal much more about behaviors than traditional metrics."
"Google’s HEART framework is great because different teams—engineering, product, and design—can all use it."
"We have an eight-type framework for measuring design ops, but it’s a starting point, design ops is never done."
"You can’t have effective teams without happy designers and better designers; they’re interdependent."
"Stay interviews ask why people choose to stay, which provides more actionable retention data than exit interviews."
"Our call to action is to co-create these measurement standards together and share back to the community."
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