Leading Change with Confidence: Strategies for Optimizing Your Process
Summary
Constantly improving processes and embracing an iterative mindset can be difficult. In this session, I’ll share unexpected hurdles I faced while leading large-scale changes and how you can avoid them. We'll dive into key moments where I hit roadblocks and more importantly, I'll share the valuable lessons I learned the hard way. Let’s turn my “list of things I wish I knew” into actionable best practices that you can apply to lead change more effectively.
Key Insights
-
•
Doubling a team’s size can drastically reduce process maturity and create new challenges in scaling tools and workflows.
-
•
Failing to thoroughly vet feedback before acting can lead to choosing suboptimal solutions that cause more disruption.
-
•
Piloting changes on a smaller scale helps uncover issues early and builds stakeholder buy-in before full implementation.
-
•
Assessing the urgency of feedback involves understanding who it impacts, if it blocks critical work, and possible temporary workarounds.
-
•
Feedback should be viewed as data, recognizing whether it reflects the majority or a small subset to avoid biased decisions.
-
•
Locking processes from change for 1-2 months creates stability and sustainability, especially when managing multiple teams.
-
•
Documentation of changes, including rationale, approvals, alternative options, and pilot outcomes, prevents repeating past mistakes.
-
•
Engaging trusted colleagues can help mitigate personal bias when assessing feedback.
-
•
Using anecdotal team feedback helps leaders appreciate the human impact of change and the importance of pacing.
-
•
Managing change frequency is a balance that requires gauging team health through surveys and direct human connection.
Notable Quotes
"If you dug deeper into feedback, you'd find ways to address issues without a big change."
"Leading change is like shopping—take time to find the right store before you buy."
"Piloting your ideas before committing helps prevent disruption and saves energy in the long run."
"Processes are never perfect, but thoughtful testing limits disruption for your team."
"We forget a lot of details over time; documentation saves us from repeating mistakes."
"Assessing feedback urgency means understanding if the issue blocks critical work or if there are workarounds."
"Using pilots can get buy-in from stakeholders who might resist broad change initially."
"Anecdotal feedback from team members helps leaders understand the real impact of change."
"More frequent change isn't always better; good communication and team pulse are key."
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Research ops isn’t a one-person job. Expect to need more headcount sooner than you think."
Saskia LiebenbergStart Small for Big Impact
May 15, 2019
"We don’t want to list every single customer activity; we need to abstract behavior patterns to manage interruptions."
Cheryl PlatzDemystifying Multimodal Design: The Design Practice You Didn't Know You're Doing
April 4, 2024
"All major digital product frameworks have grid systems—use them to keep your layouts clean and consistent."
Billy CarlsonPro-level UI Tips for Beginners
September 9, 2022
"My job was to ask tons of discovery questions to uncover what my clients really needed, not just what they said they wanted."
Steve ChaparroBringing Into Alignment Brand, Culture and Space
August 13, 2020
"We decided these would be the social norms now, and we just went for it."
Ilana LipsettAnticipating Risk, Regulating Tech: A Playbook for Ethical Technology Governance
December 10, 2021
"My last job outside this field was as a furniture salesman — flipping burgers or wrangling children, many started outside tech."
Chelsey GlassonExit Interview #3: Same as It Ever Was: What Leaving Tech Taught Me About Change
December 17, 2025
"Design ops is always swinging wildly between priorities, making partners wonder why invest if you’re always going this way or that."
John Calhoun Rachel PosmanTwo Sides of the DesignOps Coin: Teams Ops and Product Ops
January 8, 2024
"The ultimate goal in conflict is to engage with the tension while reducing the friction between humans."
Laura WeissTurn Down the Heat: 3 Ways to Handle Conflict in the Moment
November 20, 2024
"Newness isn’t necessarily a new methodology—it can be a new way of looking at something familiar."
Louis Rosenfeld Jemma Ahmed Christian Crumlish Uday Gajendar Chris GeisonCoffee with Lou #3: What Makes for a Successful UX Conference Presentation?
May 2, 2024
