Meters, Miles, and Madness: New Frameworks to Measure the (Elusive) Value of DesignOps
Summary
Measuring DesignOps value is surprisingly complicated. Many practitioners would agree with the sentiment that measuring their impact feels aspirational at best, and theoretical at worst. Anecdotal evidence and praise from partners (“I don't know what we’d do without you!”) is nice, but doesn’t add up to proof that DesignOps is a worthy return on investment. In this talk, we’ll share two novel approaches to measuring DesignOps success from our upcoming book, The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations. These methods–the “Jobs to Be Done” and “HEROES” frameworks–can be used to uncover and define measures of value that more accurately capture the impact DesignOps (and design) has on a business and its stakeholders. We will also share some tested rubrics that DesignOps can use to prioritize and implement these new measures.
Key Insights
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Traditional business metrics are often too narrow to capture the full value of design operations.
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Only about 50% of design ops practitioners have clearly defined metrics; just 41% measure design ops impact.
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The Jobs to Be Done framework can be adapted to design ops to define measurable outcomes linked to stakeholder needs.
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The Hero's Framework categorizes design ops impact into six areas: Health, Effectiveness, Readiness, Outcomes, Ecosystem, and Sentiment.
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Design ops should measure metrics tailored to their organization's mission, operating model, and current workstreams for best results.
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Expansion and contraction business phases affect which design ops metrics and outcomes teams should prioritize.
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Outcome-driven prioritization factors (success, progress, problem) help ensure metrics focus on improving change, not just status quo.
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Visibility of design ops work is critical to securing investment and recognition from leadership, as noted by Jared Spool and Sarah Walker Bocher.
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Measurement frameworks should help design ops move away from measuring all things to measuring what truly matters for impact and sustainability.
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The example of a Gen AI Summer Camp showed how design ops used readiness metrics and qualitative feedback to demonstrate tangible value.
Notable Quotes
"Measuring wrong can cost you half a billion dollars, but also what you measure and how you measure matters a lot."
"Design ops isn’t rocket science, but between us it might actually be harder."
"Design ops is a flexible and adaptable practice, meaning our goals and outcomes are usually more fluid than stable."
"Applying traditional frameworks to design ops is like trying to fit a star in a box."
"Design teams don’t want a design ops drill, they need a quarter inch hole that requires a little bit of program management."
"Healthy teams are the foundation of a healthy organization."
"Every hiccup in a process and every outdated protocol accumulates a toll on the team as well as financial costs."
"Visibility is the most vital thing for UX leaders to be focused on."
"Endlessly justifying yourself rarely changes others’ opinions. It positions design ops as up for debate."
"We choose to measure design ops value not because it is easy, but because it is hard."
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