Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

Practical DesignOps: From Ideas to Tools That Teams Actually Use
Thursday, September 25, 2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Share the love for this talk
Practical DesignOps: From Ideas to Tools That Teams Actually Use
Speakers: Changying (Z) Zheng
Link:

Summary

DesignOps is at its best when it moves beyond theory into solutions that teams can apply immediately. Over the past few months, Z has developed living frameworks, templates, and tools to cover everything from cross-functional partnership maps to interactive self-assessment resources. It all started from day-to-day DesignOps needs and was designed to solve real operational challenges. In this one-hour community session, Z will: - Share the journey of building these resources, including how AI collaboration played a role from ideation to delivery - Highlight examples of tools currently being used by teams in DesignOps, ResearchOps, and Product Design - Invite the community to shape the next phase of this work by sharing their most pressing needs and challenges This is a conversation for the DesignOps community and with the community. We hope to co-create the resources that will move us forward. Who should attend: DesignOps, ResearchOps, and Product Design professionals looking for actionable tools, as well as anyone interested in contributing practical insights to strengthen our shared practice.

Key Insights

  • Design operations can be effectively supported through practical templates, playbooks, and frameworks rather than only theoretical discussions.

  • AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and vibe coding can accelerate creation of operational content and automation, but require human oversight to avoid issues like hallucinations.

  • Operations roles are evolving and sometimes move between different organizational teams (e.g., design ops shifting between design and product experience teams).

  • A RACI model helps clarify authority and responsibility, especially in distributed design teams embedded across different parts of an enterprise.

  • Building career ladders for design disciplines improves clarity on growth paths and skills development within teams.

  • Invisible operations work is critical; when things break, it highlights operations’ vital contributions that often go unnoticed.

  • Peace time for operations teams should be used proactively for activities like documentation cleanup, training, and process improvement.

  • Integrating research operations and democratizing research empowers designers to conduct more user research independently.

  • Design operations often influence without formal authority, requiring strong collaboration with leaders across design, content, research, and product.

  • The future role of design and product operations professionals includes leveraging AI responsibly while focusing on creativity and curiosity to ask novel questions.

Notable Quotes

"Design operation is essentially service design to the design team."

"Operations work best when practical tools are put in peoples' hands, not just theory."

"When operations do their job well, people don’t even know it exists until something breaks."

"For distributed embedded designers, a RACI model helps outline who’s responsible and what authority they have."

"Our approach to career development is thinking about two dimensions: what you’re good at and enjoy, and what you’re good at but don’t enjoy."

"AI helped me produce nearly 80 posts in a year; without AI, that pace would be impossible."

"Different AI systems have different strengths; Claude is great for creative writing, ChatGPT is concise and to the point, Gemini is deeper for research."

"Use AI responsibly; never input sensitive info without governance, or it could lead to dangerous outcomes."

"The future belongs to designers who ask questions worth answering, not just answering questions already asked."

"Operations often move around organizationally, from design to product operations and back, reflecting evolving team needs."

Ask the Rosenbot
Jane Reid
Self-care in User Research
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Nova Wehman-Brown
We've Never Done This Before
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Sarah Brooks
Theme Three Intro
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Kit Unger
Theme 2: Introduction
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Matt Stone
Scaling Empathy, A Case Study in Change Management
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Megan Clegg
Space for Everyone: Reframing Accessibility Through a Wider Lens
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Dan Willis
Filling the Void
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Indi Young
Thinking styles: Mend hidden cracks in your market
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
John Maeda
Making Sense of Enterprise UX
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Victor Lombardi
Bridging Design and Climate Science
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Alla Weinberg
Workers Are Sick of Change: The Cure is Psychological Safety
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Coffee with Lou: Should You Write a (UX) Book?
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Clara Kliman-Silver
UX Futures: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Design
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Laura Weiss
There is No Playbook: Leader as Coach During Challenging Times
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Taylor Klassman
Shaping the Next Era of UX Research: Collaborative Forum
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Jorge Arango
Exploding the Notebook: How to Unlock the Power of Linked Notes (2nd of 3 seminars)
2024 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Devon Powers

"If I do a project today on 2025, you’re not going to be in that chair in 2025 and neither am I."

Devon Powers

Imagining Better Futures

March 9, 2022

April Reagan

"The pandemic and climate change have shown how tightly interwoven and global our challenges truly are."

April Reagan

Look, Think, Act: The Futures-Smart Design Organization

October 1, 2021

Ben Reason

"Art and visuals help represent what people cannot see, but only with strategic intention and understanding."

Ben Reason Aline Horta Majid Iqbal Fabiano Leoni

Making the system visible: The fastest path to better decisions

November 20, 2025

Kate Kalcevich

"Personas tend to not give you those deep insights that you would get from user research and user testing."

Kate Kalcevich

Designing inclusively with AI

June 5, 2024

Neema Mahdavi

"We wanted to move fast, but in the right direction, not just anywhere for the sake of going there."

Neema Mahdavi

Operationalizing DesignOps

November 7, 2018

Dalia El-Shimy

"The moment they begin to shift their thinking and make decisions based on that work, they’re actually giving you a seat."

Dalia El-Shimy

So You've Got a Seat at the Table. Now What?

March 31, 2020

Dave Malouf

"We hadn’t really thought about governance up front at all, which is not the ideal way to do something like that."

Dave Malouf Amy Thibodeau

Panel: Design Systems and Documentation

November 7, 2017

Alla Weinberg

"Connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued."

Alla Weinberg

Cross-Functional Relationship Design

December 6, 2022

Theresa Neil

"Inheriting marketing style guides is the biggest mistake in data visualization color use because they’re usually not appropriate."

Theresa Neil

Just Build Me a Dashboard!

April 9, 2019