Rosenverse
Scaling Success: Paving the Path from DesignOps to VP

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Scaling Success: Paving the Path from DesignOps to VP

Gold
Wednesday, October 4, 2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Share the love for this talk
Scaling Success: Paving the Path from DesignOps to VP
Speakers: Deanna Washington , Tim Allen , Jeff Courcelle , John Maeda , Matt Raw and Erica Tjader
Link:

Summary

What happens next with your career? Engage with a panel of Design VPs as they share their leadership and career advancement journey. They’ll discuss their perception of the DesignOps practice as it's matured over the years and how DesignOps has impacted their role. You’ll learn about the leadership qualities and mindset necessary to unlock your next opportunity.

Key Insights

  • Erica Jer discovered design operations early in her career without the term, realizing operational strengths enhance design skills and leadership.

  • Jeff Corll urged integrating design ops with other operational areas like DevOps and marketing to build organizational promoters and avoid silos.

  • Matt Raw highlighted the unique power of designers to convene stakeholders around ideas, shaping agendas and fostering ownership.

  • Tim Allen identified courage and curiosity as essential, balancing conviction with openness to new perspectives, crucial amid AI disruption.

  • John Meda added audacity as a vital trait, encouraging juniors to boldly question and lead as the AI era brings unknown challenges.

  • Evangelism—willingness to cross departmental boundaries and promote design thinking—is a key skill for design professionals.

  • Proactivity combined with humility—acting without full context but listening and iterating—is fundamental for effective design work.

  • Successful design ops functions focus on solving real organizational problems like efficiency and scaling rather than selling the role itself.

  • The multiplicity of design languages creates communication barriers; simplifying and unifying design language boosts organizational understanding.

  • Design work should be made transparent and visible organization-wide to elevate UX from a utility role to strategic leadership.

Notable Quotes

"Operational strengths make me a better designer as well."

"You don’t want to silo design ops in UX; bring in DevOps, marketing ops, and others to make it a living, iterative process."

"True UX maturity means UX belongs to everyone, not just the UX team."

"Designers have the power to convene people around an idea and set the agenda."

"Courage and curiosity together help lead with kindness and make a real impact."

"Audacity means being willing to do things that seem dumb or risky because that’s how you innovate."

"Evangelism means crossing departments to show how design thinking can improve many parts of the organization."

"You’ll never have enough context; being able to act with incomplete information is a crucial skill."

"Design language is probably the worst language possible to speak because it’s so comfortable and confusing."

"Some of the best ideas come from UX, but often they’re hidden from decision makers who need to see them."

Ask the Rosenbot
Wendy Johansson
Design at Scale: Behind the Scenes
2021 • Enterprise Community
Sheri Byrne-Haber
The Importance of Accessible Design Systems
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Ivana Ng
Level Up Your Program with ProductOps
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Mac Smith
Measuring Up: Using Product Research for Organizational Impact
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Robin Beers
How to create actionable insight in the face of politics and silos [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2023 • Advancing Research Community
Miles Orkin
Creativity and Culture
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Ted Booth
Discussion
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Savina Hawkins
Harnessing AI in UXR: Practical Strategies for Positive Impact
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Ruzanna Rozman
Getting in Flow with Your Team
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Alicia Mooty
Design Staffing Models
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Noel Lamb
Cultivating Business Partnerships to Grow Research Ops
2022 • Advancing Research Community
Erin Hoffman-John
This Game is Never Done: Design Leadership Techniques from the Video Game World
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Christian Bason
Expand—Rethinking Design for Public Challenges
2022 • Civic Design Community
Renee Bouwens
Landing Product Impact: Aligning Research as a Foundational Driver for Delivering the World’s Best Products
2023 • QuantQual Interest Group
Bruce Gillespie
Learning from journalism: Balancing impactful communication with compassionate storytelling
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
John Cutler
Prioritization for designers and product managers (1st of 3 seminars)
2024 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Stephanie Wade

"Integrate additional innovation skills like data analytics and behavioral economics to amplify the power of design."

Stephanie Wade

Building and Sustaining Design in Government

December 8, 2021

Jorge Arango

"A middle review step prevents hallucinations from making it into the production site."

Jorge Arango

[Demo] How to re-categorize content at scale using LLMs

June 5, 2024

Nicole Aleong

"Anticipation involves preparatory actions to manage uncertainty about future conditions."

Nicole Aleong

Future Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology

March 26, 2024

Taiye Akin-Akinyosoye

"Focus groups allow us to hear thoughts, emotions, and frustrations in people’s own words."

Taiye Akin-Akinyosoye

Amplifying voices and enhancing user research through group interviews

March 12, 2025

Davis Neable

"The complex problem we were solving was not really solution based at all. It was a cultural team alignment problem."

Davis Neable Guy Segal

How to Drive a Design Project When you Don’t Have a Design Team

June 10, 2021

Megan Campos

"If we just decide to ignore demographics we're missing huge swaths of the participant experience and an opportunity to better serve our users."

Megan Campos

What Did I Miss? The Hidden Costs of Deprioritizing Diversity in User Research

March 12, 2021

Brad Peters

"During roadmapping time, let's bring our roadmaps together and discover synergies."

Brad Peters Anne Mamaghani

Short Take #1: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers

December 6, 2022

Sheri Byrne-Haber

"Accessibility defects are bugs. If it’s a P1 blocking bug for an accessibility issue, treat it like any other P1 bug."

Sheri Byrne-Haber

Accessibility at Scale

June 9, 2021

Marc Fonteijn

"The more experienced you are, the more satisfied you tend to be with your salary; it can almost be double compared to beginners."

Marc Fonteijn

First Insights from the 2025 Service Design Salary(+) Report

December 4, 2024