Summary
BBVA began 2019 with a full scale re-org based on agile principles, for the design team in Mexico that re-org included dismantling the 3 years old designOps team because it was considered redundant and a simple admin job that other teams could do. Regretfully it ended in a complete disaster and a steep decline in the quality of the design team with the following project problems and complaints of executives and stakeholders regarding the user experience. This was only stopped by rebuilding a more resilient and integral designOps team, revisiting shortcomings and failures of the Head of design and the team's effort to rebuild itself.
Key Insights
-
•
Design ops was initially embedded but undervalued and misunderstood at BBA Mexico, causing operational crises when removed.
-
•
The design team at BBA grew from 21 designers in 2016 to about 190 by the time of this talk, necessitating scalable ops support.
-
•
Splitting design teams into specialized groups by activity (discipline, pools, operations) without proper design ops support led to fragmentation and coordination failures.
-
•
Removing the design ops team caused designers to struggle with basic tasks like onboarding, printing, and project staffing.
-
•
Design leaders became overwhelmed trying to cover design ops responsibilities, detracting from their design focus.
-
•
Design ops functions include staffing, budgets, agency coordination, onboarding, career planning, and maintaining design practice standards.
-
•
Recognition among designers for design ops grew significantly once the team was absent, revealing their vital behind-the-scenes role.
-
•
Rebuilding design ops involved creating roles embedded directly with design heads to maintain alignment and responsiveness.
-
•
Ideal design ops ratio is around 1 manager per 14 designers, but practice often settles for less due to budget and project pressures.
-
•
Leadership found it difficult to communicate design ops’ strategic value to C-suite executives during organizational change, impacting support.
Notable Quotes
"It’s basically impossible for the design team to work without the design ops team."
"The designers started to send notes of thank you to the ex members of the design ops team for making their life easier."
"We didn’t explain the philosophy behind the design ops activities, so others didn’t understand why some activities couldn’t be done outside design."
"Losing design ops led to missed deadlines, bad experiences for customers, and overstretched design leaders."
"The design ops team helped designers print in BBA’s complicated systems, something they had to do alone after we lost the ops team."
"We didn’t have the maturity of the practice itself to specify the impacts of losing design ops until it happened."
"We realized that the extended design discipline needed to regain some design ops activities to function properly."
"For me, ideally one design ops manager per 14 designers is the ratio that works best."
"The C-suite often sees big change as resistance to change rather than needs for careful transition and impact understanding."
"We need to share the importance of design ops visibly so everyone understands their role in enabling design success."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Good design is honest and yes, the Jewel e-cigarette will honestly kill you."
George AyeThat Quiet Little Voice: When Design and Ethics Collide
November 16, 2022
"Engaging communities requires thinking beyond western-centric tools, considering language and cultural relevance for accessibility."
Xenia Adjoubei Sean BruceEmpowering Communities Through the Researcher in Residence Program
March 29, 2023
"The world is your oyster with whatever tool you want to use, even if we don’t directly integrate with it."
Benjamin Wiedmaier Annie MayfieldRedefining Toolkits: Unbundling to Create a Perfect Match
March 11, 2025
"You can’t iterate on everything at once; you have to pick areas to improve based on business criticality and performance."
John DevanneyThe Design Management Office
November 6, 2017
"We had to kill the Ask Alexis product because the level of commitment needed couldn't happen with part-time consultants."
Steve Sanderson Alissa Briggs Jeff Gothelf Bill ScottDiscussion
May 14, 2015
"User experience is everyone’s responsibility. It’s not just UXs."
Jemma AhmedTheme 2 Intro
January 8, 2024
"Confidence doesn’t dull criticality; self-doubt is a statement about your own worth, which we want to reduce."
Megan KiersteadYou Are a Badass at UX: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
March 10, 2021
"We capture component design decisions and health transparently with checklists; unchecked items correspond to open tickets for prioritization."
PJ Buddhari Nate BaldwinMeet Spectrum, Adobe’s Design System
June 9, 2021
"We often introduce friction deliberately in community building to make it safe and meaningful."
James LangIf you can design an app, you can design a community
May 22, 2025