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
"Teams stuck in the back room doing API work are only two steps away from the customer."
Tim ParmeeChanging Our Design Pressure Points
October 2, 2023
"Make a case to hire people who are product agnostic to connect where products intersect in the rider journey."
Kristin TaylorBuilding Bridges Across Organizational Silos
November 18, 2022
"The code of conduct is on every page of our site; it includes procedures for getting assistance."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
October 3, 2023
"Writing helps me clearly articulate ideas and feedback, which is a superpower as a manager."
Amy Jiménez Márquez Michael J. Metts Joie ChungThe Atypical UX Manager Path
July 23, 2020
"Sponsor sessions are completely free, and you can invite anyone you want to those."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
June 11, 2021
"Government contracts are huge but require heavy compliance and long timelines—heads we win, tails we lose little."
Ted NewardTheme 4: Enterprise Organizational Journey
June 4, 2019
"Different teams were thinking about users quite differently for the same product on the Windows phone."
Ellen ChisaThe Values of Design
November 29, 2023
"Basic coordinating and data management skills are foundational but not where researchers should spend most of their focus."
Dave HoraA Research Skills Evolution
March 10, 2021
"Rapid research is a flexible framework for quickly executing UX research for fast and often tactical or evaluative design decisions."
Feleesha SterlingBuilding a Rapid Research Program
May 18, 2023
