Rosenverse

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.

State of DesignOps: Learnings from the 2021 Global Report

Gold
Friday, October 1, 2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Share the love for this talk
State of DesignOps: Learnings from the 2021 Global Report
Speakers: Angelos Arnis
Link:

Summary

DesignOps has been maturing in recent years and the adaptation of the practice has increased. With data from over 200 companies from all over the world, we are taking a deep dive into how DesignOps professionals are structuring their roles and/or teams in different companies. We are learning all about their impact, tools, and practices, as well as how are they adapting to the new normal, and how they are tackling social issues.

Key Insights

  • Design ops professionals are typically seasoned with 10-20 years of experience and often transition from design craft or design management roles.

  • Emotional intelligence, especially empathy inward towards designers and stakeholders, is a critical competency for design ops roles.

  • More than half of design ops professionals in the survey are women, and the average age group is 35-44 years old.

  • Design ops teams are mostly small, often consisting of just one person, yet this one individual can support anywhere from a handful to 200 designers.

  • The role becomes relevant primarily when design teams grow to about 30-40 designers, especially in enterprise and post-Series C startups.

  • Common focus areas of design ops include communication, system/process management, team growth, culture, partnerships, project management, and governance.

  • Tools like Figma, Slack, Miro, Google Docs, and Google Drive dominate as essential for remote collaboration and documentation.

  • Remote work is the new norm, with 90% of respondents working exclusively remotely post-pandemic, increasing the need for design ops.

  • There are notable geographic gaps in design ops adoption and data from Africa, Canada, and much of Asia remain limited.

  • Challenges for solo design ops professionals include prioritizing high-ROI initiatives and balancing project management with organizational strategy.

Notable Quotes

"Design ops people need to be seasoned for the role. There’s experience you can’t learn in college or a bootcamp."

"Empathy in design ops turns inward toward our own people first and extends to other stakeholders."

"One design ops person can work for anything from a handful of designers up to 200 designers, which can be quite challenging."

"Design ops becomes relevant when a company’s design team scales to about 30 or 40 designers."

"Communication and processes are the core focus areas where design ops teams invest most of their efforts."

"Most design ops professionals work fewer than 40 hours per week, with Europeans more likely to keep this balance than their US counterparts."

"The biggest blockers to adopting new tools are often company policy, security concerns, and budget constraints."

"Remote and distributed work models create more demand for design ops as teams need systems to enable collaboration and alignment."

"Emotional intelligence encompasses self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management—key for design ops."

"No one is married to a company; people will leave if their needs aren’t met, so retention and team happiness are important success indicators."

Ask the Rosenbot
Tamara Hale
War Stories LIVE! Tamara Hale
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Tess Dixon
C'mon Get Happy
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Husani Oakley
Theme Two Intro
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Cheryl Platz
Collaborative Creativity through Improv
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Sam Yen
Driving Organizational Change Through Design? Do more of this and less of that
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Jonathon Colman
How to Maximize the Impact of Content Design
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Carol Smith
Operationalizing Responsible, Human-Centered AI
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
George Zhang
UX Research Excellence Framework
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Jaskiran Kang
Why Community is Key to Professionalizing Design
2022 • Civic Design Community
Jake Burghardt
Stop wasting research: Unlock more value from research insights
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Maish Nichani
Sparking a Service Excellence Mindset at a Government Agency
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Corey Nelson
Layoffs
2022 • Advancing Research Community
Lija Hogan
Doing more with more: Lessons from the Front Lines of Democratization
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Andrew Webster
Scaling Design Capability: How Involved Should You Be?
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Jennifer Strickland
Fireside Chat: How Design Addresses a World on Fire
2022 • Civic Design Community
Kim Fellman Cohen
Measuring the Designer Experience
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold

More Videos

Kate Towsey

"Research is democratized: if you’re not democratizing, you probably don’t even realize everyone in your company is talking to users in different ways."

Kate Towsey Basel Fakhoury Oren Friedman Graham Gardner

Participant Recruitment and Management Tools

March 12, 2026

Jennifer Kong

"Healthcare is not a silver bullet for AI; a lot of context comes from non-verbal cues where generative AI doesn’t apply."

Jennifer Kong

Journeying toward AI-assisted documentation in healthcare

June 5, 2024

Kevin M. Hoffman

"Thou art community, connection, and meaning – the product is not just code or design, it is a shared experience between humans and dogs."

Kevin M. Hoffman

Theme 2: Enterprise Team Journey

June 3, 2019

Amy Marquez

"Investment is attention: If the business funds you, it means they believe in what you do."

Amy Marquez

INVEST: Discussion

June 15, 2018

Gretchen Anderson

"Pair design is about two perspectives coming together as peers to quickly try and evaluate ideas."

Gretchen Anderson

Scaling the Human Center

June 8, 2017

April Reagan

"The division between haves and have-nots is real, but history shows periods of immense innovation and progress can follow."

April Reagan

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

October 1, 2021

Dante Guintu

"Lead with empathy because a lot of solutions will live outside of your wheelhouse."

Dante Guintu

How to Crush the Talent Crunch

September 8, 2022

Jaime Creixems

"Respect your design system rules to ensure consistent experiences across your product and teams."

Jaime Creixems

Best Practices when Creating and Maintaining a Design System

June 7, 2023

Billy Carlson

"Balsamiq is more a communication tool, intentionally limiting high polish so you focus on sharing ideas and getting feedback."

Billy Carlson

Principles of Team Wireframing

October 2, 2023