Summary
What’s the most important question regarding today’s theme of innovation that we, as a community, need to address? We’ve asked you, you’ve spoken—and now we’ll tackle it with the aid of Jon and some of today’s speakers.
Key Insights
-
•
Defining and agreeing on core design values like integrity and respect is foundational for fostering innovation in design ops.
-
•
Innovation succeeds best when focused on solving one key prioritized problem, avoiding trying to fix everything at once.
-
•
Balancing innovation with existing organizational rhythms and tempos is essential for impactful adoption.
-
•
AI will transform design operations incrementally, with humans needed to maintain accountability and oversee outputs.
-
•
Large enterprises face unique AI adoption challenges due to security protocols and concerns over data residency.
-
•
Empathy is crucial in innovation workflows to truly understand and address user needs beyond mere efficiency metrics.
-
•
Workshops can help break down communication barriers and build collaboration even when chemistry is initially poor.
-
•
Aligning teams early on a clear, shared ‘north star’ problem supports sustained alignment despite differing perspectives.
-
•
Shared tooling and standardized taxonomies across design, product, and development teams improve communication and outcomes.
-
•
Overcapacity and competing priorities threaten sustainable innovation; operations must manage workload for scalable delivery.
Notable Quotes
"Each team should talk about their core values like integrity, accountability, and respect to work together with the same mindset."
"We’re lucky if we solve a single thing; everything else has to be parking lot."
"Innovation has to fit within the tempo and rhythm of the organization and leadership."
"AI won’t transform all things at once; it’s about piloting and delivering discrete business value first."
"A large organization’s security protocols make AI adoption slower and more complex than in smaller groups."
"Without a human in the loop, AI can go off and do crazy disastrous things."
"Empathy means constantly going back to the people using the tools and hearing their feedback."
"Getting people who don’t communicate well to at least work together on a single thing is the first step to innovating together."
"Aligning on a north star problem gets everyone excited and aligned from the beginning."
"If design, product, and development use different tools, we end up talking past one another."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware they are not free."
Raven VealDark Metrics: Illuminating the Negative Impact of Digital Health Design
March 12, 2021
"You can’t build a jet engine by hand; you build machines and processes that allow you to build the jet engine."
Bob BaxleyLeading with Design Operations Past and Present
December 19, 2019
"Our presenters have iterated on their talks to provide rich resources and new knowledge."
Ariel KennanTheme 2 Intro
December 9, 2021
"We start every new feature with a product brief that outlines the problem, how we’ll measure success, and rollout strategy."
Ivana NgLevel Up Your Program with ProductOps
January 8, 2024
"Most research presentations bury recommendations under methods; we must lead with what decisions to make."
Aras Bilgen Ari ZelmanowResearch Democratization: A Debate
March 29, 2023
"You don’t have to sit through two hours a day; we’ll spend about 15 minutes on setup then you’ll pair up and do the exercise."
Dave GrayGroup Activity: Making Sense of DesignOps
November 7, 2017
"You don’t need to take notes; Rosenfeld media has sketch note makers creating creative and interactive notes for each talk."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
June 9, 2021
"We’re seeing these agents trying to represent ourselves online in ways we’ve never seen before - Bria."
Bria Alexander Brittany Hobbs Christopher NoesselDay 1 Panel: Up to the Minute: The latest in AI’s impact on UX
June 10, 2025
"I try as a product manager to involve them in those UX practices as often as possible."
Brad Peters Anne MamaghaniShort Take #1: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers
December 6, 2022
