Rosenverse
The DesignOps Starter Kit

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.

The DesignOps Starter Kit

Gold
Wednesday, September 29, 2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Share the love for this talk
The DesignOps Starter Kit
Speakers: Michelle Chin
Link:

Summary

Starting DesignOps at an org feels exciting and daunting at the same time. People who’ve given you the green light are as excited as you - so there’s a bit of pressure to make this work well! In this talk, Michelle will provide a “starter kit” of 10 tips for beginning a DesignOps program—the 10 foundational things she's learned from establishing DesignOps at her org. Michelle includes how to prepare the program, manage expectations, ensure your success, and keep things sustainable for the long term.

Key Insights

  • Centralizing design ops responsibilities can alleviate decision fatigue among design managers and increase focus on operational initiatives.

  • Explicitly defining who makes decisions and who provides feedback prevents unclear expectations and supports smoother project execution.

  • Communicating design ops work frequently and across varied formats builds understanding and trust in an often ambiguous practice.

  • Starting with small pilots before scaling allows room for iteration and reduces risk when introducing new processes org-wide.

  • Maintaining a public and collaboratively editable backlog helps manage expectations, prioritize effectively, and capture emergent ideas.

  • Creating reusable templates and frameworks accelerates workflows and standardizes communication of complex operational concepts.

  • Regular one-on-one meetings with key stakeholders foster open communication lines critical for driving horizontal change.

  • Balancing urgent ad hoc work with longer-term goals requires careful prioritization techniques like story pointing and breaking tasks down.

  • Design ops responsibilities typically cover horizontal initiatives affecting multiple teams, while design managers handle team-specific operations.

  • Celebrating team wins strengthens relationships and encourages adoption of new processes during times of frequent organizational change.

Notable Quotes

"Everyone was doing a little bit of design ops here and there, which created a lot of gray area around decision making."

"Organic decision making doesn’t always work for high stakes efforts because design ops initiatives are often horizontal and require alignment."

"Communicate as much as possible and in different formats, because different formats resonate differently with people."

"Pilots give you flexibility to mess up and figure out answers as you go, instead of needing all answers upfront."

"A backlog helps pace and define the design ops practice, managing what’s in scope and what’s aspirational."

"Templates don’t have to be masterpieces; even simple reusable checklists and diagrams can save time and effort."

"As a design ops manager, I try to alleviate decision fatigue for design managers so they can focus on the decisions that need their input."

"I’ve found that being approachable and providing space for Q&A helps build trust and confidence in the design ops practice."

"Design ops is a lot of change management, and asking people to change again requires appreciation and celebrating wins."

"My prior experience as a tour manager helped me operationalize and mobilize teams, anticipating risks and preparing for everything."

Ask the Rosenbot
Surya Vanka
Unleashing Swarm Creativity to Solve Enterprise Challenges
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Raven Veal
Dark Metrics: Illuminating the Negative Impact of Digital Health Design
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Libby Maurer
Treating Diversity & Inclusion in Hiring as a Design Problem
2019 • Enterprise Community
Gregg Bernstein
Opportunistic Research with Gregg Bernstein
2019 • Advancing Research Community
Brendan Jarvis
It was the Best of Times. It was the Worst of Times.
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Dr. Jamika D. Burge
The Future of Research: Bridging the Gaps
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Jesse Zolna
Inviting the Whole Org to Come See For Yourself
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Saara Kamppari-Miller
Inclusive Design is DesignOps
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Reginé Gilbert
Asking the Right Questions: Life, Hope and Moving Forward During the Pandemic
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Malini Rao
Lessons Learned from a 4-year Product Re-platforming Journey
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Christopher Noessel
AI of the now: Designing for Agents
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Nicole Bergstrom
AccessibilityOps: Moving beyond “nice to have”
2024 • DesignOps Community
Mike Oren
Design Research Strategy & Strategic Design Research
2022 • Advancing Research Community
Saskia Liebenberg
Start Small for Big Impact
2019 • DesignOps Community
Sha Hwang
The Lost Year
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Kristin Skinner
Theme 2: Introduction and Provocation
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold

More Videos

Kate Towsey

"Campfires are tribal, engaged knowledge spaces, libraries are corporate buildings, organized and curated."

Kate Towsey Jake Burghardt

ResearchOps AMA with Kate Towsey & Jake Burghardt

October 16, 2025

Amy Evans

"Async communications helped us reduce emails and meetings, improving overall efficiency."

Amy Evans

How to Create Change

September 25, 2024

Dantley Davis

"You need to ask, who are you excluding in the conversation? That’s the disservice to empathy."

Dantley Davis

Leadership & Diversity—A Fireside Chat with Dantley Davis

September 17, 2020

Louis Rosenfeld

"Sponsor sessions are not sales pitches, they’re people like you, really knowledgeable, sharing great things."

Louis Rosenfeld

Welcome / Housekeeping

June 6, 2023

Silke Bochat

"Design ops is actually all about fragility. We do stability, security, planning, but can we add more experimentation and comfort with ambiguity?"

Silke Bochat

5 Antifragile Strategies for a DesignOps 2.0

September 23, 2024

Cheryl Platz

"Improv helps me be high energy and engaged in meetings, which others sometimes notice as 'winging it' fluidly."

Cheryl Platz

Merging Improv with Design

March 7, 2019

Bria Alexander

"We are obligated to treat each other with kindness and respect as part of this virtual community."

Bria Alexander

Day 3 Welcome

September 25, 2024

Leah Buley

"Jargon is a barrier; I don’t even use the word UX with clients if I can help it."

Leah Buley Joe Natoli

Ask Me Anything with Leah Buley and Joe Natoli, co-authors of The User Experience Team of One (2nd edition)

October 8, 2024

Vanessa Varin

"Feedback is more like an investment and a contribution into not just the person's work, but also to their growth."

Vanessa Varin

Feedback: The Other F-Word

September 10, 2025