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.

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
Nathan Reiff
Research, from Unimaginable to Presently Possible: A Future-Casting Sticky-Note Sprint
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Crystal Yan
Building a Customer-Centric Culture
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Dominique Ward
The Most Exciting Time for DesignOps is Now
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Alba Villamil
Stereotyped by Design: Pitfalls in Cross-Cultural User Research
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Sharbani Dhar
Breathing Room for Delight
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Ali Jeffery
How DesignOps Helped Enable Wall Street to Work Remotely
2020 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Sam Proulx
Prototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Mujtaba Hameed
The new horizon of ethnography: using AI to unlock the full potential of in-person research
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Ellen Chisa
The Values of Design
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Amy Brana Stuart
Rest in Peace Fly-in-fly-out Design
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Himanshu Bharadwaj
If design had a heart
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Jen Cardello
Learning Velocity—The Insights Speedometer
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Tutti Taygerly
Make Space to Lead
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Brendan Jarvis
It was the Best of Times. It was the Worst of Times.
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Shivanjali M.
From Fragmented to Fluent: The Linguistic Approach to Research Knowledge
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Kevin M. Hoffman
Theme 2: Enterprise Team Journey
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold

More Videos

Laura Schaefer

"We had to start small and that’s okay, especially when starting with a team of one."

Laura Schaefer

DesignOps: A Conduit for Inclusion

September 9, 2022

Brenna Fallon

"The greatest sign of success for a teacher is just to be able to say the children are now working as if I did not exist."

Brenna Fallon

Learning Over Outcomes

October 24, 2019

Lija Hogan

"It's not the demographics or names that should drive personas, but what people are really trying to do."

Lija Hogan

Contexts of Use: A Framework for Connection

December 9, 2021

Nicole Umphress

"When someone stops learning, they get bored and look for something new — continuous learning is essential for retention."

Nicole Umphress

Delivering Design Education During a Global Pandemic: Lessons Learned

June 9, 2022

Kate Koch

"We have crypto nights like people pleasing, perfectionism, silos, and burnout—which we watch out for carefully."

Kate Koch Jean-Claire Fitschen

Flex Your Super Powers: When a Design Ops Team Scales to Power CX

September 29, 2021

Ash Brown

"Collaboration is not just beneficial, it's essential for effective climate action."

Ash Brown

Silver Linings: What DesignOps Learned in the Shift to WFH

October 23, 2020

Harry Max

"Be blunt with people but be optimistic—your attitude is going to be the thing that drives success."

Harry Max

Priority Zero: Some Things are More Equal than Others

June 9, 2016

Sarah Barrett

"AI is ambiguous at best because we’re fully in the realm of probabilistic rather than deterministic programming."

Sarah Barrett

AI in Real Life: Using LLMs to Turbocharge Microsoft Learn

February 13, 2025

Jorge Arango

"Links are first-class citizens in hypertext note-taking; connecting notes brings ideas to life and reveals new relationships."

Jorge Arango

Exploding the Notebook: How to Unlock the Power of Linked Notes (2nd of 3 seminars)

April 19, 2024