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
Wyatt Hayman
Global Research Panels
2020 • DesignOps Community
Daniel Korczynski
Why AI Is Bad at Research (and how to make it actually useful)
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Sarah Fathallah
Lessening the Research Burden on Vulnerable Communities
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Maria Giudice
Remaking the Making Company: Moving from Product to Experience
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Amy Thibodeau
Opening Keynote: Process and Ambiguity
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Luke Wroblewski
Designing AI Applications
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Karen Pascoe
Developing Experience Teams and Talent in the Enterprise
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Matt Webb
Context Window: Five Futures for AI
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
John Taschek
Making People the X-Factor in the Enterprise
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Jennifer Kong
Journeying toward AI-assisted documentation in healthcare
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Emilia Åström
Unlock Your Team’s Intelligence with Collaboration Design
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Sarah Barrett
AI in Real Life: Using LLMs to Turbocharge Microsoft Learn
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Marc Fonteijn
Increase your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Nathan Shedroff
Redefining Value: Bridging the Innovation Culture Divide
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Jaskiran Kang
Why Community is Key to Professionalizing Design
2022 • Civic Design Community

More Videos

Feyikemi Akinwolemiwa

"If it feels uncomfortable, you’re probably doing something right."

Feyikemi Akinwolemiwa

Play to innovate: How curiosity and experimentation transform UX

March 11, 2026

Melissa Eggleston

"When you tell the truth, especially hard truths, how you say it matters as much as the truth itself."

Melissa Eggleston Maya Israni Florence Kasule Owen Seely Andrea Schneider

Practical People Skills for Building Trust on Teams and with Partners

December 9, 2021

Jane Reid

"Offering participants food or shelter crosses professional boundaries and can create unsafe expectations."

Jane Reid Janice Hannaway

Self-care in User Research

April 2, 2020

Brian T. O’Neill

"You need to prototype with real or believable data so the data doesn’t change the context of use."

Brian T. O’Neill Maria Cipollone Luis Colin Manuel Dahm Mike Oren

Does Designing and Researching Data Products Powered by ML/AI and Analytics Call for New UX Methods?

February 18, 2022

Yoel Sumitro

"Design research faces design complexity, which deals with the specific, intentional, and the non-existing."

Yoel Sumitro

Actions and Reflections: Bridging the Skills Gap among Researchers

March 9, 2022

Natalia Radywyl

"Sovereignty was never ceded."

Natalia Radywyl

Co-Designing New Power in Australia's Public Sector

November 16, 2022

Kristin Wisnewski

"Don’t try to control the data to fit your narrative—the goal is to let insights guide your decisions, not justify them."

Kristin Wisnewski

Measuring What Matters

October 23, 2019

Lija Hogan

"We need to become data ethicists and curators, not just data vacuum cleaners, to prioritize quality data."

Lija Hogan Milan Mijatovic Sam Proulx Louis Rosenfeld

Three Years Out: Perspectives on the Near-Term Future of User Research

March 15, 2024

Amahra Spence

"I often feel trapped inside someone else’s imagination and I must engage my own imagination to break free."

Amahra Spence

Designing for Liberation, Rehearsing Freedom

November 18, 2022