The DesignOps Starter Kit
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."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"If you get the interview, say, I don’t have experience in that field, but here’s how I solved similar complex problems."
Dave Hoffer Joanne WeaverUX Job Search AMA #2 with Joanne Weaver and Dave Hoffer
May 21, 2025
"I’m totally freaked out by facial recognition and wonder why we don’t get together as consumers to push back on bad designs."
Alexandra SchmidtWhy Ethics Can't Save Tech
November 18, 2022
"VOC wasn’t a replacement for user research, but an enhancer that captured nuggets researchers might miss during discovery."
Shipra KayanHow we Built a VoC (Voice of the Customer) Practice at Upwork from the Ground Up
September 30, 2021
"If you want to grow good grapes, you need to manage the vineyard well—but every vineyard has different demands due to its context."
Dave HoraResearch in the Face of Complexity: New Sensibility for New Situations
August 27, 2025
"The workplaces conditions and expectations to perform faster forever are biologically impossible to sustain."
Alla WeinbergHealing Toxic Stress
September 23, 2024
"The 10 am policy extinguished all fires by morning to protect timber but ended thousands of naturally occurring fires, intensifying disasters decades later."
Alicia D. JohnsonDisasters and the 21st Century
December 10, 2021
"Designers should act like therapists or journalists when negotiating political divides around data governance."
David ConradThe Feeling of Data
September 14, 2023
"The app is not our business. The people on the other end of that app are our business."
Eric ShumakeAn AMA on UX's Role in Healthcare
April 22, 2026
"Preciousness around ‘pure’ design language can shut down collaboration with curious stakeholders."
Kevin BethuneGatekeepers and Servant Leadership
January 30, 2020