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
Brian T. O’Neill
Does Designing and Researching Data Products Powered by ML/AI and Analytics Call for New UX Methods?
2022 • QuantQual Interest Group
Holly Cole
Understanding Experiences: When you have to do more than work
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Asia Hoe
Partnering with Product: A Journey from Junior to Senior Design
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
How to Identify and Increase your "Experience Quotient"
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Kate Koch
Flex Your Super Powers: When a Design Ops Team Scales to Power CX
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Jennifer Kong
Journeying toward AI-assisted documentation in healthcare
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Joi Freeman
A New Vantage Point: Building a Pipeline for Multifaceted Research(ers)
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Aras Bilgen
Research Democratization: A Debate
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Kathleen Asjes
Research Democratization: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Lija Hogan
Doing more with more: Lessons from the Front Lines of Democratization
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Michael Polivka
Scaling Design through Relationship Maps
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Patrick Boehler
Fishing for Real Needs: Reimagining Journalism Needs with AI
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Prayag Narula
HCI 2.0: Humanity Deserves the Attention that UX Research has to Offer
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
George Abraham
Design Systems To-Go: Indigo.Design Overview and Exploring the Developer Workflow (Part 3)
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Mike Oren
Why Pharmaceutical's Research Model Should Replace Design Thinking
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Heidi Trost
When AI Becomes the User’s Point Person—and Point of Failure
2025 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Erin Malone

"Usability testing may be automated, but generative research—the deep understanding of humans—is unlikely to be replaced."

Erin Malone

Understanding the past to prepare for the future

July 19, 2024

Sarit Geertjes

"If you want a unicorn ask for a unicorn and so lo and behold Sarita turned out to be a bit of a unicorn."

Sarit Geertjes

People, not Petri Dishes: Stories from a Research Recruiter

September 23, 2019

Kurdin Bazaz

"You can be yourself here. If you want to have tattoos, you can have tattoos and show them."

Kurdin Bazaz Liz Rytting Alex Karr

Culture, DIBS & Recruiting

June 10, 2021

Gabriela Barneva

"Adding accessibility questions to intake forms kickstarts the process and makes it scalable."

Gabriela Barneva

Operationalizing Inclusive Design in Design Ops

September 11, 2025

Nathan Curtis

"A design system is done not when the style guide is launched, but when it positively impacts customer experience."

Nathan Curtis

Beyond the Toolkit: Spreading a System Across People & Products

June 9, 2016

Indi Young

"We live in a solution culture that glorifies people who create solutions but not those who create knowledge."

Indi Young

Paying Better Attention to the Problem with Indi Young

December 12, 2019

Nina Jurcic

"Design system is a continuous process—product development, service to educate, and creating adoption conditions."

Nina Jurcic

The Design System Rollercoaster: From Enabler and Bottleneck to Catalyst for Change

October 3, 2023

Bria Alexander

"Sponsor sessions are optional but offer incredibly high content, and they are not sales pitches."

Bria Alexander

Opening Remarks

March 29, 2023

Rachael Dietkus, LCSW

"Sometimes the most ethical and just path for humans is also the most effective for preserving natural systems."

Rachael Dietkus, LCSW Llewyn Paine Nishanshi Shukla David Womack

AI: Passionate defenses and reasoned critique [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]

September 18, 2024