Summary
While Design Operations (DesignOps) is only a few years old as a practice, it is evolving rapidly. As we finish our 4th year at The Summit, we've seen so much change in our community of practice in this short time. So, we want to end this year's Summit with a look beyond. If we are to be resilient what are we being resilient towards. Jon Fukuda (Limina), Dominique Ward (Atlassian), and Adrienne Allnutt (LinkedIn) will share their perspectives on where DesignOps is going and why. Moderated by Dave Malouf (Northwestern Mutual). We will be fielding questions from attendees, too.
Key Insights
-
•
Design operations must manage design orgs like businesses, focusing on profitability defined as positive impact on humans and environment.
-
•
Seven failure points—value delivery, cost control, right talent, connectivity, systems, employee experience, leadership—are critical risks design ops must mitigate.
-
•
Design ops roles primarily manage business operations and infrastructure while design practice managers focus on strategy and innovation.
-
•
Adopting a service design mindset enables design ops to handle complex, multi-level systems with evolving feedback loops for long-term resilience.
-
•
Scaling design ops is not about growth in size but about deeply understanding nested units (individuals, teams, orgs) and optimizing them holistically.
-
•
Effective integration of numerous tools across workflows is essential to reduce context switching and tool fatigue in design operations.
-
•
Clear role definitions, shared business language, and translation between design and business priorities improve alignment and strategic decision-making.
-
•
Pre-mortem exercises and experience visions are effective methods for anticipating obstacles and shaping future design operations outcomes.
-
•
Creativity in design ops requires a balance of structure and freedom, analogous to music learning and jazz improvisation.
-
•
Despite AI advances, the human-centric, empathetic nature of design ops work ensures the role remains indispensable.
Notable Quotes
"Design organizations customers are their partner organizations, like engineering, product management, marketing, and the executive suite."
"Without real business world experience, most leaders struggle with the overwhelming amount of demands placed on them."
"Design ops needs to shift from reactive to proactive, envisioning a future state vision and moving from disaster recovery to continuous resilience."
"We need to create evolving system loops that incorporate feedback and allow our units of one to learn and adapt."
"Scaling is not just about more but about providing solutions at scale using nested units like Russian dolls."
"Streamlining and integrating our tools is vital to reduce fatigue and maximize team effectiveness."
"Creativity and structure go hand in hand, like learning notes and then improvising jazz in music."
"Design ops must run as a business, setting KPIs, managing budgets, and delivering measurable value."
"Minimum lovable product is a better focus than minimum viable product in design ops to deliver meaningful impact early."
"AI won't replace design ops roles because we are building for real human needs requiring empathy and human creativity."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Our team Ops Charter is about amplifying and celebrating the work and impact of design and design Ops."
Rachel Posman John CalhounA Closer Look at Team Ops and Product Ops (Two Sides of the DesignOps Coin)
November 19, 2020
"We enable employees to provide unlimited comments which we analyze with Amazon Comprehend for sentiment."
Adel Du ToitGet Your CFO To Say: 'Our Strategic Goal is User Obsession'
June 10, 2022
"We needed a modern, scalable way to operationalize transformation across more than 4,500 global employees."
Jenny PriceFrom Tradition to Transformation: Unlocking Startup Agility in a Legacy Enterprise
September 10, 2025
"Too often research lives in silos, making it hard to connect the dots across streams."
Jake BurghardtStop wasting research: Unlock more value from research insights
June 24, 2025
"Proactive transparency about UX work draws attention and eventually makes people come to you proactively."
Jeff GothelfThe Intersection of Lean and Design
January 10, 2019
"This is a journey with no end, and it’s amazing that we can continue the conversation beyond this session."
Husani OakleyTheme Two Intro
June 6, 2023
"When you’re new and inexperienced, asking for help feels like admitting you don’t belong, but really, it shows wisdom."
Dan WillisEnterprise Storytelling Sessions
June 8, 2016
"A government designer aims to reduce UX variation while a contractor may optimize only their single product, creating potential conflicts."
Shawna Hein Kevin HoffmanCreate a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
November 17, 2022
"Gesture and embodied actions will be a key tool for understanding user experience as computing moves beyond traditional screen-based interactions."
Dane DeSutterKeeping the Body in Mind: What Gestures and Embodied Actions Tell You That Users May Not
March 26, 2024
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How does audience feedback integrate into newsroom editorial and business processes for continuous learning?
How can small teams apply service design to navigate shifting conditions without multi-year strategic plans?
What roles and responsibilities should be shared between service design and design ops partners?