Summary
Day three of the Design Ops Summit centered on exploring the future of design operations, guided by community input highlighting excitement around shaping this future collaboratively. Anglos presented the State of Design Ops report, establishing the current landscape and forecasting trends. A panel including Tim Gilligan, Meredith Blackbrand, and Bria Alexander discussed emerging themes from the community and the report, deepening the dialogue around future challenges and opportunities. Natalie Dunbar explored the convergence of content strategy and design ops, providing actionable strategies for aligning these disciplines. Benjamin Rial shared a compelling narrative about wayfinding and navigating the path forward, while John Calhoun used mountain climbing metaphors to reflect on reaching peaks and plotting next goals. Lastly, April led an interactive session helping attendees define where they want to go post-summit through reflective provocations. Throughout, sponsor sessions reinforced themes with practical tools, supporting attendees in engaging hands-on with evolving design ops practices.
Key Insights
-
•
The Design Ops community is eager to collectively shape the future direction of the discipline.
-
•
Anglos' State of Design Ops report provides a critical baseline and forecasts trends shaping the field.
-
•
Panelists Tim Gilligan, Meredith Blackbrand, and Bria Alexander emphasize integrating community insights with expert perspectives to chart future paths.
-
•
Content strategy and design operations are increasingly converging, offering tactical synergy as highlighted by Natalie Dunbar.
-
•
Wayfinding, as described by Benjamin Rial, is a valuable metaphor for navigating design ops futures.
-
•
John Calhoun's use of mountain climbing metaphors illustrates the importance of recognizing milestones and setting new goals in design ops evolution.
-
•
Interactive provocations led by April encourage practitioners to actively map personal and organizational futures post-conference.
-
•
Sponsor sessions integrate tooling experiences that support the themes of future-focused design operations.
-
•
Community surveys are instrumental for steering summit content and ensuring relevance to practitioner needs.
-
•
Collaboration and shared storytelling are foundational for advancing the design ops discipline.
Notable Quotes
"One theme was very clear and that was around the future."
"You are all very excited about the future of design ops because you are charting the course together."
"Anglos' State of Design Ops report is a really incredible baseline about where we are today."
"We’ve got Tim Gilligan, Meredith Blackbrand, and Bria Alexander on a panel about the future of design ops."
"Natalie Dunbar will talk about the convergence of content strategy and design operations and charting a course together."
"Benjamin Rial is going to tell a really awesome story about wayfinding and future wayfinding."
"John Calhoun is going to talk to us about reaching our peak and figuring out if we’ve reached our peak and how to find the next one."
"April will lead us through provocations and thoughts about where we want to be once we leave here."
"Sponsor sessions support the theme and allow you to play around with awesome tools."
"We heard from the community through surveys which helped us understand what you hope to see at this year's Design Ops Summit."
Dig deeper—ask the Rosenbot:
More Videos
"Validation helps drive action, so feedback and social engagement keep people motivated to share insights."
Etienne FangPower of Insights: Why sharing is better than silos with Uber’s Insights Platform
December 16, 2019
"Doing work in one-week cycles fits the rhythms of companies working with agile and Scrum frameworks."
Victor M. GonzalezPracticing Learners and Learning Practitioners
March 10, 2021
"Sharing small, incremental updates about research progress provides visibility and makes people appreciate the craft behind the work."
Roberta Dombrowski Sam Duong WoloszynskiMaking Research a Team Sport
March 11, 2022
"About 200,000 digital health products exist, but only 1% of 1% have FDA clearance for accuracy."
Daniel J. RosenbergDigital Medicine Design
September 26, 2019
"Respect your design system rules to ensure consistent experiences across your product and teams."
Jaime CreixemsBest Practices when Creating and Maintaining a Design System
June 7, 2023
"Fear of AI comes from not trusting the inputs, the data powering these models."
Tricia WangFrom Users to Shapers of AI: The Future of Research
March 25, 2024
"We were a pawn. And a pawn can still win the game."
Shahrzad SamadzadehWhat Is My Value? Two Takes and Some Mistakes
January 8, 2024
"Designers set out to resolve ill-defined problems using abductive thinking — making things that we know are kind of wrong to test solutions."
Jorge ArangoDesign as an Antidote to VUCA
May 9, 2019
"Slack is growing steadily for us, but it’s hard to moderate and expensive at scale."
Louis RosenfeldThe Rosenbot and the Rosenverse: An AMA with Lou Rosenfeld
June 5, 2024
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
What are effective strategies for sustaining long-term healthcare policy change?
What does it mean for design ops to shift from managing existing processes to architecting infrastructure and cultural change at scale?
How did economic and geopolitical factors in 2022–23 affect design leadership roles?