Summary
The speaker, collaborating with Sarah Campari Miller and John Kuda, explains the ethos behind the Design Ops conference with a focus on practicality and utility for professionals in the field. Sarah originated the concept of 'practical ops,' reflecting the community’s drive to scale design’s organizational impact and get tangible results. The trio spent months co-curating themes and speakers to ensure the content would be personal and directly relevant to everyday challenges faced by design ops practitioners. Topics span crucial operational skills including maintaining design ops roadmaps, leveraging AI as a design partner, managing documentation effectively, and streamlining inclusive design practices. The goal is for attendees to leave armed with immediately useful insights that make the time invested—despite pending Slack messages and emails—worthwhile and actionable within their organizations.
Key Insights
-
•
The term 'practical ops' was coined by Sarah Campari Miller to emphasize a focus on getting actionable work done.
-
•
Strong collaboration over six months between the three curators resulted in a conference tailored to real day-to-day design ops challenges.
-
•
Design ops seeks to scale organizational design capacity and amplify designer impact, not just focus on theory.
-
•
Speakers cover highly relevant topics like documentation teams will actually use and maintaining a design ops roadmap.
-
•
AI is explored as an emerging partner in design workflows, highlighting practical potential rather than abstract concepts.
-
•
Inclusive design practices are streamlined to ensure diversity and equity are embedded in operational processes.
-
•
The conference is designed to feel personal and immediately relevant to the audience’s everyday work, not just future career aspirations.
-
•
The collaborative energy among curators Sarah, John, and the speaker reflects in the conference’s positive atmosphere.
-
•
Attendees often feel overwhelmed after conferences but this event aims to provide takeaways that justify the time away from desks.
-
•
Practical design ops content addresses the documented gap between attending sessions and applying knowledge on return to work.
Notable Quotes
"Practical ops is about getting stuff done because it’s our job to scale the organizational ability to design and amplify the work of designers."
"All three themes and all speakers you’ll hear came together through inclusive collaboration and insightful perspectives."
"The good vibes you experience are a reflection of the positive collaborative spirit we worked hard to create for you."
"I often find myself wondering what I really gained from time away from my desk beyond swag and catching up with colleagues."
"This day is focused on me, my job and my specific day-to-day challenges, not on some invisible finish line or senior title."
"Every talk you hear today couldn’t get more personal to our community."
"Documentation your team will actually use, how to define and maintain a design ops roadmap, AI as a design partner."
"It’s about us, the design ops practitioners, and what we need today to be better at our jobs."
"We want you to leave feeling like all those missed Slack messages and emails are worth it."
"This conference is the opportunity I saw to design an experience that felt personal to our community."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"You should not try to deliver your playbook from the ivory tower of design ops. It just will not be successful."
Gabrielle VerderberDocumentation Your Team Will Actually Use
October 3, 2023
"Resiliency is not really a professional thing. It's actually a lot more personal."
Jennifer KanyamibwaCreating the Blueprint: Growing and Building Design Teams
November 8, 2018
"When there’s dispute over what to measure, use that as an opportunity to discuss the behavior you want to change and the value capture."
Saara Kamppari-Miller Nicole Bergstrom Shashi JainKey Metrics: Comparing Three Letter Acronym Metrics That Include the Word “Key”
November 13, 2024
"Failing to design for disabilities means failing to design for our future selves."
Samuel ProulxDesigning beyond caricatures: Embracing real, diverse user needs
December 4, 2024
"The store mobile device is the indispensable silent partner enabling store employees to balance task productivity and customer engagement."
Catherine DubutBridging Physical and Digital Spaces: Approaches to Retail Service Design
March 18, 2021
"Enterprise user experiences are often customer experiences, not user experiences."
Sam LadnerData Exhaust and Personal Data: Learning from Consumer Products to Enhance Enterprise UX
June 8, 2016
"Screen magnification users are low vision and interact visually with prototypes, so little adaptation is needed."
Sam ProulxPrototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You
December 8, 2021
"This transformation is a win-win: we demonstrate solid business value and serve people and stories in more ethical and impactful ways."
Jemma Ahmed Megan Blocker Eduardo OrtizRedefining the research toolkit: Expanding methodologies for a changing world
March 12, 2025
"The dominant frame became the personal narrative to contain the perspectives I wanted to serve up."
Kevin BethuneReimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation
June 8, 2022
