Rosenverse
What DesignOps Can Learn From DevOps

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.

What DesignOps Can Learn From DevOps

Gold
Monday, November 6, 2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Share the love for this talk
What DesignOps Can Learn From DevOps
Speakers: Jeff Sussna
Link:

Summary

Traditional approaches to maintaining consistency break down when confronted by the complexity of digital business. While DesignOps and related approaches such as DevOps can enhance speed and responsiveness, they risk generating their own kinds of silos, blockages, and breakdowns. This talk will present an agile governance model that scales without becoming brittle, slow, or invasive. It will describe principles and practices teams across-the design-operations spectrum can use to balance agility, coherency, and resilience.

Key Insights

  • DesignOps and DevOps respond to the same systemic shift from industrial product focus to post-industrial service focus.

  • Modern service systems are complex, interconnected ecosystems, not simple, separable components.

  • Emergence means global behavior arises from local interactions without explicit central control.

  • Complex systems are inherently unpredictable and sensitive to small changes, complicating testing outside production.

  • Governance should shift from central enforcement to enabling continuous alignment and self-correction across teams.

  • Breaking work into small, manageable, independently deployable units supports safe, continuous change and scalability.

  • Service providers within organizations should treat each other as customers to maintain coherence without brittleness.

  • User experience extends far beyond interfaces to the entire service ecosystem including backend operations.

  • Continuous learning and iterative service design replace the industrial model of final, fixed solutions.

  • Security and governance fail when user-centered design is ignored, impairing technical goals and usability.

Notable Quotes

"I thought design ops was about bringing together design and IT operations, but I was wrong and that’s okay."

"The digital is infusing the physical and breaking down familiar boundaries between parts of our lives and systems."

"You can’t separate the front end from the back end and you can’t separate the inside from the outside."

"Emergence means global structure has no explicit rules, it emerges from local interactions between components."

"At a certain level, the only way to know how your system will work is when people use it for real."

"The very thing that got us into trouble—the complexity of small pieces—is exactly our way out of it."

"Your company is a service provider; your HR, IT, design, and security teams are all service providers."

"Governance needs to become a self-correcting, flexible, and adaptable mechanism rather than centralized enforcement."

"How you make service is part of what you make; functionality and operability become one inseparable experience."

"Far too often security fails because we forget people are involved."

Ask the Rosenbot
Amber Knabl
Empowering innovation: The critical role of inclusive product development in the AI era
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Allan Lowson
Rehashing the Double Diamond: Collaborating across functions with AI-assisted prototyping
2026 • Designing with AI 2026
Conference
Scott Stephens
The Next Generation in DesignOps Toolsets
2022 • DesignOps Community
Shelby Switzer
Making Space for Community Knowledge-sharing in a Distributed World
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Giff Constable
Financial fluency for product leaders: AMA with Giff Constable
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Joel Branch
Humanizing AI: Filling the Gaps with Multi-faceted Research
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Alicia Mooty
Design Staffing Models
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Aditi Ruiz
Pulse Check: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 2
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Roy Opata Olende
How Zapier Uses ‘All Hands Research’ to Increase Exposure to Users
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Sean McKay
Coexisting with non-researchers: Practical strategies for a democratized research future
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Llewyn Paine
Coexisting with AI: A practical guide for researchers to navigate tools, ethics, and integration
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Erika Flowers
The Handoff is Dead: Design-Led Engineering with AI Agents
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Aletheia Delivre
New Shapes and Emerging Identities for Design Ops
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Ellen Chisa
The Values of Design
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Séamus Byrne
Aligning Teams with Choreography
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Maggie Dieringer
Cutting through the Noise
2020 • DesignOps Community

More Videos

Jack Behar

"There’s a frustrating gap between what a designer envisions and what actually gets implemented, leaving live prototypes inconsistent."

Jack Behar

How to Build Prototypes that Behave like an End-Product

December 6, 2022

Ian Johnson

"Simple word-list based filters can easily be tricked by misspellings or slight variations in prompts."

Ian Johnson

Latent Scope: Finding structure in unstructured data

June 11, 2025

Bria Alexander

"Cohorts are one of the most highly rated parts of our conferences every single year, you get to meet somebody new from a different company."

Bria Alexander

Opening Remarks

September 30, 2021

Aiyana Bodi

"Finding your people inside an organization and being brave together is a great first step to climate action."

Aiyana Bodi James Christie Marc O'Brien Louis Rosenfeld

Three Key Climate Initiatives and How You Can Help

September 11, 2024

Marissa Cui

"The key is leading with simplicity and educating users over time to create lasting value."

Marissa Cui Rachel He Michael Leggett Manos Saratsis

Climate Design Product Showcase

March 13, 2024

Sofia Quintero

"Introducing change is introducing stress and fear and feelings of rejection."

Sofia Quintero

Beyond Tools: The Messy Business of Implementing Research Repositories

March 10, 2022

Benjamin Wiedmaier

"My time is more expensive than my money; fraudulent data wastes valuable time."

Benjamin Wiedmaier Annie Mayfield

Redefining Toolkits: Unbundling to Create a Perfect Match

March 11, 2025

Anupama Dhareshwar

"Involving frontline staff as co-creators helps ensure AI is a collaborator rather than a threat."

Anupama Dhareshwar

From blueprint to bot: Designing resilient AI-powered services

November 19, 2025

Deanna Washington

"Saying no with intentionality and clear guidelines creates clarity and focus."

Deanna Washington Bria Alexander Jon Fukuda Saara Kamppari-Miller Farid Sabitov

Connecting the Ops: Plenary Panel and Closing Circle

September 9, 2022