What is DesignOps?

DesignOps or design operations are referred to as the orchestration and optimization of people, processes, and craft to amplify design’s value and impact at scale, according to the Nielsen Norman Group. In this topic, our mentor Nadia Elinbabi, the UX Manager at Calibrate at PAIR UX will share some input on this fairly new expertise in the industry.

DesignsOps according to Nadia

Imagine you have a stable of designers that are all running towards a project goal - but they have to stop every few feet to have a process meeting, request a computer screen, or organize a design sprint.

A DesignOps person makes it viable for every designer to spend more time on design - because the DesignOps pro is handling the business of design for them.

The DesignOps Landscape

What are DesignOps principles?

DesignOps principles vary. It is still a very young profession (in comparison to DevOps). According to Search IT Operations, “DevOps is a methodology meant to improve work throughout the software development lifecycle. You can visualize a DevOps process as an infinite loop, comprising these steps: plan, code, build, test, release, deploy, operate, monitor and -- through feedback -- plan, which resets the loop.”

Focusing back on our topic DesignOps, Nadia added that most of the structure across these positions has been created amongst communities where DesignOps people are sharing the issues they are coming across and the solutions they are using. This shared knowledge is really the basis of future principles. That said, there are a lot of principles from DevOps that can be cross-utilized and provide a framework for this work.

You can refer to Nadia’s DesignOps Outline: https://nadiaelinbabi.notion.site/Outline-277083a1a1654560be702a7af55b3da9

The core skills to be a DesignOps manager or DesignOps expert

I honestly think that researchers make THE BEST DesignOps people. They need to be:

• Empathetic
• Good listeners
• Actively practicing to documented their processes
• A truth-teller
• Able to read a P&L statement
• Able to act as a cross-functional sherpa would be a close second grouping.
  
  

These are essential skills for a DesignOps pro, too.

The top challenges as a DesignOps expert

Not everyone knows what a DesignOps practitioner does. It is really only being utilized in organizations that already know or understand the value.  But, DesignOps, more universally used would lead to more junior designers being hired because the infrastructure juniors need could be delivered by DesignOps.

So, challenges (not widely used), but also an opportunity!

Recommended DesignOps resources

• LinkedIn DesignOps groups:
  a) DesignOps & UX Design Program Manager Community
  b) DesignOps
  c) DesignOps Assembly
  
  
• DesignOps Community on Slack
  a) DesignOps
  b) DesignOps Assembly
  c) DesignOps Community Rosenfeld Media
  
  
• DesignOps Handbook by Dave Malouf, Meredith Black, Collin Whitehead, Kate Battles, and Gregg Bernstein (editor)

• Free eBook: DesignOps 101: Guide to Design Operations from DesignOps leaders.
  

DesignOps Tools

• Theo- Formatting design tokens
• Sympli - Boost your design delivery with version control & handoff tools
• Invision - assist to create a complex Design System Tool
• Milanote and Mural- to support your design planning
• Respondent.io and UserTesting - user research tools
  

Nadia advises readers who want to venture into Design Ops:

“If you're interested in getting into DesignOps, start taking on some of those roles and responsibilities in your own team to start polishing up on the skill set you may need: things like organizing a weekly design critique, creating a Jira board for tracking work, etc... talk to your design lead about how you can remove some of the non-design barriers from the team. If you love it, start looking for other ways to get involved!”

Prefer fun illustrations for some DesignOps inspiration? Watch this DesignOps inspiration gallery by Jon Bell where he shared some of his favorite techniques he has used for over 20 years.

Book a free mentoring session with our DesignOps global mentors and start creating meaningful career growth conversations. 🚀

Contributor:
Nadia Elinbabi (ADPList Mentor)
UX Manager at Calibrate at PAIR UX
ADPList Profile: https://www.adplist.org/mentors/nadia-elinbabi
LinkedIn account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadiacornier/

Editor and Writer:
Farah Radzi
Content Marketer and Writer at ADPList
LinkedIn account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/famr/