Summary: Because the field is being defined in real time, practitioners often have questions about what Design Operations means, and how to establish DesignOps practices.

Design Operations (DesignOps) is a relatively recent topic of conversation: practitioners are still actively defining what it means and how it takes shape within organizations.

Given this real-time discussion, practitioners seeking to implement DesignOps often have questions about how to define DesignOps and how to get started implementing Design Operations tactics and practices.

This article addresses 6 frequently asked questions that often arise in our full-day course, Design Operations: Scaling UX Design and User Research.

1. What Is Design Operations?

Short Answer:

DesignOps is the orchestration and optimization of people, processes, and craft in order to amplify design’s value and impact at scale.

Long Answer:

DesignOps is a collective term for a range of design-related challenges that designers and design managers must solve on an ongoing basis, such as: growing and evolving design-team structure, finding and hiring people with the necessary skills for the team, creating efficient workflows, and improving the quality of design outputs.

When there are roles or processes in place to help design staff solve these challenges effectively and efficiently, designers can focus on their core contributions: design and user research.

The specifics of DesignOps (i.e., the particular practices and initiatives put in place to support designers) can differ greatly from one organization to the next, and therefore DesignOps might have a different meaning or represent a different set of activities across different design teams.

2. What Types of Activities Is DesignOps Concerned with?

Short answer:

DesignOps is concerned with any processes or measures that are put in place in order to make designers more effective and fulfilled.

Long answer:

DesignOps is a broadly defined field. There are many components that could affect designers’ ability to be effective and fulfilled, and the relationship among these components and how they’re prioritized are not consistent from one design organization to the next.

Therefore, if you are shaping a DesignOps practice or simply considering putting some measures in place to support designers, it’s more helpful to think about DesignOps as a practical selection of potential areas you might focus on, rather than as a strictly defined, rigid set of activities.

Here is the comprehensive DesignOps menu, detailed in our DesignOps 101 article. At a high level, DesignOps helps us plan for how we:

Organize : How do we structure our teams, define design, and build the right team?

: How do we structure our teams, define design, and build the right team? Collaborate : How do we create environments and sessions that enable effective communication?

: How do we create environments and sessions that enable effective communication? Humanize : How do we ensure hiring, onboarding, and personal development practices treat employees like humans first?

: How do we ensure hiring, onboarding, and personal development practices treat employees like humans first? Standardize : How do we facilitate design quality through consistent toolsets and processes?

: How do we facilitate design quality through consistent toolsets and processes? Harmonize : How do we share and expand knowledge through design systems and research insight repositories?

: How do we share and expand knowledge through design systems and research insight repositories? Prioritize : How do we use systems to manage workflow and make decisions about what to work on?

: How do we use systems to manage workflow and make decisions about what to work on? Measure : How do we make design accountable by defining and measuring design quality?

: How do we make design accountable by defining and measuring design quality? Socialize : How we educate others on design’s value and share success stories of user-centered design processes?

: How we educate others on design’s value and share success stories of user-centered design processes? Enable: How do we cultivate the understanding and use of design activities, even by those outside of the design team?

Armed with a comprehensive understanding, design teams can select the areas with the most opportunity and potential ROI for their specific, current challenges and concentrate their DesignOps efforts accordingly.

3. Why Are So Many People Talking About DesignOps Now?

Short answer:

The size, workload, and impact of design teams are scaling at unprecedented rates. DesignOps is being recognized as a way to manage this new reality.

Long answer:

There are several industry-wide changes that expose the need for additional support measures for designers.

For one, designers are becoming more isolated. Many designers find themselves within a decentralized team structure, where there is no core design staff — rather, individual design-team members are embedded within teams aligned to specific features, products, or lines of business. While increased alignment with nondesign roles (and therefore increased trust and opportunity) is invaluable, it can result in a lack of communication, redundant efforts, and outdated processes within the design organization. Remote UX staff, geographically dispersed designers, or colocated designers who sit with temporary project teams can experience these challenges in the absence of regular team meetings and other communication channels for designers to talk to other designers.

Furthermore, designers are simply becoming too busy to design. Many organizations have finally realized the value of design and provided designers that long-sought-after “seat at the table.” This realization enables designers to be involved in more strategic conversations and activities — which, in turn, means more meetings to attend, more briefs to fill out, more processes to take part in, and more organizational politics to navigate. Though valuable, strategic involvement comes with an inherent tradeoff: Staff has less time and capacity to focus on practicing and developing core skills (design and research).

DesignOps can provide the oversight and coordination necessary to recognize and manage these tensions.

4. Who Does Design Operations?

Short answer:

Anyone can do DesignOps.

Long answer:

While you don’t necessarily need specific, designated DesignOps roles to incorporate DesignOps strategies into your organization’s processes, some teams do benefit from a specific person or group of people tasked with ensuring that the design team is supported so that its members can focus on designing or researching.

In mature practices, common DesignOps roles are:

Design producers or UX producers: These roles are concerned with project-level Design Operations and work alongside the design team to manage delivery. They are typically concerned with driving day-to-day design work and processes forward.

These roles are concerned with project-level Design Operations and work alongside the design team to manage delivery. They are typically concerned with driving day-to-day design work and processes forward. Design program managers or UX program managers: Program managers are tasked with program- or organization-level Design Operations. They work to optimize their team’s overall approach by managing and improving global design or UX processes, programs, and toolsets.

Program managers are tasked with program- or organization-level Design Operations. They work to optimize their team’s overall approach by managing and improving global design or UX processes, programs, and toolsets. ResearchOps specialists: ResearchOps practitioners are responsible for owning the operational aspects of user research, such as sourcing and screening participants, overseeing the research-request pipeline, maintaining a research repository, and managing research tools, spaces, and equipment.

Not every organization needs dedicated DesignOps roles such as the ones described above. Many times, design managers or senior researchers or designers already manage DesignOps tasks as part of their current job responsibilities (and this approach works well for many organizations). Some teams, however, such as those experiencing substantial, rapid growth, those in a structure of widely embedded designers, or those within cultures of fast-paced timelines, may find high value in a DesignOps-dedicated team or role.

5. How Is DesignOps Related to Research Operations (ResearchOps)?

Short answer:

Research Operations is a specialized subcomponent of Design Operations concerned with the orchestration and optimization of people, processes, and craft in order to amplify the value and impact of research at scale.

Long answer:

Just like design teams, specialized, dedicated user-research teams have their own set of common operational challenges, such as:

Time-intensive study logistics : The logistics and participant-management portions of ResearchOps (e.g., recruiting participants, scheduling sessions, managing research spaces, communication with participants) are tedious and time-consuming, and often left to researchers to handle in addition to designing and executing the studies.

: The logistics and participant-management portions of ResearchOps (e.g., recruiting participants, scheduling sessions, managing research spaces, communication with participants) are tedious and time-consuming, and often left to researchers to handle in addition to designing and executing the studies. Difficulty sharing research insights : Traditional methods of sharing out research insights (e.g., a lengthy PDF report) can discourage true adoption of new knowledge both across the design team and externally.

: Traditional methods of sharing out research insights (e.g., a lengthy PDF report) can discourage true adoption of new knowledge both across the design team and externally. Poor research memory : Teams often forget what research insights were collected from one project to the next and end up repeating studies or reproducing efforts across projects.

: Teams often forget what research insights were collected from one project to the next and end up repeating studies or reproducing efforts across projects. Inconsistency in methods: Growing teams may lack a shared understanding of when to use which research methods, leading to inconsistent outputs and uncertainty from external teams about what to expect when working with researchers.

ResearchOps provides a collective term for discussing and implementing strategies to manage these pain points.

6. How Do I Convince Stakeholders About the Value of Design Operations?

Short answer:

Treat your goal to implement DesignOps like a design problem: Collect evidence that demonstrates where the true challenges lie and shape recommendations around removing those pain points.

Long answer:

Before making recommendations, identify the real problem that necessitates DesignOps. Perform internal research to understand where the biggest painpoints currently exist for design teams and design-team partners. For example, you could send out a survey or have focus groups with designers to collect information on how effective current processes enable them to be and what gets in their way the most. Additionally, carry out internal stakeholder interviews to uncover the biggest painpoints for partners within the design process. This knowledge will help you create a clear role for DesignOps.

Based on your research, identify relevant focus areas from the DesignOps menu outlined above, and use it as a tool to create conversation with design partners about how DesignOps can alleviate some of the painpoints you’ve collected. These conversations will help you refine your approach to initial DesignOps efforts.

If you want to add a dedicated DesignOps role to your team, it can be useful to preemptively write a job description for the role to explain how it will be differentiated from or partner with existing roles such as design-team managers or project managers. A DesignOps team charter can also provide a quick, succinct way to evangelize the mission of DesignOps.