Understanding DesignOps as a Strategic Function
Design has become a central function in most businesses: in the past 10 years, due to the emergence of design thinking and its impact on business performance, many organisations invested in design and have embedded design in the production cycle (McKinsey 2015).
This new positioning of Design has led many organisations to acquire or invest in Design teams, and over time, these design units have become organisations within the organisation.
As Design teams grow within organisations, both in terms of teams’ size and number of teams, the need of harmonising design workflows and coordinating efforts and processes has led to the demand for new competencies to help the organisation to manage the complexity of their Design resources.
Despite the lack of a unified definition of who or what is needed to support organisations in maximising their investment in design, a growing number of companies are introducing a new function focused on increasing Design’s impact on business performance through improved Design’s operation: DesignOps.
Through the collaboration with both design and cross-functional leaders, DesignOps generates value through the understanding of design’s end-to-end processes and the definition of effective engagement models that support the execution and implementation of the Design strategy.
DesignOps delivers impact by concentrating on Design teams as their unit of work and it focuses on creating the conditions to empower design teams to collaborate with the cross-functional partners.
By overseeing the day-to-day and the end-to-end design process across the organisation, the DesignOps leader focuses on streamlining processes, building and maintaining a design community, harmonising ways of working across design and cross-functional teams while overseeing key operational aspects such as the budget, tools, and the relationship with external partners.
In the past few months, the need to improve and redefine ways of working due the pandemic has suddenly amplified the hype on DesignOps, especially after some organisations have reported how DesignOps minimised disruption and made the transition to a Work from Home model efficient and seamless.
This has caused a rapid increase in the demand for DesignOps professionals and leaders, yet the lack of clear tasks, expectations, and responsibilities, and an unclear positioning of these new figures is causing confusion and it is preventing DesignOps from delivering benefits and impact. Two are the main source of confusion: the altitude of the role, and the relationship between Design and DesignOps.
The first issue with the introduction of DesignOps is related to its focus and altitude: following the new trend, some organisations have re-branded their design producers and project managers as DesignOps Managersor they simply considered DesignOps to be the same as the Design Programme Manager, or DPM. These roles are very different in their remit and responsibilities: DPMs and DesignOps work together, but they operate at different levels and failing to understand this could generate additional inefficiencies.
DesignOps defines a vision, KPIs, and result-driven roadmaps that focus on design processes through a business lens, while Design Programme Management works on the execution of the roadmap to ensure the vision is delivered and the expected impact is achieved. Design Programme Managers’ typical tasks include facilitation and logistics, tools’ administration, project management and tracking, and coordination of trainings and workshops. A DPM executes decisions: DPMs operate at a tactical level and they are generally aligned to a specific squad or scrum team, meaning that DPMs are expected to be familiar with the product development.
