What is Design Ops?
Design operations is a critical aspect of any business. It involves the use of strategies, processes, and tools to manage, measure, and improve the design function of an organization. It is an essential element of any organization's success, as it ensures that designs are created in a timely and cost-effective manner. This can be summarised in three digestible components:
+ Defining how the team works together
+ How we get our work done
+ How the work will create an impact
Why you should invest in it now
Design operations are critical for businesses in the current digital age. They provide a way to coordinate, optimize, and improve operations and processes. Design operations involve everything from product design to customer experience, process improvement, and data analysis. Design operations help companies to save time and money, improve customer experiences, and increase efficiency. With all design can contribute to a business, it's safe to say it has rightly earned it's seat at the table. But with the value Designers can offer being more recognised, it only increases the demand of work that comes through.
One of the primary benefits of design operations is that it enables an organization to create designs in a timely manner. By having a comprehensive design operations system in place, an organization is able to streamline the end-to-end design process and ensure that designs are created as painlessly as possible. For example, an organization may use a process such as design sprints to create designs quickly. Design sprints involve a team of designers working to create a design solution in a short amount of time, typically a few days. This process allows an organization to quickly create designs without sacrificing quality or creativity.
Design operations also helps to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization's design function. By using strategies, processes, and tools to manage and measure the design process, an organization can ensure that designs are created in a cost-effective and efficient manner. For example, an organization may use a design system to create a standardized design process and ensure that all designers are following the same guidelines and creating designs in a consistent manner. This can help to reduce the time and cost associated with the design process, as well as ensure that all designers are creating designs that are of the highest quality.
Design operations can help to improve the overall quality of an organization's designs. By having a comprehensive design operations system in place, an organization can ensure that designs are created in an organized, efficient manner. This can help to reduce errors and ensure that designs are of the highest quality, which can help to improve customer satisfaction and increase the organization's bottom line.
Components of Design Ops
Who is responsible for Design Ops
Design operations can be done by a variety of professionals, such as graphic designers who have worked their way up the ranks to be a Design Lead or by individuals who have tailored their career on to being project managers and operational managers. Depending on the type of design operations you need, you may need to hire someone with specific skillsets and experience to suit your needs. Prior creative experience is not always necessary, but having experience planning, organising, and controlling the daily operations of an organisation., having had the responsibility of ensuring that the business meets its goals and objectives by managing resources, personnel, and processes, ensuring compliance with applicable laws and regulations, you could be on your way to having a successful career in Design Ops.
Useful operational tools to use
Connect and Communicate:
There are many software programs available for live chat with teams that offer features such as chat, video conferencing, file sharing, and collaboration tools such as.
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Flowdock
- Discord
- Google Hangouts
Project Management:
There are many project management tools available that offer features such as task tracking, collaboration, team chat, and more. Too;d that can assist you with your everyday work could be systems such as:
- Jira
- Asana
- Basecamp
- Monday.com
- Airtable
- Microsoft Project
- ClickUp
User Research:
There are many user research tools available that offer features such as surveys, polls, usability tests, heat maps, and recordings. Some of these are:
- UsabilityTools
- Hotjar
- UserTesting
- UserZoom
- Optimal Workshop
Visual Collaboration:
There are many visual collaboration tools available that offer features such as real-time collaboration, brainstorming, wireframing, and whiteboarding. Some of the tools that can be helpful are:
- Miro
- Mural
- Lucidchart
- Conceptboard
- Figma
- Invision
Capacity Management:
There are many capacity management tools that offer features such as resource planning, capacity forecasting, and cost optimisation. Some interesting ones to explore are:
- Apptio
- Planview
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise
- CA Technologies
- RightScale
- Cloudability
Summary
Design operations is an essential element of any organisations success. By having a comprehensive design operations system in place, an organisation can ensure that designs are created in a timely and cost-effective manner, while also improving the efficiency and quality of designs. This can help to improve customer satisfaction and increase the organisations bottom line. Therefore, it is important for organisations to invest in design operations to ensure that they are able to create designs in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
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