Podcasts about design operations

What is the secret to consistently delivering high-quality work, day in and day out...Recently, I was chatting with my neighbours who run a bespoke interior design and manufacturing business.They make truly stunning, customised pieces for the upper market.It's easy to think their success hinges on exceptional craftsmanship, which is surely part of it.But what really keeps their business running smoothly is something far more fundamental.In my conversation with them, we agreed that most of it comes down to things like having the right supplies available, making sure everything in its place so it can be found quickly, that tools in tip-top shape, and even something as simple as having lunch prepared so you don't have to worry about it.These basic and somewhat "boring" conditions, are what enable them to deliver consistently high-quality work. Without them, production would be a slog, quality would be all over the map, and let's face it, they probably wouldn't be in business for very long.We often take these kinds of conditions for granted. When things are running like a well-oiled machine, we assume that's just how it's supposed to be.But you, as a service design professional, know that the conditions for delivering your best work are often far from guaranteed.In fact, it can often feel like your organization is actively making your job harder, not easier.This brings us to the question: What would it take to create the ideal conditions for service design to achieve its maximum impact? And how can we actually put those conditions in place?Well, as you might have guessed already, that's where Design Operations (aka DesignOps) comes in.Getting started with DesignOps (or scaling it) can be a real challenge, especially in organizations that don't have a strong design heritage.But the good news is that John Calhoun and Rachel Posman have done the heavy lifting for us. They've gathered best practices from experienced DesignOps professionals and compiled them into a brand-new book "The Design Conductors".This book promises to help you kickstart or scale your DesignOps efforts more effectively, make a bigger impact, and sidestep common pitfalls. The result? Making your life as a service design professional a whole lot easier!So, with this foresight, we of course need to know more about this book.And you guessed it, that's exactly what this episode is all about.Here's already one key insight from the conversation: Every organization is already doing design operations. Most are just doing it unconsciously and missing out on the benefits. Yeah, there's a lot of low-hanging fruit waiting to be picked...--- [ 1. GUIDE ] --- 00:00 Welcome to Episode 22604:00 Book Title Revealed05:00 Defining DesignOps06:30 Starting the DesignOps Journey08:30 Realizing it's DesignOps10:30 Inside Design Operations13:00 DesignOps IS Design16:00 Honing the Craft (Iteration)21:30 Ideal Book Audience & Origins26:00 Book Feedback28:00 Why Write the Book Now?31:45 Book Structure Evolution40:00 Favorite Writing Part42:30 Deciding Book Content45:30 Defining Success & Measurement50:30 Knowing You're on Track53:00 Current State of DesignOps56:00 AI as a Roadblock57:30 AI as an Opportunity59:30 Questions While Writing1:02:30 What Was Left Out1:04:30 A Question to Ponder1:06:30 Get the Book1:07:30 Discount & Giveaway --- [ 2. LINKS ] --- https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncalhoun/https://www.thedesignconductors.com/ [ Discount Code ]Use "ServiceDesign15" to get 15% off the book. Valid till May 31, 2025. Redeemable at https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/design-operations/[ Signed Copy Contest ]Leave a comment on this episode (via YouTube or Spotify) to enroll in the contest. We will pick a random entry on May 8th, 2025. Please respond within 24 hours if you have won to claim your prize. --- [ 3. CIRCLE ] --- Join our private community for in-house service design professionals. ⁠https://servicedesignshow.com/circle

Alicia Quan introduces our new podcast co-host, Sarah Mondestin! Ever wondered how to collaborate with UX of EdTech? This episode should point you in the right direction. The hosts discuss Sarah's diverse career journey from educator to UX content designer and her involvement in various UX of EdTech initiatives. The conversation covers the structure and goals of the UX of EdTech Community and Studio, highlighting their focus on networking, showcasing work, and supporting EdTech companies with specialized UX teams. Don't miss the end where they highlight what is inspiring them lately. Chapters01:26 - Sarah's career journey06:50 - The Community 15:54 - The Studio20:53 - This week's curiosity and inspirationsWorth Noting Sarah Mondestin is a former educator and principal. She's a UX Content Designer and Strategist who helps companies consider their overall UX content strategies. Sarah has served as the Editorial Lead and Content Design and Research Advisor to support UX practitioners in our industry. She's now the Director of Design Operations and Partnerships for UX of EdTech. Follow Sarah on LinkedIn or visit her website for more ways you can collaborate.  Sarah's previous podcast episode: EdTech UX Writing and Content Design: A Journey Sarah's article series: UX Writing in EdTechFollow us Find or share job openings Publication Newsletter (Respond to this episode here)The Community application is available on our website.UX of EdTech is a design studio that cultivates learning, creativity, and play.

Digital twins are virtual representations of real systems used to test designs and operating policies in safe environments prior to implementation or offline. Applications include a variety of public and private facilities, notably airports and operating systems such as water supply and manufacturing processes. Much of the work is centered in architectural and engineering firms, with its foundation in Building Information Modeling (BIM). To understand digital twins and their infrastructure applications, we talk with Howard Shotz, a Vice President at Arora Engineers, where he leads the Global Smart Infrastructure practice. A graduate in architecture from Temple University, Howard is former Director of the Digital Twin and Digital Advisory Practice at Parsons Corporation.

Continuamos con nuestro 101 del marketing en compañía de Abril Teyssier, que nos ayudó a desempolvar conceptos y regresar a los cimientos de lo que hacemos en este podcast: dar los mejores consejos y tips para que los apliques en tu negocio o emprendimiento. En este episodio, Abril nos comparte un poco sobre la filosofía con respecto al balance trabajo-vida que aplican en Inspira, la agencia especializada en Packaging en donde trabaja. Además, contemplando cómo van las tendencias de diseño, es importante ver cómo vienen apalancados los valores de la Generación Z para acercarse de forma efectiva a esta audiencia: a través de la sustentabilidad, el bienestar físico y mental y la salud en general.

Product-centric design can be an efficient way to design interfaces, but it can often lead to disjointed and poorly optimized customer journey experiences. Kim Flaherty shares her recent research into journey-centric design, and insights on how a journey-centric design practice can help organizations overcome product-centric challenges. Report: Architecting a Journey Management Practice Learn more about Kim: ⁠Bio⁠ | ⁠LinkedIn⁠ NN/g Resources about Journey Management: ⁠The 3 Competencies of Journey Management (5-min video)⁠ ⁠Journey Management vs. Service Design (4-min video)⁠ ⁠The Practice of Customer-Journey Management (free article)⁠ ⁠Customer Journeys and Omnichannel UX (free article)⁠ ⁠Journey Mapping to Understand Customer Needs (UX Certification course)⁠ ⁠Customer-Journey Management (UX Certification course)⁠

Esto de los arquetipos de personalidades ya nos lo había dicho Carl Jung hace casi 100 años, y ahora Abril Teyssier nos cuenta cómo desde el marketing se ha retomado este principio para que las marcas transformen la relación que tienen con su audiencia, y básicamente se convierte en "su voz". Nos platicó de cómo marcas como ACE y Ariel transformaron la forma en la que se comunican a través de adaptar su identidad visual y básicamente confirmar que no era "sólo una etapa, mamá". Otro episodio más para la colección de Marketing 101, donde encontramos nuestro elemento al regresar a los basics. Los Dioses del Marketing es una producción concebida y empaquetada en Genio.soy.

For this episode of the SUX Podcast we had the honor to be joined by Chris Cassens. She is the Director of Product and Design Operations at Too Good to Go, this wonderful company that is fighting food waste by creating a marketplace for surplus food. We speak about how to design a service that helps to reduce food waste and about the special challenges you are facing in doing that. But we discuss also how we here in Europe produce a lot of food waste by not using every part of for example an apple. And how this is done differently in Brazil, where Chris is originally from. And we talk about her personal journey all the way from Brazil to Denmark to an impact company like Too Good to Go.  So, join us in our conversation to learn more about food waste and how to fight it, but also about the differences in how food is treated in western Europe and in Brazil. One technical side note. We had some audio issues due to construction work outside of Chris apartment. Though we did some post-production editing you still might hear some low tone noise in the first 20min. After that we switched microphones, but you will notice a slightly change in the sound of Chris voice due to the other microphone. Connect with our guest or us: Chris's Channels: Chris' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinacassens/ Too Good to Go: https://www.toogoodtogo.com/  Our Channels: Bavo's Linkedin  Thorsten's LinkedIn  Isabel's LinkedIn  SUX Slack Community  SUX LinkedIn  SUX Website Email us at podcast@sustainableuxnetwork.com to share your feedback or suggest future guests.

What do music and DesignOps have in common? So much that Rachel Posman and John Calhoun use music as a framework for their new book, The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations—the first book written about the subject. Both of the authors come from creative backgrounds (John as a musician, Rachel as a ballet dancer), and they describe how their personal experiences influenced their approach to the book and their work. The music analogies are plenty. One example is the importance of orchestration in design operations, equating it to coordinating a team to work harmoniously, much like a conductor leading an orchestra. Rachel and John explain that design operations is a creative process, blending design and management, and that those creative aspects are often underestimated. They highlight the maturing nature of design operations as a discipline, noting that the book fills a gap in resources for both newcomers and experienced professionals. The book is structured in two acts (another musical metaphor): the fundamentals of DesignOps, and the practical, tactical methods for building and scaling teams. Rachel and John also discuss some common challenges in DesignOps, like making the invisible work visible and advocating for the value of the discipline. They stress the importance of "working loudly" to ensure that the contributions of design ops teams are recognized so that teams are properly resourced. What You'll Learn from this Episode: - Why Rachel and John chose a musical metaphor to use in their book - Why Rachel and John decided to write the first book on Design Ops - How the book is formatted and why there is something for everyone - Why Rachel encourages her team to “work louder” Quick Reference Guide: 0:24 - Introduction of Rachel and John 2:45 - Brining a music metaphor to design ops and highlighting the creativity within operations 6:53 - The design materials of operations 7:42 - Communication 9:40 - Building the plane while flying 11:06 - What the book covers and who it's for 14:22 - 5 reasons you need the Rosenverse 17:14 - The journey readers can expect to take 21:07 - The big errors and challenges in design ops 23:34 - Ideas for working loud and being visible 27:06 - Gifts for listeners

In this episode, Ruthie interviews Sierra Ashburn, a virtual operations strategist and integrator. They discuss the importance of operations for founders and how human design can play a role in designing customized approaches. Sierra shares her journey to becoming an entrepreneur and the value of fostering collaboration and building relationships. They also explore the transition from being an entrepreneur to a CEO and the process of crafting strategic operational plans. In this conversation, Sierra discusses how she supports her clients and maps out a 90-day plan for them. She emphasizes the importance of having a realistic timeline and setting achievable goals. Sierra also shares insights on incorporating human design into business strategy and recommends starting with understanding one's type and authority. She highlights the value of finding role models who share the same human design type and profile. Sierra also touches on the application of human design in parenting and the importance of trusting one's gut and taking action. TakeawaysHuman design can be a valuable tool in designing customized approaches that align with an individual's strengths and preferences.Transitioning from an entrepreneur to a CEO requires delegating tasks and creating role clarity, supported by strategic operational plans. Supporting clients involves mapping out a 90-day plan that is realistic and achievable.Incorporating human design into business strategy can provide guidance and alignment.Trusting your gut and taking action based on your intuition is important for personal and business decision-making.Prioritizing self-care and creating consistent practices can help maintain balance and alignment in life and business.Connect with Sierra:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amplifiedinnovation/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sierra-henley-ashburn/ Get exclusive CMO level strategy tips, delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to the monthly series, If I Was Your CMO and learn the success equation for ANY marketing strategy. Learn more about the Instagram 9 Grid Strategy so you can step away from social media this season, without sacrificing your visibility! Connect with Ruthie and The Consistency Corner on Instagram!Please leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts and be sure to screen shot, share, and tag me in stories so I know you listened and can root for you!

Notatki i linki wymienione w tym odcinku znajdziecie na naszej stronie: ⁠⁠designpractice.pl/054 --- W tym odcinku rozmawiamy o: → czym się zajmuje DesignOps → rekrutacji do pracy marzeń → roli umiejętności miękkich oraz mediacji w pracy w IT --- Naszą gościnią jest Ania Wojcieszczak. Obecnie pracuje w Google jako UX Program Manager. Wcześniej zajmowała się m.in. legal designem. Z wykształcenia jest… prawniczką. Swój czas dzieli między dwa miasta – Warszawę i Kraków. --- Sponsorem odcinka jest the:protocol - serwis z konkretnymi ofertami pracy dla branży IT. Sprawdźcie ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠theprotocol.it --- 0:00 Start 0:24 Wstęp 1:19 Jaką książkę ostatnio przeczytałaś? 2:13 Czym się zajmujesz? 2:36 Jaka jest Twoja ścieżka? 7:36 Czym się zajmuje DesignOps? 8:39 Jak odsuwać dystraktory i ułatwiać pracę projektantom? 13:25 Czy DesignOps powinien mieć doświadczenie w projektowaniu? 18:05 Jak przeszłaś od studiów prawniczych do pracy jako UX Program Manager w Google? 20:04 Czy otarłaś się o projektowanie UI, język wizualny? 21:06 Różnice - DesignOps vs UX Program Manager 24:58 Jakie jest zapotrzebowanie na rolę DesignOps? 28:54 Jakie kompetencje musi mieć DesignOps ? 31:23 Co jest dla Ciebie personalnie najtrudniejsze? 33:57 Co udało Ci się wdrożyć/zmienić? 38:14 Ile miałaś na to czasu? 39:10 Zmieniasz zespoły czy opiekujesz się jednym? 40:42 Krótki przerywnik 41:19 Coaching 43:35 Praca zdalna czy biuro? 45:17 Jak wyglądała rekrutacja do Google? 49:36 Czy obecnie zajmujesz się w Google i co najbardziej tam lubisz? 52:00 Z jakich narzędzi korzystasz (w tym AI)? 54:29 Jak mierzy się pracę DesignOps? 56:43 Skąd czerpać wiedzę o Design Operations? 59:10 Trendy i tendencje w obszarze DesignOps 1:00:36 Na rozwoju jakich umiejętności chciałabyś się skupić w najbliższym czasie? 1:02:08 Podziękowanie i zakończenie

In this episode, Bethany Thornton, former head of Creative Operations at Atlassian, shares her secrets of a people-centric approach to Creative Ops. She discusses how fostering communication, collaboration, and a culture of curiosity allowed Atlassian's creative organization to thrive through a period of rapid global growth.Key Takeaways & Sound Bites1. Onboarding as a Foundation for Success"That was like the biggest thing for me was making sure that we had a solid foundation for people coming in. And that really empowered not just those individuals coming in, but the whole team, because people were able to operate that much faster as this cohesive unit, because everybody knew where to go for things, how we work."2. Fostering Collaboration Through Listening Tours"The best way for me to do my job was to just get into the weeds, understand things because I was building operations from the ground up. And so nothing, very little was documented when I started in the role. And so I wanted to make sure that I wasn't just creating things out of thin air and just saying, oh, well, this makes sense to me. I wanted to make sure that I really understood it and that I was doing right by the people that I was doing it for."3. Adapting Intake Processes for Clarity and Efficiency"Our intake process started with, hey, is this a new, is this a net new project? Is this a revision to something we've worked on with you before? Or is this just an idea that you want to chat about? And so they entered into our portal with those three options. And from there, it went into a form for them to fill in with as little information as was needed for us to get the conversation going."4. Partnering with Other Operations Groups"I think that one of the things that we really should be taking advantage of is working together with other operations groups; Marketing Operations, Design Operations, etc. Just the collaboration that can happen with this partnership, that's going to scale all of our teams so much in such a more efficient way and in a way that really energizes the teams. Because we're not just creating efficiencies within our team, making things a smoother process for our team, removing pain points within our team. We're doing it across teams, that is a game changer.Questions or a different point of view than what you heard today? Drop me a line nish@creativeops.fmStay ConnectedCompanion Newsletter: sign up at https://creativeops.fm/newsletterFollow Today's Guest: Bethany Thornton on LinkedInFollow Me, Your Host: Nish Patel on LinkedInSubscribeSpotifyGoogle PodcastsPlayer.fmPodcast addictRSS

Tuija Riekkinen brings a unique perspective to scaling both content and design operations, as well as other digital initiatives. She has applied her holistic and pragmatic enterprise product management skills at organizations like IKEA, where she has worked on both their design system and content management system. Tuija is a persuasive advocate of keeping design and content concerns separate to enable "creativity at scale." https://ellessmedia.com/csi/tuija-riekkinen/

Herzlich willkommen zur nächsten Episode des Digital Product Talks! Heute zu Gast sind Marcel Bertram und Daniel Diener.

Most enterprises and software companies now have design systems, and many have content operations and/or design operations teams. At Cisco, Barbara Blythe works on the content design operations team. She focuses on sharing content guidance across the products she serves, enabling not only content designers but also their UX design and engineering partners to efficiently create consistent product content. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/barbara-blythe/

Alla Weinberg constructively unpacks unsafe workplace cultures, shares her thoughts on how we can change them, and why we should do just that. Highlights include: Why is the opposite of fear safety and not courage?   What do you focus on first when changing a culture? How can people read between the lines to better understand a culture? What have corporations forgotten about the humans that work for them? Can you create safety only as long as you don't make your boss look bad? ====== Who is Alla Weinberg? Alla is the CEO and Culture Designer at Spoke & Wheel, the specialised culture design company that she founded in 2019. Through Spoke & Wheel, Alla provides culture consulting and leadership development expertise to companies like Docusign, Uber, Salesforce, Target and Zendesk; helping them to create work environments where people can think, collaborate, and innovate. Alla is also a Principal of Design Operations at Harmonic Design and before starting Spoke & Wheel, she worked in executive leadership development and learning and development at Salesforce, in the Bay Area. The author of “A Culture of Safety”, Alla has leveraged her own personal experience, that of others and the latest research in neuroscience to produce an actionable guide for leaders who want to create safer and more innovative work places. ====== Find Alla here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allaweinberg/ Website: https://www.spokeandwheel.co/ Alla's talks: Culture Design:  https://youtu.be/pae7HHdwdqY Fear: The Human Barrier to Innovation: https://vimeo.com/752662160 ====== Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). Follow us on our other social channels for more great Brave UX content! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TheSpaceInBetween/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Hosted by Brendan Jarvis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/ Website: https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brendanjarvis/

Alvin Schexnider is an emancipatory designer and a business operations strategist who helps institutions become more effective, just, citizen-centered, and innovative. He has 15 years of experience in leadership across design, strategy, equity, and business operations in the government, nonprofit and for-profit spaces. Currently he is a part of Capital One's Equity and Design team as a senior equity design strategist. Outside his day-to-day work, he runs GraffitiVersal, an organization that makes resources to inspire, elevate, and catalyze change. GraffitiVersal's latest release is called A Continuum of Freeing Design and Vigorous Futures, a card deck detailing an approach for designing for both equitable and just outcomes in the present, and for thriving worlds in the future. We talk about bringing human-centered design to operations and human resources.   Listen to learn about: Alvin's roundabout road into design Alvin's experiences at the Greater Good Studio Using design at the Illinois Department of Health during the COVID-19 pandemic Alvin's role as Senior Equity Design Strategist at Capital One   Our Guest Alvin (he/him) is a designer, futurist, strategist, and illustrator. He's a right brain / left brained DesignOps leader, with 10 + years of tri-sector people management, who uses foresight and equity to build and vitalize impactful organizations. He leverages his 15 years of experience and leadership across strategy & business operations, multidisciplinary design (service design, human-centered design, equity design), and org change to drive concepting, adoption, and implementation of major initiatives. At present, he is a Manager, Design Practice & Equity Design on Capital One's Experience Strategy & Operations Team; previously, he was Sr. Equity Design Strategist in its Equity by Design Program. Before this role, he was Chief People Officer of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS - agency budget of $9 Billion), focused on improving the experience of 14,000 staff while leading a department of 130 people, and before that, he was also Senior Operations Lead for IDHS focusing on strategy, bizops, and service design projects. Alvin began to build capacity in human-centered design as the first Director of Design Operations at Greater Good Studio, a human-centered design firm that works with global foundations, government agencies, and national NGOs. Outside of his day job, Alvin is also Founder & Organizer of GraffitiVersal — an emancipatory lab using design, art, foresight, & Afrofuturism for change. GraffitiVersal's Racial DeckEquity Cardset & Continuum of Freeing Design & Vigorous Futures CardDeck have been used at organizations such as: Meta, LAB at OPM, Univ. of Chicago, and Slalom Consulting. He's also the author of A Kids Book About Radical Dreaming (via A Kids Co.) and is currently writing & illustrating his first Afrofuturist graphic novel for middle schoolers through the Sequential Artists Workshop's Graphic Novel Intensive. Besides hanging with his partner and 2 kids, you'll find him reading N.K. Jemisin or a Black Panther comic book.   Show Highlights [00:39] Alvin's love of art and storytelling started early, as a kid creating his own comics. [05:06] Starting college as a PolySci major with plans to be a lawyer. [07:18] The moment Alvin realized he didn't want to pursue law as a career. [07:56] Moving on to business management studies, and his time in Beijing. [09:02] Starting his business career at Abbott Laboratories and returning to China. [13:21] Sidestepping away from for-profit into mission-driven and non-profit spaces. [15:14] Realizing he had a knack for business operations and systems thinking. [16:47] How his time as Director of Operations at Greater Good Studio transformed his thinking and started him on his own path into design. [21:07] Immersing himself in design spaces and in learning design. [21:57] Taking all he'd learned about human-centered design into his next job — COO of Erie Neighborhood House Services. [23:52] Getting recruited to work for the Illinois Department of Human Services. [27:10] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alvin used design to help shape the department's response. [29:19] Redesigning policies and spaces to keep staff healthy as essential workers. [35:27] Taking over as the head of HR for the department, and working on improving employee experience. [38:33] Alvin's current role as the Senior Equity Design Strategist for Capital One's Equity by Design team. [43:06] You don't have to be an official designer to use design in your work.   Links Alvin Schexnider on LinkedIn Alvin Schexnider on Medium GraffitiVersal GraffitiVersal on Instagram A Kids Book About Radical Dreaming (A Kids Co Publishing) by Alvin Schexnider - recently released! Wakanda Forever - A Film Review - Human Futures Magazine AIGA Chicago Podcast - Designing For: Equity Interview with Slalom Consulting Continuum Deck of Freeing Design & Vigorous Futures Traveling through the spacetime continuum to escape racism   Books Recommendations Kindred, by Octavia Butler We Do This Til We Free Us, by Mariame Kaba Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, by Ta Nehisi Coates Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, by Sasha Costanza-Chock This is Service Design Doing, by Marc Stickdorn, Markus Hormess, and Adam Lawrence Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, by Ytasha Womack Far Sector, by N.K. Jemisin Employee Experience: Develop a Happy, Productive and Supported Workforce for Exceptional Individual and Business Performance, by Ben Whittier Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, by Adrienne Maree Brown Good Services: How to Design Services that Work, by Louise Downe Drawn Together, by Minh Lê and Dan Santat   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Designing for the Greater Good, Strategy + Design Thinking, and Measuring Design Thinking with Jeanne Liedtka — DT101 E1 Critical and Emancipatory Design Thinking with Lesley-Ann Noel — DT101 E57 5.5 Things Every Designer Should Know About: The Opioid Overdose Epidemic (Part 1) with Stacy Stanford — DT101 E102

Alvin Schexnider is an emancipatory designer and a business operations strategist who helps institutions become more effective, just, citizen-centered, and innovative. He has 15 years of experience in leadership across design, strategy, equity, and business operations in the government, nonprofit and for-profit spaces. Currently he is a part of Capital One's Equity and Design team as a senior equity design strategist. Outside his day-to-day work, he runs GraffitiVersal, an organization that makes resources to inspire, elevate, and catalyze change. GraffitiVersal's latest release is called A Continuum of Freeing Design and Vigorous Futures, a card deck detailing an approach for designing for both equitable and just outcomes in the present, and for thriving worlds in the future. We talk about bringing human-centered design to operations and human resources.   Listen to learn about: Alvin's roundabout road into design Alvin's experiences at the Greater Good Studio Using design at the Illinois Department of Health during the COVID-19 pandemic Alvin's role as Senior Equity Design Strategist at Capital One   Our Guest Alvin (he/him) is a designer, futurist, strategist, and illustrator. He's a right brain / left brained DesignOps leader, with 10 + years of tri-sector people management, who uses foresight and equity to build and vitalize impactful organizations. He leverages his 15 years of experience and leadership across strategy & business operations, multidisciplinary design (service design, human-centered design, equity design), and org change to drive concepting, adoption, and implementation of major initiatives. At present, he is a Manager, Design Practice & Equity Design on Capital One's Experience Strategy & Operations Team; previously, he was Sr. Equity Design Strategist in its Equity by Design Program. Before this role, he was Chief People Officer of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS - agency budget of $9 Billion), focused on improving the experience of 14,000 staff while leading a department of 130 people, and before that, he was also Senior Operations Lead for IDHS focusing on strategy, bizops, and service design projects. Alvin began to build capacity in human-centered design as the first Director of Design Operations at Greater Good Studio, a human-centered design firm that works with global foundations, government agencies, and national NGOs. Outside of his day job, Alvin is also Founder & Organizer of GraffitiVersal — an emancipatory lab using design, art, foresight, & Afrofuturism for change. GraffitiVersal's Racial DeckEquity Cardset & Continuum of Freeing Design & Vigorous Futures CardDeck have been used at organizations such as: Meta, LAB at OPM, Univ. of Chicago, and Slalom Consulting. He's also the author of A Kids Book About Radical Dreaming (via A Kids Co.) and is currently writing & illustrating his first Afrofuturist graphic novel for middle schoolers through the Sequential Artists Workshop's Graphic Novel Intensive. Besides hanging with his partner and 2 kids, you'll find him reading N.K. Jemisin or a Black Panther comic book.   Show Highlights [00:39] Alvin's love of art and storytelling started early, as a kid creating his own comics. [05:06] Starting college as a PolySci major with plans to be a lawyer. [07:18] The moment Alvin realized he didn't want to pursue law as a career. [07:56] Moving on to business management studies, and his time in Beijing. [09:02] Starting his business career at Abbott Laboratories and returning to China. [13:21] Sidestepping away from for-profit into mission-driven and non-profit spaces. [15:14] Realizing he had a knack for business operations and systems thinking. [16:47] How his time as Director of Operations at Greater Good Studio transformed his thinking and started him on his own path into design. [21:07] Immersing himself in design spaces and in learning design. [21:57] Taking all he'd learned about human-centered design into his next job — COO of Erie Neighborhood House Services. [23:52] Getting recruited to work for the Illinois Department of Human Services. [27:10] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alvin used design to help shape the department's response. [29:19] Redesigning policies and spaces to keep staff healthy as essential workers. [35:27] Taking over as the head of HR for the department, and working on improving employee experience. [38:33] Alvin's current role as the Senior Equity Design Strategist for Capital One's Equity by Design team. [43:06] You don't have to be an official designer to use design in your work.   Links Alvin Schexnider on LinkedIn Alvin Schexnider on Medium GraffitiVersal GraffitiVersal on Instagram A Kids Book About Radical Dreaming (A Kids Co Publishing) by Alvin Schexnider - recently released! Wakanda Forever - A Film Review - Human Futures Magazine AIGA Chicago Podcast - Designing For: Equity Interview with Slalom Consulting Continuum Deck of Freeing Design & Vigorous Futures Traveling through the spacetime continuum to escape racism   Books Recommendations Kindred, by Octavia Butler We Do This Til We Free Us, by Mariame Kaba Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, by Ta Nehisi Coates Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, by Sasha Costanza-Chock This is Service Design Doing, by Marc Stickdorn, Markus Hormess, and Adam Lawrence Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, by Ytasha Womack Far Sector, by N.K. Jemisin Employee Experience: Develop a Happy, Productive and Supported Workforce for Exceptional Individual and Business Performance, by Ben Whittier Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds, by Adrienne Maree Brown Good Services: How to Design Services that Work, by Louise Downe Drawn Together, by Minh Lê and Dan Santat   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Designing for the Greater Good, Strategy + Design Thinking, and Measuring Design Thinking with Jeanne Liedtka — DT101 E1 Critical and Emancipatory Design Thinking with Lesley-Ann Noel — DT101 E57 5.5 Things Every Designer Should Know About: The Opioid Overdose Epidemic (Part 1) with Stacy Stanford — DT101 E102

In this episode, we speak to James Lonergan, Design Operations Lead at BP all about how they have been building a design team to shape the future of energy consumption. We talk about; How James started his career in Design Moving into an Ops role What an Ops role really involves What BP is doing to help shape how we consume energy, including working towards a net zero strategy The importance that the design team will play in shaping the strategy So for all of this and loads more hit the play button now. James can be found - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameslonergan/

Janet Covey, VP, Head of Design Operations and Design Systems at Bakkt, has been involved in design throughout her life with a background that is as varied and as the changes to our tech world. She is a seasoned creative and business professional with over two decades of experience as a design and people leader solving complex business problems that not only make a difference, but also leave a lasting impact on the organization. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, Janet draws upon her love of the outdoors combined with traveling to unique places around the world to create a mindset that helps her teams open their minds and build great products. Janet has been the go-to person for leading teams and organizations through change with a unique blend of empathy, vision, strategy, execution, and a knack for building strong partnerships. She develops cross-functional and creative processes that not only shape the culture of the design team but also inspire everyone to do great work.

Victoria Sampi es una diseñadora de experiencia peruana. Ella dirige un grupo grande de diseñadores en un banco. En esta entrevista nos cuenta sobre dos proyectos, uno en el banco, y otro sobre enseñanza de diseño UX, en una escuela que se llamó: El Muro. En esta charla hablamos de salud financiera, de reinserción laboral de diseñadores, de proyectos en el sector público y de teoría de comportamiento. Experiencia del programa Advanced UX & Service Design en El Muro - Design School Escalamiento de Design Operations en BBVA en Perú Esta entrevista es parte de las listas: Educación en diseño, Diseño UX, Perú y diseño.

Dans ce nouvel episode d'UXYZ, on a pu discuté avec Raphaël Hombroeck, Design Operations Manager chez Proximus, le leader télécom en Belgique. Il nous parle de son parcours de designer, les avantages et les inconvénient de travailler pour une agence versus être un designer in house. Il nous partage des bons conseils pour bien commencer sa carrière dans le design et même pour décrocher un emploi en tant qu'UX chez Proximus. Il nous parle également de l'évolution de Proximus vers une organisation plus user centric, en passant de l‘évangélisation à la création d'un centre d'excellence. Il nous explique aussi la complexité de structurer et coordonner un chapter design de plus de 100 personnes. Avant de clôturer l'épisode on discute de Design System et des pièges à éviter pour en créer un plus pratique que contraignant. On termine avec une chouette success story. N'hésitez pas à suivre Raph, Mehdi et Pierre sur Linkedin et à leur envoyer un message

Timothy Embretson is Global Vice President of Experience Design and Karolina Boremalm is Global Head of Design Operations at Ingka Group, IKEA's largest retailer. In this episode, they discuss how they are leading a digital transformation at a major global retailer. Scaling the design organizations and helping to make the special in-person IKEA experience just as delightful when a person is shopping online.  Help us improve the show and suggest future topics or guests! Click here to take our quick survey.

Today, I'm talking to Jackie Ajoux.-Jackie is currently the Senior Design Operations Lead at Roblox. Before Roblox, she worked at Electronic Arts as a Design Operations Manager.-Now, it may sound to you that Jackie knew she wanted to do Design Operations from the start. But as you would later hear in the episode, that was not at all the case. In fact, Jackie actually has pivoted from multiple careers, including psychology, project management, and product management. And what underlies all these career pivots? Jackie's incredible openness and curiosity to try new things. To give an example, in the future, her dream is to create her own anime show and publish it on Crunchyroll. Like holy how cool is that?!-Seriously, I really enjoyed my conversation with Jackie. There was a lot of laughter in this one, and so without further ado, here's my conversation with Jackie Ajoux.-===Highlights⭐ What is design operations⭐ How to plan your career early on⭐ How she navigated through multiple career paths⭐ What it means to be a great design operations lead⭐ Jackie's aspirations for UX Research and anime show===Links

Design Operations, or “Design Ops,” is entering a new era. No longer the new kid on the block, it's becoming a required discipline in many design organizations. We wanted to catch up to see where design ops is now, so who better to chat with than Meredith Black, a guest from our second season back in 2018. After leaving Pinterest, where she was head of Design Operations, Meredith co-founded the DesignOps Assembly, which focuses on fostering community, offering educational opportunities, sharing resources, and generating best practices within the DesignOps Industry. We chat with Meredith about what's changed with design ops in the past four years, the skills that a person needs to be successful in a design ops role, and what she's hoping to accomplish with the DesignOps Assembly. Bio Meredith Black is the co-founder of DesignOps Assembly and now a consultant working with companies worldwide to implement DesignOps within their organizations. Prior, Meredith spent five years at Pinterest, where she started and grew the DesignOps team into an internationally renowned team while also being instrumental in growing and building the Pinterest Product Design Team. You can listen to her discuss DesignOps on an earlier episode of the Design Better Podcast, or check out “The DesignOps Handbook.” Meredith is also the co-host of the Reconsidering Podcast, along with our very own Aarron Walter.

Adam Fry-Pierce is a career long community builder and design operator. He is currently the Chief of Staff at Google where he manages strategic programs for Google's UX leadership. Previously he was leading DesignOps at DocuSign, and involved in Design Education programs at InVision. Adam has a non-linear career and has had multiple businesses over the years: a conference company, a designops agency, a media company, and even a restaurant. He's also an active partner in one of the largest designops communities (if not the largest) in the world: The DesignOps Assembly. INTERVIEW VIDEO:https://youtu.be/Gj7zbrM0NFEARE YOU LOOKING TO JOIN A DEDICATED DESIGN OPS COMMUNITY? Check out DesignOps Assembly - https://designopsassembly.com/CONNECT WITH ADAM FRY PIERCETwitter - https://twitter.com/AdamFryPierceLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamfp/CONNECT WITH MELinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayneil Twitter - https://twitter.com/jayneildalal 

Ahead of the 2022 DesignOps Summit, Lou speaks with guest Jon Fukuda, a co-founder of Limina where for 18 years he has been delivering UX and technical design to his clients. His focus is on facilitating the implementation of scalable research and design operations. Lou and John discuss the concept of digital transformation and explore what it looks like to walk a client through the difficult terrain of operationalizing their design processes, how to have those difficult conversations surrounding company culture, taking the lead as a change agent, and more. Jon is co-founder of Limina.co with 20+ years as a User Experience Specialist with a focus on UX Strategy, Design Thinking, and UI Design with experience leading human-centered requirements, strategy, interaction design, testing, and evaluation. Most recently, Jon has dedicated his efforts to Research & Design Operations facilitation for scalable/sustainable human-centered systems.

Show NotesShow notes and a full transcript of this episode is available at opsy.work.Connect with usAre you an opsy person in tech? Join our community at Opsy.work.Caro Griffin is on LinkedIn and Twitter.Dominique Ward is on LinkedIn.

Patrizia Bertini, Associate Director of DesignOps at Babylon talks to us about how change management is an essential part of any org change, the benefits of going slow to go fast, how to win over the team with changes in their processes and tooling and why DesignOps at the C suite level.Patrizia on TwitterPat-bertini.medium.comLewin's Model of ChangeParov Stelar DiscographyDesignOps Island Discs is brought to you by zeroheight, the design system documentation platform. You can jump in at any point and create your first styleguide for free. Until next time, bon voyage...

In this episode of Technically Speaking, our host Harrison Wheeler sits with Dominique Ward, Design Operations Leader at Atlassian to talk about design operations, how to build a successful op team, and how to get into that career path in 2021. Join this conversation and learn what this silent but crucial part of design is pushing the industry forward every day. Plus listen to this amazing leader share her experience! Jump straight into: (01:30) - Who is Dominique Ward? Her career as a lead design of operations and some questions to get to know her better.  (11:58) - What is design operations and some of its challenges: Amplifying the value and impact of design.  (15:50) - How to build a design operations team today: The different versions of op teams, figuring out the stream of work, and understanding where pain points come from.  (23:34) - Working in a dynamic collective experience: Ways of working and problem-solving in a complex, ever-changing environment.  (25:59) - Getting into design operations in 2021: What is the career ladder into this “newer field”? (29:06) - Dominique's passions outside the office: Traveling, arts, and leaning into happiness.  (34:07) - Some parting words of wisdom, embrace the remix!: “Innovative things have been taking what someone else has already started, and putting your own spin on it.”   Episode Resources: Connect with Dominique through https://www.linkedin.com/in/beauvward/ (LinkedIn) https://automattic.com/ (AUTOMATTIC) https://www.meredithblackbrant.com/ (Meredith Black Brant // Design Ops) https://www.clubhouse.com/club/designops-corner (Clubhouse | DesignOps Corner) Support this podcast

Sunit is a local product designer with an academic background in Design, Business, and Innovation. He specialises in visual, interaction, design strategy and leading teams. Sunit has been in a leadership role for the last five years and has been helping other designers to grow as better individuals and designers.At SPH, he works with senior leadership across the origination to drive digital transformation, advocates for a user-centred design culture in various teams and delivers UX Strategy for various publication products and experiments. He also facilitates UX Practice through workshops, manages project timelines and mentors his talented team.Hear his thoughts on:- As a designer, how much do I need to know the business so I can design better?- What is the value of Business Strategy and Corporate Strategy in the product design, and how can designers help to achieve the strategic goals of a company?- How do I give, receive and apply feedback?- What is Design Operations and how do we know when it is done well?- The 3 things to consider to be effective at Design Ops

The next season of Technically Speaking is on the way featuring http://www.maylikhoe.com/ (May-Li Khoe), Co -Founder Maker Space http://www.mbarnesdesigns.com/ (Mathew Barnes) - Design Director, AWS https://aasthagaur.com/journal (Aastha Gaur) - Design Director, Google https://www.daviddylanthomas.com/ (David Dylan Thomas) - Author, Design For Cognitive Bias https://twitter.com/rayf__ (Rafe Chisolm) - Senior Designer, Twitter https://preston.so/ (Preston So) - Author, Voice Content and Usability https://www.davidhoang.com/newsletter (David Hoang) - Design Director, Webflow https://www.linkedin.com/in/beauvward/ (Dominique Ward) - Head of Design Operations, Atlassian https://asianjay.com/ (Jay Demitillo) - Design Lead, Grab Singapore https://www.mauricecherry.com/ (Maurice Cherry) - Founder, Revision Path In the trailer, you'll hear excerpts from Dominique Ward, David Dylan Thomas, May-Li Khoe, Rafe Chisom, David Hoang, and Preston So. New episodes release every Tuesday. This season is sponsored by https://automattic.com/ (Automattic) Support this podcast

Dave Malouf gets real about the role of DesignOps, how to protect design from errant efficiency seekers, and the challenge of designing in agile environments. Highlights include: - What is the value of design? - Why are we confused about what design is? - What can design leaders do to better articulate the value of design? - How can designers play to their strengths and stay relevant? - Is DesignOps about making design more efficient? ====== Who is Dave Malouf? Dave is a veteran of digital design and a globally recognised design leader. He is also a pioneer of the field of Design Operations. In fact, he's widely credited as the person who came up with the abbreviation DesignOps. Across his 27 years in the field, Dave has held senior design leadership positions at well known enterprise companies such as Rackspace, Hewlett Packard, and Digital Ocean. He is currently the Director of Design Operations at Teladoc. Dave was a Co-Founder and Board Member of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). He is also the author of the Guide to UX Leadership, and What is DesignOps, and the Co-Author of the DesignOps Handbook. ====== Find Dave here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmalouf/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/daveixd Website: https://www.davemalouf.design/ Blog: https://medium.com/amplify-design ====== Thank you for tuning in! If you liked what you heard and want to support the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen). You can also follow us on our other social channels for more great UX, user research and product design content! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-space-in-between/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespaceinbetw__n/ ====== Host: Brendan Jarvis https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanjarvis/

Leaders Leading in the new Digital hybrid workforce is a big challenge. This episode goes deep into the thought leadership around this topic with guest Michael Peachey from RingCentral. Throughout his career, Michael has created value for investors and enterprises by bridging the chasm between excellence in design and excellence in development, in the real world of prioritization and business trade-offs. Over the last 20 years, Michael's focus has been on building (or rebuilding) enterprise-scale, consumer-grade, global design, and product teams. Michael is currently VP UX for RingCentral in Belmont, CA, where he leads a global team responsible for their complete line of CPaaS products. At RNG, Michael built a global team of 80+, starting with a handful of designers. Michael introduced Research, Design Operations and Content strategy practices, built web and mobile design systems shared by UX/Dev, rebuilt the core desktop Message+Voice+Video app on a modern UI architecture, and rebuilt the iOS and Android mobile applications, both of which enjoy a 4.5+ user rating.

La démarche DesignOps émerge en 2017, à travers plusieurs articles publiés sur internet. Adrian Cleave - chez Airbnb - fait naitre la démarche d'un besoin d'aligner les équipes dans une organisation à l'échelle à la suite de la conception de DLS ; leur Design Language System. David Malouf - expert américain du sujet - participe en novembre 2017 au DesignOps Summit. Un événement qui ambitionne “d'aider à définir le terme de Design Opérations”. Enfin, en 2018, Invision publie son DesignOps Handbook. Ces 3 moments racontent la naissance de cette démarche, avec une seule ambition : aider les équipes Design à grandir et à gagner en maturité. Airbnb déclare aujourd'hui s'appuyer sur 5 équipes différentes. Ces équipes sont spécialisées : management, outils, localisation internationale, production, coordinations… Ce sont sur ces spécialités que reposent leur vision et leur démarche. Design + Opérations = DesignOps ? Afin de comprendre cette équation nous avons invité : Emilie Larose, Head of DesignOps et Recherche chez e.Voyageurs SNCF Johanna Rowe Calvi, Head of Design chez Blizzard Entertainment Valentin Serry, DesignOps Lead chez Monsieur Guiz, actuellement en mission chez ENGIE Digital Au sommaire de cet épisode : 02:00 • Chapitre 1 : Qu'est-ce que DesignOps ? Nous avons posé cette question à nos invité•es afin de mieux comprendre cette pratique encore récente. 13:11 • Chapitre 2 : Design et Opérations. L'équation à l'épreuve de la pratique. Avec nos 3 invité•es nous explorons des projets concrets autours de la pratique DesignOps. 47:13 • Chapitre 3 : Regards vers le futur Avant de regarder vers le futur nous avons demandés à nos invité•es leur avis sur la maturité actuelle de cette pratique. Cet épisode à été réalisé et monté par Teodora Blindu avec l'aide de Anthony ADAM. Les voix-off sont de Anaïs Texier. Musique de fin : BØRNS - Past Lives Ecouter le morceau

Hallo und herzlich Wilkommen zu einer neuen Folge von UX Heroes. Mein Name ist Markus Pirker von Simplease und ich freu mich sehr heute gleich 2 Gäste zu haben: Daniel Diener und Marcel Bertram - beide haben die Rolle User Experience Operations bei Porsche. Den Automobilhersteller Porsche muss ich euch wahrscheinlich nicht groß vorstellen - deshalb nur ein paar schnelle Eckdaten zum Unternehmen: Gründung 1931, Sitz in Stuttgart, über 35.000 Mitarbeiter und einen Umsatz von knapp 29 Milliarden Euro im Jahr 2019. Daniel und Marcel sind sehr intensiv dabei den Bereich UX Operations bei Porsche auszubauen und wir sprechen über ihre Prozesse und Tools um standardisierte UX Methoden in digitale Produkt-Teams aus in Summe über 2.000 Personen zu bringen. Nicht schrecken, diese Episode ist etwas länger als gewohnt, das liegt aber nur an dem großartigen Inhalt. Jede Minute mit den Beiden war so wertvoll, dass ich mich entschieden hab euch das gesamte Interview fast ungeschnitten zu liefern. Viel Spaß beim Hören… Links Porsche Website UX Academy bei Porsche [PDF] Porsche Design System Porsche Usability Testing Marketplace How to align complex user journeys across different product teams

Ich habe mit Manuel drüber gesprochen, wieso Design Operations bei Die ProduktMacher einen so hohen Stellenwert hat und vor allem, welchen Values und Standards sie sich gesetzt haben und wieso.

So excited to connect with an old colleague Evan Tyerman. Evan is the Director of Design Operations at Prudential Financial and an all-around great human. Evan has a very interesting background that led him to User Experience Design. Previously he was in the biomedical engineering field, Evan has always been passionate about helping people. His background in engineering drives him to discover the unknown, while his empathy and compassion in helping people helps him to understand the wonder of people. Ultimately, his understanding of users, along with his creativity, inspires Evan to create experiences to change the world. To Evan, User Experience is more than a job or a skill set; it is a passion. Evan and I talk about his experience in discovering UX design, telling his parents he was leaving the Biomedical Engineering field. How passion fuels a great designer and his experience with General Assembly. I'm very excited for Evan and his new role and I can't wait to share his story with you. You can connect with Evan at https://www.linkedin.com/in/evantyerman/ ---------- Transcript ---------- Thomas 0:40 Howdy, welcome to the user flows podcast, it's great to have you back. This week, we're gonna be talking with Evan Tyerman, who is the director of design operations at Prudential financial, Evan and I worked together for some time, he was a really fun guy to work with. And I'm really excited about his new position and new role. And I can't wait to dig into that with him. Evan previously comes from the biomedical engineering field. And he's always been very passionate about helping people, which is what led him to UX design. And his background in engineering really drives him to discover the unknown, while his empathy and compassion and helping people help them to understand the wonder of people. And ultimately, his understanding of users, along with his creativity, inspires Evan to create experiences to change the world. And to Evan user experience is more than a job or a skill set. It's about passion. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So welcome, Evan, it's great to have you here tonight. I'm really excited to talk to you. It's been a while since we've seen each other. So for everybody listening, Evan and I work together at Prudential financial, and Evan has just been named design operations director. Is that correct? *Evan 1:50* That is correct. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. *Thomas 1:52* Yeah, no problem, man. So I wanted to talk to you a bit about it because you have a very interesting kind of background. And also, you were one of those people that I was, you know, very blown away by when I started working with you, because you kind of welcomed me into Prudential, I think you're the first person that kinda, you know, showed up at my desk, you had a whole kind of care package of Prudential gear and stuff, which was really cool. And you got me set up with my machine and everything going. And so very nice cards from everybody. And I think once you stopped doing that role, onboarding the people that came in after me was just terrible. So it was a very nice welcome. *Evan 2:31* It's funny bringing up because you were actually the first person that I did that to, as well. You were pretty much the first person we brought in, I think, after I started kind of revamping our onboarding system, and I think it worked well, on the first shot. *Thomas 2:45* Yeah. When great. It went great. That's great. Yeah, but you were definitely, you know, wise beyond your ears. I, I figured you had been working in UX for a number of years. And then I found out that this was like your first big role, which, in UX design, kind of blew me away. So if you don't mind, would you kind of dive into, you know, how you ended up at Prudential and how you went from biomedical engineering? *Evan 3:10* Yeah, biomedical engineering. Yeah, I mean, definitely a crazy journey. Over the past. I graduated college, and dirty as a biomedical engineer in 2017. So past, let's say, four years. Yeah, that's definitely a wild wild ride. I don't know how far you want me to go back. But you know, I could go back kind of, like what I started hearing about, about the world of UX and my kind of emergence into that. So you know, towards kind of the end of my college career, and you know, I went to NJIT. Thinking that I really wanted to be into like, problem-solving, and really kind of taking on critical problems, and putting, you know, my eyes on it and trying to solve in ways that other people wouldn't think about solving it. And that's just kind of how who I was as a person, you know, growing up, I really love complicated problems. Both my parents were engineers, so, you know, more or less, I was kind of destined to go to an engineering school and kind of fall in their footsteps. But as I was kind of going through that, I did realize that, um, you know, the problems that I was solving weren't fulfilling, you know, I was doing kind of, you know, I went into the area of biomedical engineering because I wanted to help people to that was another motivation for me. But I feel like the problems we're so we're solving, we're solving at such a slow pace, and I wasn't really fulfilling to be, you know, on a project, I would see fruition in five to 10 years. I wanted to see, you know, immediate change, and I wanted to really work at a fast pace. And that's really what kind of made me step away from the world of biomedical engineering and look towards other avenues I can use like those same kinds of problem-solving techniques, but also in the same way, you know, try to really help people and get to know and learn about people. And a lot of my close friends, one of the previous ones you had on your podcast, Brian, good, good college friend of mine, he really, you know, opened me up to the world of UX and what it is, and he showed me, you know, you got to involve the users in creating these designs. Actually, for college, I was very kind of design was a little bit of my hobby. So I like to, you know, I worked as like, you know, PR managers for certain organizations, you know, doing flyers and learning Photoshop. So like, I still have, you know, a little bit of love for design, I never really like kind of dove into it. But, you know, he showed me that like, UX was a crossroad of, you know, design and problem-solving. And also, you know, involving your users at the end of the day. And I saw that, and I don't know what it was like a light bulb kind of hit. Yeah. And, you know, that's when I realized, like, oh, wow, this might be like, more of a career for me than engineering. So, you know, by the time I made that decision, it was kind of towards the end of my college career. So I was like, Okay, let me suck it up. Let me finish college, and we get a degree, let me make my parents happy. Hopefully, they don't hear this. But let me finish off college strong. And let me look into this career path. And I was actually very surprised to find that I wasn't, I wasn't alone, there were a lot of people that really came from very non-traditional backgrounds in UX design, and found their way into this field. And a lot of them did go through courses. So a lot of them weren't really coming out of right out of college. A lot of them were coming through these kinds of pipelines of I went to General Assembly, but there was a lot of other kinds of programs like that, that people were just kind of going doing a quick course, you know, over, you know, a couple of months, and having some sort of design document. And that's why I really, like really brought me into the design as I can, you know, for a very minimal amount of time, I can really kind of changed my career trajectory, and really find a way into this field, that I didn't need to redo college at all. And that, that was another big thing that really likes, made it worth it. *Thomas 7:19* Yeah. Yeah, it's a huge time and cost savings, right? *Evan 7:23* Oh, yeah, for sure. You know, and that was also a big seller for my parents to you know, it was pretty crazy for them, you know, they paid a good majority of my college to say, like, I'm not gonna use that degree anymore. I'm gonna go find something else. Yeah, and then I was, you know, sitting there ready to foot the bill. And I was like, Oh, wait, now I really need to think about how I'm going to afford this. And that actually made it you know, going to a school where it was just a few months really made it worth it. And then coming out of that, you know, I really did have at least the skill set to do what, what was needed to get kind of an entry-level into the job. I didn't, you know, I didn't have like a full sense to be like a full, mid-level designer, but I did have the kind of the skill set needed. And the rest of it was kind of my drive and determination. Yeah, we got to get over the finish line and find that like, really kind of start to your career. So yeah, going through General Assembly definitely was the right choice. It definitely wouldn't have changed it to the world. And I met a lot of great people along the way to a lot of like I said, a lot of people came from non-traditional backgrounds, there were architects in our class, there was fashion designers, photographers, even a geologist was in our class learning to be a UX designer. Yeah, she, you know, studied rocks, and then decided to shoot on this many people. And I thought that that was really like, you know, not to get too deep, like, I thought that was really beautiful that people were coming from all different walks of life, yeah, into this path. And people brought their, their different nuances. You know, people that still came from a creative field back in came into UX had more of a creative mindset versus people like me. And the geologists came from a more scientific background, and they came with more of a research-focused mindset. So like, it's, it's, that I want to really what I'm getting at is there's like, there's a spot for everyone, I think, in this field, no matter what kind of walk of life you come from, I really, you know, there is always a place somewhere within this crazy world, that you can kind of really fall into and fall into that nation. That's kind of where I fell into. And that's kind of what guided me down this path of, you know, I still use my engineering mindset. You know, even though I, you know, I say I don't use the degree, I very much do very much didn't go through an engineering course where I can I use that to create my design processes and kind of lead what I'm doing throughout that design process. And that's kind of what guided me Towards operations in a way, yeah, really, you know, I'm a very kind of methodical person I want, you know, certain things to happen, and they need to happen for a certain reason. And yeah, that's ultimately what kind of guided me towards this kind of career set. And it's not like I chose to be an operations manager, it's just, I think that my skills kind of naturally tended me to be towards that. Yeah. And I think, you know, I very much do, thank the people that I've worked with, especially at Prudential, who kind of empowered me to take these kinds of roles and positions. And see kind of the potential in me, even though I couldn't see it, you know, I was just kind of like, doing my designs, and just trying to get through and get projects out as fast as I could. And one of the funniest was, Lorraine, you remember, *Thomas 10:52* I remember. *Evan 10:54* She was the greatest, but when I, when we were in, project planning, they were like, Okay, well, like, how long do you think it will take to get this done? Lorraine was about to say, like, you know, maybe two or three weeks, and I was like, Oh, yeah, like four days. I mean, look, to me, she's like, Don't over-promise. Like, you know, you don't want to over-promise I'm like, but that's, you know, that's, I think about efficiency, and I want to make sure that these things can happen. Because that means we can do more with our time and provide more value for our customers with their time. So you know, I always left to think, you know, Lorraine was saying I was being too efficient. *Thomas 11:30* That's good advice, I'll never over-promise. But um, no, and I remember you would, you would take on certain things like you know, managing the kind of usertesting.com kind of platform. And also, you kind of took over the whole running of the usability testing lab that we had there, and kind of got that back up and running. And also, like, you know, the work that you did finally led us to actually getting people in the door to test with and everything, which was great, and, you know, just in time for COVID, to kick in and for all of us to get kicked out. Well, hopefully, you'll be back soon. And you can use it again. But yeah, *Evan 12:06* yeah, no, I've definitely found new that kind of, that I kind of fell into more out of necessity. I think, you know, we all know, research is definitely a big part of this, you know, this process, and I, myself take that very much are going back to my background and, and science and being very analytical. You know, I think research is really at the core of what we do, you know, the design has its part, but I think research really does, does really shine in the kind of the designs we were able to produce at the end of the day, you know, I feel like we weren't really fully activating our kind of research arm. And that's what I really wanted to take on like, Okay, well, we have this beautiful, shining new lab, that's probably you didn't use as many times as I can count on my hand. No, it was great. And I thought it was such a shame that we weren't, you know, utilizing it to its fullest potential. And that's really what made me kind of take that on to really push that that initiative and they're definitely wasn't easy, you know, especially know, Prudential has a lot of kind of guidelines and restrictions. And they're not really used to a field like ours, where we're like, oh, let's bring in a bunch of random people and talk to them. Like, like, No, don't do that. Thomas 13:25 You can't bring anybody in here. Evan 13:27 Yeah. Like, why not? But, you know, that's, that's one of the big things is breaking down those kinds of silos, and really kind of trying to change the traditional landscape of corporate design. Yeah. And that's definitely one of the challenges we had to deal with day in day out. Is Yeah, really breaking those down? *Thomas 13:51* Yeah. And it's the last conference I went to before, you know, COVID took over everything. There was a really good talk by two guys at Johnson and Johnson. Funny enough, now, they're very much involved in this whole COVID thing. And one of the guys talking, it was all about design operations. And he had a great quote, which I really liked that, you know, he said, design operations is all about clearing the roadblocks so that designers can design. And his whole point behind that was that you know, designers, UX developers, all that it's a highly specialized skill set. And so companies pay a premium, you know, for these people's talents. And if, you know, anytime that they're not spending, designing or building, then the company is wasting a gigantic amount of money. So do you got it like, feel like that's kind of part of what your role is going to be? Or? *Evan 14:43* Oh, for sure. I mean, you know, operations, even a design team of one needs operations. They're just kind of built into how we work. You know, there's a very specific process and design methodology that we like to follow and Even though you're one person, you're still, you know, doing project planning and, and working on your tools and making sure that you're communicating with the right people. Well, if you scale that up to a design team of 60 to 100, what does that look like you can't have every single person design or doing design operations, it would be a catastrophic nightmare. And that's, that's where I come in, you know, I take that load off of these people, I take that mostly off of these managers and VPS, that have been kind of running these teams. And I kind of standardize it. And I also make it kind of, you know, just putting my business cap on and make it cheaper for them to, you know, they're spending so many hours of their day or week, doing operations, let's time they're not spending designing, and at the end of the day, providing value for our customers, and potential. So I take that, and I consolidate that, and I, you know, whatever overlap there is, I can take that on. And now that all that cost has kind of been eaten up by me, and they can focus mostly on what they're there to do, which, as you said, is to design. Yeah. So yeah, I'm very much, you know, trying to clear the roadblocks. also trying to make sure the machines still running, we're still moving forward. Yeah. But also, on the other end, I see a different way, you know, design operations also really tries to make sure that, you know, in its core, you know, the design provides value, like I said to our customers and potential, but how can we kind of take the value that they preside, provide, and kind of amplify that or grow that, and make sure that you've got one designer can provide 10 times the value that they would without a design operations manager. And that's really what I also do is try to kind of champion the team, make sure the team has not just the tools necessary to do their job, but also the means necessary to grow. As designers in our company. That's another big kind of aspect is, you know, making sure focusing on our people focusing on our talent, making sure that, you know, if you want to be focused on research, we have a place for you, and we can, you know, find ways to, to include those talents and also grow those talents to, you know, conferences, through, you know, training that we've put together, if you don't want to focus on visual, like, we have a place for you. And my whole methodology and thought behind this is, you know, let's not mold our designers and what we need done to me, let's make them let's let them grow into what they want to be. And let's find a place for them. *Thomas 17:28* Oh, that's really cool. *Evan 17:30* Yeah, having that kind of methodology of thought really gives you designers I want to stay, you know, know that you're there to invest in their future. They want to be a part of the potential future. *Thomas 17:44* Oh, that's fantastic. And that's, um, that's especially important, I would say in this kind of market is right now, as a UX designer, if you have any kind of experience under your belt, you can almost go anywhere. And so it is really hard for companies to attract and to, you know, keep talent, if you throw any kind of unnecessary, you know, nuisances in their way. And they're just gonna bounce. That's kind of Yeah, *Evan 18:09* I've seen it so many times here. And you've definitely seen it too. Yes. It's hard to keep designers, especially in this market, where, you know, there are so many design jobs, and there are so many opportunities for designers, you know, how do we really keep them? And it really comes down to, you know, what, how do you value your designers, you know, what are you doing to make sure that they're, they're, they're, they're valued at the end of the day? Yeah. And that's ultimately, you know, how you how we can keep our designers. *Thomas 18:38* Yeah, absolutely. Everyone, everybody wants to work in a place where they feel not only welcome, but you know, valued. And also just a place with that they feel comfortable, they feel allowed to express themselves allowed to try new things allowed to grow like you're doing now, which is fantastic. So yeah, I know, a big part of what you're doing now is also kind of helping manage to bring in a number of new people and new roles. So I guess, if you could, from the perspective of the hiring manager, so somebody who might be looking for their first job might be looking for their second job. What's the process kind of look like from your perspective? So they get a little bit of insight, you know, what happens after they send that resume in or, you know, have that first phone call? *Evan 19:25* Yeah, of course. Yeah, a lot of my role is focused on our talent and making sure that we have the right people where we need them. And, you know, coming from kind of the other end of the table, you know, I went through, you know, so many different job applications when I was looking for work for the first time. And it's, it's hard. Oh, yeah, you know, she's known for nothing you feel awful when you get so many kinds of rejections and you don't know why and no one's really kind of explaining it to you. But you know, now in the Under the Table, you know, looking at resumes and looking for what I'm looking for. Now I see, you know, there's a lot of resumes that people go through from a hiring manager's perspective, and you really need to kind of figure a way to stand out. What I really look for, you know, is not kind of like, and products, you know, anyone could produce maybe a really high, you know, sexy looking mock-up, you know, follow certain design guidelines or put it a couple of like, you know, zinger words. But what I'm really looking for is kind of process-driven, you know, I really want to know, what is Tom thinking as he's designing this product? How is the kind of going across it? Not that like, Oh, he's just going to use a user interviewer contextual inquiry, I want to know why he's using a contextual interview or contextual inquiry, that kind of puts me in the designer seat, and really gets to know Okay, well, this is how they're going to drive our projects. This is how they're going to lead these kinds of initiatives with this design process. So it's definitely one of the things I'm looking for the kind of just on a surface level, you know, just looking at portfolios and resumes. And then when it gets to like interviews, I've already kind of see what you can produce and design, what at that point, what I really want to know is, you know, who you Who are you as a designer, what really drives you and motivates you, at the end of the day, because really, what I'm trying to look for in those interviews is, are you going to fit into this team? And are you going to give us and produce value for this team, you know, what, what kind of drive and passion that you have towards design and towards users at the end of the day, that's gonna produce value, because like I said, anyone could go through a process XYZ, and produce some sort of outcome. Yeah, but what that outcome really depends on how they go through that, and how in quote, how they actually decide not what they desire. *Thomas 22:00* Yeah. And I'm sure you know, with everybody being remote right now, just the added difficulties of conducting online interviews with the extra yard, this is a lot of fun. *Evan 22:13* Yeah, it's definitely been a challenge for all of us to figure out. And also, you know, just the whole online aspect of running a team too, it's very hard to kind of socialize, and, you know, per se, have those kinds of those coffee room breaks, break chats, and all that that we always loved. So it's definitely been I've been a challenge just to, you know, have the thing that make teams teams, yeah, those little kinds of moments here. And *Thomas 22:42* that's excellent. I do like the idea of the coffee chats much more than the happy hours. Like if I'm going to be having a drink, I don't want to be looking at my computer. *Evan 22:50* Yeah, we've actually been doing that a lot more, you know, we're trying to be going away from the typical happy hour where like one person's talking, and it's really awkward to do a more of like, you know, small little coffee chats, let's, let's pull in like three or four people here. And let's just talk for like, 30 minutes. That's one of the things that we've kind of found a lot of success in lately. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah, just pulling in like a few people here and there. *Thomas 23:11* Yeah, that's a lot of fun. And so, obviously, you kind of talked through, you know, your time at General Assembly, which How long is the course at General Assembly? I'm not too familiar. *Evan 23:24* Yeah. So there, I took the UX design immersive course, which is kind of they're kind of like, top of the line, they have part times and boot camps. And those are good. People are kind of already in the field, but the immersive is about a 10. week course. It's a Monday through Friday, and they say you know, nine to five, but when they really mean is like nine to like 10 or 11 o'clock at night. *Thomas 23:47* And that's, yeah, yeah. *Evan 23:50* Whenever you whenever you're not in a class, you're doing projects with your group, or you're sleeping while you're eating. Yeah, and even when you don't really have much time to eat. *Thomas 23:59* Yeah, when I did the Coursera course I remember I was doing many late nights and long weekends. And it was all worth it, though. But that's really cool. And I've interviewed a number of people who came out of General Assembly, I think we've hired a few. It's, I've heard people rag on like these kinds of boot camps and things like that. And I don't see it because a lot of the people who come through have been absolutely exceptional. And, you know, brought really kind of great energy to our team. And we're kind of instantly on the ground running. So a lot of people obviously coming out of these boot camps kind of failed to do obviously what you did. What do you think made the different kind of in your career going from General Assembly to now design Director of Operations at like a huge financial institution. It's pretty cool. Yeah, *Evan 24:50* I mean, if you told me three or four years ago when I was doing this general assembly, that'd be a director in four years, I'd be like back up. But, you know, I would definitely say these courses are great for people that are really looking to make a change in their career and take make a shift. But you really need to have kind of the drive and passion and dedication for it. You know, as I said, These courses are nine to five, nine to 10 o'clock at night, every night. That's just the course itself. You need to also be thinking about what are you doing after the course, you know, how are you really going to push yourself to become a better designer at the end of the day, to kind of walk headfirst into adversity? And no, you know, maybe not know exactly what to do, but no, you know, have a good sense of how to kind of adapt to these kinds of situations. And, and that's something I think General Assembly really taught me and it's not something that you can really teach them on paper, or in a classroom, it's really something that you got to teach by doing. And they you know, they put you through these very tight timelines where you really need to be adaptable, and learn how to kind of bend and not snap. certain points. So the course where I was ready to snap, people in our course that did snap, and it was not pretty. Yeah. But at the end of the day, you really, you know, you need to get into the mindset of why am I here? What am I doing? Why am I doing this, and at the end of the day, you know, I really was passionate about this is, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. And this is what I really feel like I have a calling for. And I really feel, you know, like, like, this is me. And that kind of really got me good. Got me going through the program. And, you know, definitely getting into the, into the field after these programs, it's not easy to, you know, you, you come out of these programs, you know what to do you know, the process, it's drilled into your work projects, and you've, you know, luckily, with General Assembly, you get to work with an actual client, like a real so you actually have some industry experience, but I'm not gonna say it's like a guaranteed job for you, you know, you're not coming out of, you know, you're competing with people that are coming out of college with you have four years of experience on their belt. So like, you do have to have some differentiating qualities from those people, but also the people that just came out of General Assembly to, you know, they are also kind of, you know, as much as they are your colleagues, they are competing against you for these jobs that are out there. And luckily, you know, there are enough jobs out there for all of us. But, you know, you still need to differentiate yourself. And that's really kind of what I focused on coming out of General Assembly. My first I wouldn't say, I mean, it was definitely was a real job, but it wasn't my first kind of full-time job. Coming out of General Assembly, I was working with the client I worked with, at the end of our last project, so I was able to get close with that close with it was small, like a three-person startup based in New Jersey, but I was able to get really close with them and talk them into a contract deal. And that, you know, that contract deal for a lot, you know, it was only for like three or four months and creating this one kind of system for them. But that really set me apart set me apart from the rest of my general assembly colleagues is like I had something else on the right by my belt. Yeah. And that really is what kind of gave me the kind of edge over, over a lot of my other colleagues coming out and coming into potential is like, Okay, I have this one project that I did kind of by myself, that I can really speak to. But again, you know, the skill set, and the demeanor is a lot of it's a big chunk of it. But really what brought me over the edge was kind of my network, you know, working with people, like Brian, or another good friend that is all through college without with me and into the film mirage. But also a lot of the friends I made going to meetups, and, you know, immersing myself into the field, not just the courses, but going to actual meeting other designers and really kind of diving headfirst into UX design. That's what really sent me out here. That's how I found Prudential. And that's how, you know, I was referred into this position. It was through my network that you know, that gave me the foot in the door I needed. And then everything else, all my coursework, all my projects, all my kind of passion towards it. That's what took it home. *Thomas 29:20* Right? Yeah. And no, it is. *Evan 29:23* It's a mix of all these different aspects that you know, will get you and land you that first job. And then from there, there's no you know, there's no end goal. You got to keep going. You got to keep pushing. And, you know, through kind of hard work and determination and a lot of passion for what I do. I was able to work my way up through the ranks. Still unbelievable to me. *Thomas 29:46* Yeah. But well, it's well deserved. Well deserved. Don't believe it. You deserve it. So. Oh, yeah. So yeah. And the networking thing is, I was hugely important. My first job in UX. I mean, I had worked in design for a long time, but the person who first hired me for, actual full-time UX role, hired me because we were old friends who'd done a ton of design projects, you know, together. And so keeping those contacts is hugely important. That's actually, we talked a little bit about why I'm doing this show earlier. But another reason is not only to, you know, strengthen relationships already have with people like you who I know but also get out and meet other people. Like right now we're all stuck in our homes like you can't go out to meet up so, but why not, like meet the people I see on LinkedIn and other places, Instagram, and just say, hey, you want to come on the show, and we'll talk about design with me. So it kind of helps me build my own network as well. *Evan 30:43* And yeah, I mean, your network is super important. You know, this is, you know, a very small community, per se, of designers that we have, and, you know, everyone really kind of knows each other, we have kind of the people, the thought leaders on top, and I know people that are hanging out with those thought leaders, and they're like, just one kind of network away from like, a really big opportunity. So like, those are the things that you kind of want to bank on, you know, if you're looking for the next role or next opportunity is, you know, get in with those, those kinds of those networks. Yeah, either only just kind of a pretty much a phone call away, or just a name drop away from you to really be, you know, in contact with the VP, one of the big, you know, firms or big Fortune companies. So, yeah, your network is like, super, super important. And I am very thankful for like, getting to know, so many people at Prudential coming in and out. And really seeing and meeting a lot of people and getting to know them. Especially like, like, you are a very no good part of my network, where I can count on you for like, Hey, you know, is there an opportunity for this person? Or is there Do you have many opportunities for me moving forward? And we really kind of share that kind of connection with each other, which is super important. *Thomas 32:00* Absolutely. Yeah, actually just totally made me just realize it. But the reason I'm at the job I'm at now is because of somebody I've met at Prudential, actually, a couple of people I met at Prudential. And so obviously, everybody listening, networking, obviously, a huge part of finding that first, second, third 20th role. *Evan 32:22* So always continue never know, you never know, you're gonna need to, you know, go into your network, 20 years down the line, but it's still. Absolutely. Well, that's really cool. So, you've obviously, you've been doing this now, for four years, or more. Out of all the things you learned, you know, at General Assembly, is there anything? Like, what's the biggest surprise, like, maybe you thought, like, I'm gonna do so much of this, but you don't actually do any of that? Or, like, what's been kind of the biggest surprise of, you know, actually working in UX and opinions, lots, and lots of opinions? Yeah. You know, General Assembly, you are with a bunch of people that are learning to be designers being taught by people that are designers. You don't really, and you do this and kind of a bubble, I will say, you don't kind of deal with all the nuances of UX design that come with it, you know, all the crazy stakeholders that you're gonna have a say it needs to be this way, and it needs to be this done, done this way. Or all the developers are like, yeah, we can't build that or, you know, that doesn't mean meet our guidelines, or that that's gonna take too long to build. Those are the things that they don't really prepare you for. But you definitely need to be aware that there is a real-world outside of this perfect world that is General Assembly, oh, no, no, no ragging on them. But I, you know, I do wish there was a way to kind of, you know, teach or prepare those kinds of things. But there isn't, there is no way to really teach how to rope in a straight developer or, you know, deal with an angry stakeholder. You have to break to them that their projects not going to meet their deadline. But you know, those are things that you know, you hopefully will gain as you move in and move through your career and move up. It's just the soft skills you get to learn and I'm very glad that Prudential did have a bunch of those characters, for better or for worse yet, but you know, I definitely feel like I learned a lot. And I feel like I'd become very adaptable to those different situations. Just because, you know, I've seen quite a bit. *Thomas 34:37* Yeah, yeah, no, fair enough. That's kind of one of those are one of the many skills you have to learn to kind of outside of design in order to make design happen in a lot of ways managing people's opinions and all the different kinds of feedback you get. And also as a UX designer, it's maybe it's different for something Like being an accountant, where, you know, the numbers kind of Don't lie. But when it comes to design, I mean, everything is kind of up to somebody's opinion. And since what we do is visual, everybody has the ability to comment on it and talk about why they don't like it. And why Yeah. *Evan 35:20* Yeah, one of my good friends is like, has a great saying it's, you know, everyone can be a designer, but not everyone can be a great designer. And I think that at the end of the day, you know, everyone in this in this conference room is trying to be a designer right now. who's actually, you know, how do we find the good designers that we need to get this done? Right. But also, you know, how do we listen to those different opinions? Because they are, they're very valid opinions. We need to, you know, take those into account today. But yeah, it's been a challenge to know who to listen to. And why. *Thomas 35:53* Yeah. Oh, that's very cool. I think you kind of hit on, I was gonna ask a bunch of questions, but you kind of went through everything. I can't imagine what you're, blah, blah, no, no. Wonderful. It allows me not to because I don't, I wasn't born with the gift of gab. But no, I can't this can't imagine your parent's face when you said I'm gonna leave biomedical engineering to go into the design is actually my wife did something similar where she was in med school. And she told her parents that she was going to go into interior design. And they about this owner, but luckily, in the, in the end, it all worked out. But and obviously, it's worked out for you as well. Evan 36:39 So yeah, you should have seen their faces when I told them, I was leaving the design role to become a director. Yeah, they were, they were very kind of dumbfounded at that, you know, oh, my God, Thomas 36:52 that's awesome. For *Evan 36:54* four years and becoming a director. That's, that's crazy. And I don't think they ever expected something like that, you know, design was very new to them. I think my dad used to call it Unix design, not even UX. That's really funny. It took him like maybe two or three years for me to be in the industry for him to actually understand what actually you x men, but, uh, you know, they've been, I mean, they've definitely been great supporters of me. And that decision moving forward, you know, definitely wasn't an easy pill for them as well. But having that support network did want me to be successful, really kind of drove, drove a lot of my passion, design, passion for design, and wanted me to really be kind of the best that I could be, no matter what field I was in, I think my parents really instilled that in May, yeah, to take whatever you're doing. And, you know, do it with a passion, do it with a very fervent fire. And I do that today. Tomorrow when I wake up, and I'll keep doing that, *Thomas 37:57* that's wonderful. So I guess the end is kind of what would your advice be to, you know, the person either considering General Assembly or one of the other boot camps or possibly about to finish it up? And maybe having trouble finding that first role? Kind of give them the pep talk too, you know, keep going? *Evan 38:18* Yeah, um, you know, I think one of the biggest things that really came, kept me going in this is really understanding, you know, why do you really want to be here, you know, what is your why at the end of the day, and for me, it was, you know, I had a passion for helping people and I wanted to really, you know, get to get to the bottom and really make a difference in people's lives. And, you know, that's why I was very focused on making designs that really helped, you know, helped our end user, you know, talking to users through user interviews, and, and doing usability testing, like actually talking to the people who we designed for, and why we're here that, that gave me you know, joy and happiness and really gave me a passion towards us. So really, you know, get an understanding of why, why you want to be in this field. You know, anyone can get sit in a classroom and learn a course, but not many people can really, you know, understand passion. And, and once you kind of honor that, and figure out what that passion is, and maybe it's people, maybe it's designing, maybe it's you know, some other thing, but figuring out what your y is, at the end of the day, is really going to set you on the right path to completing these kinds of courses. And not just the courses but whatever comes after that, you know, anything else in your career. There have been so many times where I've been so frustrated with a, you know, a meeting at the end of the day, but then I sit down and I'm like, Okay, this is why I'm here. This is why I'm doing this. This is really, this is really what I believe in at the moment. is creating great designs that help good people. Yeah. And, you know, really finding that passion is what drives me, you know, it gets me to wake up in the morning makes me happy. It makes me excited to see what's next. Transcribed by < https://otter.ai> ( https://otter.ai> )

As a follow-up on the previous discussion about Design Operations, the Product Bakers invited Pete Fossick, who is a seasoned Design Director, Coach, Trainer, and co-founder of the DesignOps Network & conference to diving deeper into the topic. The whole conversation was around the history of design ops, how the role developed and evolved as well as its specific responsibilities. At the end of the conversation, they've discussed how to accelerate innovation with an operations team as well as how to hire for such positions. Table of content: 0:30 - Intro Pete Fossick and how got into Design 9:00 - Fixing problems vs. symptoms 11:50 - Responsibilities of Design Ops people 18:25 - Design Ops is a matter of company size 22:05 - The evolvement and mitosis of Design Ops 27:25 - How the role developing in the market 30:50 - Skills needed to be a good Design Operations Manager 35:35 - How Pete helps the Design Community to level up 38:20 - Design Ops collaboration with Product Managers 44:30 - Biggest mistake companies make in projects 46:50 - Driving innovation with Innovation Ops 50:35 - How to hire Design Ops as a company 53:20 - Where to find skilled people 56:25 - How agile governments work 58:40 - Pete's gift to the audience (you) 60:00 - Debrief Christian & Alex Pete on the internet: Linkedin: @peterfossick Website: https://www.factotum-design.co.uk/ Design Ops Conference: https://designops-conference.com/ ✩ Follow The Product Bakery Podcast ✩

Larry and Roman wrap up 2020 with a discussion of Design Ops (after a quick diversion into the Anova Precision Oven). In the last few years Design Operations (or DesignOps, as the cool kids call it) has emerged as an important role for a lot of teams. We discuss what Design Operation are, what kind of teams need DesignOps, and the right way to say it. Show Notes the Anova Precision Oven - https://anovaculinary.com/anova-precision-oven/ Dave Malouf on Twitter - https://twitter.com/daveixd?s=20 Org Design for Design Orgs book - https://orgdesignfordesignorgs.com/2016/08/30/the-printed-book-is-here/ Design Ops Handbook - https://www.designbetter.co/designops-handbook Rosenfeld Media Communities - https://rosenfeldmedia.com/communities/ Please consider leaving a quick review. It would help us a lot! iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ux-like-us/id1362088405 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/3QzWfQ9mJSH9VMBnAyathq Overcast - https://overcast.fm/itunes1362088405/ux-like-us Follow the show on Twitter @UXLikeUs - https://twitter.com/uxlikeus @LAKing - https://twitter.com/LAKing @Stuporman - https://twitter.com/Stuporman --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/uxlikeus/message

If you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you already understand the value of good design and the importance of taking a human-centered approach. But what do we need to do in order to ensure that design succeeds at scale? In this episode, our founder and principal, Matthew Doty sits down with Fred Beecher, Best Buy’s head of Design Operations, to discuss how this immerging field helps enable great design. Fred Beecher has worked in User Experience since 1998. He is an established contributor in the field, having authored the first official Axure training program in 2007 and having written and spoken extensively on prototyping, design process, design education, and UX career development. In 2013 he designed, implemented, and led a UX apprenticeship program at The Nerdery. From 2015 to 2017, Fred led the 40+ person design team at The Nerdery. Currently, Fred leads Experience Design Operations for Best Buy.Also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLU3wXscyrxTsRU6CZy00TrkoWOECECMA

Today's guest speaks on Design Operations as an exercise in culture design. Changing communities—and, by extension, human behavior—is really about changing cultures. “At the heart of Design Operations is transformational work. It's about changing the way we work and the way we approach problems.” Alison Rand discusses how you can maximize your team's capacity for creativity and collaboration by creating environments that encourage the best work from a diverse group of people. Stay tuned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 11 is part two of the conversation about Design Operations and where we are heading. In this episode, Jacqui and Alison go broad and extensive (and somewhat meandering ) about future opportunity areas for Design Operations and how we, as design leaders, can lead the charge in laying the groundwork for that future. We charge forward into the unknown with the responsibility to consider society, ethics, customer experience, and the employee experience. Discuss.

In episode 10 Jacqui and Alison begin to dig into the current state of Design Operations. Get ready for some more real talk around what is Design Ops anyway, where does it come from, what (and who) does it look like, and why/when/do we even need it.

FREE GIVEAWAY ANNOUNCED: Enjoy a FREE consult with our experts. Redeem here: http://ow.ly/cGIi50zzrlG Female StartUps need a solid team to develop and launch successfully. With combined expertise in launching female brands of 50+ years, this Warrior Women In Business Podcast episode was a special segment aimed at providing direct advice and tips to women business owners NOW to move forward. Our panel included entrepreneur experts Jasmine Sandler, Jennifer Dorre, Molly Heglund and Susan Diamond, Power Forward Group. Jasmine Sandler is a known Digital Marketing Thought-Leader with a passion for supporting the business development and online marketing needs of both companies and entrepreneurs. She has over 15 years client and agency experience as an Advisor in Digital Marketing Strategy and Management work, She has overseen and directed over 1.000 web-based projects in both design and development as well as marketing and campaign work. In this, she has consulted for executive teams at both small companies as well as Fortune 100 firms. She is also the founder & CEO of jasminesandler.com and consults for hungry female entrepreneurs pre and post funding in brand strategy and business development. Jennifer Dorre is an accomplished turnaround specialist known for driving and implementing transformational change at top-tier corporations by reorienting complex product-development projects that have stalled due to inadequate operational planning. In her 20+ years of experience, Jennifer has managed multi-million-dollar budgets, led process-improvement programs in complex, multi-national environments and served, time and again, as a trusted adviser for C-Suite executives. Jennifer’s career includes Director of Design Operations at Victoria’s Secret; Executive Director of Design Operations at David Yurman; Chief Operating Officer at Ovando, and Managing Partner for NEXT Consulting where she’s led operational improvement projects for major retail brands in the US and Russia. Susan is a purpose-driven Financial Consultant who is passionate about women's economic empowerment and committed to philanthropy. She teamed up with a financial power group lead by an estate planning attorney, to help women achieve true financial success so they can live their best life. She entered the financial field not as an economist or a financial planner but as a social worker who was interested in attitudes and emotional reactions to money. For over 3 decades, Susan has worked in various capacities with nonprofit organizations including as a board member, executive director, volunteer, and trusted advisor. As the Founder of the Empow{Her} Community, she helps women expand their money mindset and confidence around their finances so they can reduce stress, release the shame, take control, and learn the needed skills to be confident with money. Molly Heglund is a strategic consultant partnering with both start-ups and established brands to deliver financial and operational results by optimizing daily workflows and building long term strategic goals. With 16 years experience leading merchandise planning and finance teams at Shopbop | East Dane (subsidiary of Amazon) and L Brands, Molly is a proven leader known for her high level of ownership, strong attention to detail and ability to deliver results. Warrior Women In Business in 2020 is providing opportunities for women in business to share their stories, highlight their businesses and be a part of wwib events, both educational and entertainment-based. To become a Warrior Women in Business member, join the WWIB LinkedIn group, Meetup Group, and new Facebook group. Warrior Women in Business podcast and event series are a brand of Jasmine Sandler Media, a Digital Marketing & Media agency that has been serving the needs of female brands and women in business since 2006.

In this episode, Jacqui shares her experience of the boiling ocean of Design Operations. Through a memory of her experience as a collegiate athlete, she came upon the concept of Flow. Inspired by this positive psychology concept, Jacqui tells the story of how she found some patterns in the chaos.

In this bonus episode, we’re once more focused on remote teams, and more specifically on best practices for facilitating remote design sprints, building trust between teams in a remote environment, and running effective critiques and design reviews remotely. In the first half of the episode, we chat with Richard Banfield, VP of Design Transformation at InVision, and author of the book Enterprise Design Sprints, who gives us practical guidance on how to run a remote design sprint effectively. In the second half, Alison Rand, our Senior Director of Design Operations, will reveal the inner workings of how our own design teams perform design reviews remotely, and make sure that work is visible across teams. You’ll learn: How to facilitate a remote design sprints and run effective design reviews The virtuous cycle that you need to put in place to build trust with your remote teams Why preparation is the most critical part of running a design sprint remotely How our veteran distributed team at InVision runs remote design reviews To discover more remote work resources from InVision, check out www.invisionapp.com/remote.

Oliver Vogt, Byton's Director of Design Operations, joins Martin in the 9th Special Episode to talk about the process of starting a design organization, the challenges he faced in this journey and the experience he made.

El Research Operations o Research-Ops, que toma su nombre de otros sistemas, como son el Developer Operation o Design Operations, se presenta como la nueva hoja de ruta de todo UX Researcher. ¿Cómo surge? ¿Por qué es tan necesario? ¿Será una nueva disciplina o un complemento en los procesos de investigación? Para ello contamos con la opinión de expertos en la disciplina, Sarah Rink, Research Director en Sngular y Victor Guinea, Sernior UX Researcher en Amazon, quienes además forman parte del flamante pool de mentores de la clase de Research Ops dentro del curso Design Research Expert, formación renovada y actualizada a las responsabilidades que requiere esta posición tan importante en los procesos de UX. ¡No pierdas la oportunidad de formarte con nosotros!

UXMX la comunidad de UX y Diseño en español. Aquí encontrarás noticias, metodologías, tendencias y recomendaciones relacionadas a esta disciplina […] La entrada 29 | Julie García, Design Ops (Design operations) se publicó primero en UXMX Podcast.

Kristen Brillantes is the CEO & Co-Founder of The Sarap Shop, a San Francisco-based, Filipino-American food truck and catering company, that serves an inclusive Filipino comfort food menu. Previously, she was the Head of Design Operations at Stripe, a large fintech company, and before that held leadership development roles at Google and Google Ventures. She is also a Business coach and designer. This episode will have you pulling out a pen and paper to design your own growth! We discuss her journey, from various corporate roles to starting the Sarap Shop, and hard decisions and sacrifices she made along the way to stay true to herself. We cover topics such as: How to take ownership of your own growth wherever you are Shifting from a sacrificial/scarcity mindset to abundance mindset, especially as a 1st or 2nd Generation Filipino How to treat professional life like play Why it’s important to let yourself UNRAVEL Being Filipina in the workplace and bringing Follow Kristen at @thesarapshop (Big thanks to Ruanne Catapang & Ashley Lanuza for help on this!)

“Design Operations is tactical, it’s strategic design thinking, it's project management, but it's really this lens on combining business and design thinking to one role.” A new role has been emerging in the tech and product space, and it’s one that looks a whole lot like project or program management but focuses on design. It’s called Design Operations, and it’s picking up a lot of steam, so you may have seen it rolled out in your organization or others. We wanted to dig in on the topic to explore what is design operations, what does someone in design operations do, and how does design operation help projects and teams? That’s a lot of questions! Thankfully, Philip Rowe, a UX Program Manager at Google, joined us on the show to explain it all. With a experience working as a project manager and a UX designer, Philip is perfectly positioned to discuss the topic. He and Brett cover a lot of ground in the interview, including: What is design operations? How design operations works at Google How teams interact with design operations folks The skills needed to take on a design operations role Design Thinking and other design-focused processes Cultivating a healthy team culture OKRs and how they’re used at Google Resources mention in the interview: Design Operations: Scaling Design Teams & Amplifying Impact, Philip’s presentation at the Digital PM Summit 2019 What Great Listeners Actually Do The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes by William Ury  Guide: Set Goals with OKRs by Google

Current Design and Research Operations practices face three huge, overarching challenges: •Proving value and measuring outcomes •Partnering outside design •Change management In this episode of Rosenfeld Review, four DesignOps and ResearchOps leaders—Jose Coronado, Crystal Yan, Guneet Singh, and Rachel Posman—tackle these challenges from a rich set of perspectives, ranging from heading up DesignOps at a large, long-established corporation like JP Morgan Chase, to launching a whole new department at a young company. Panel Members: •Jose Coronado, VP Design Operations | Head of DesignOps at JPMorgan Chase & Co. •Rachel Posman, Head of Design Operations, UberEats •Crystal Yan, Product Lead, New Initiatives, Remitly •Guneet Singh, Director of Customer Experience Programs, Docusign

In this episode, we will answer listener questions about clarifying design operations as a discipline, advice for designers who want to run their own start-up, how companies can make their purpose real and not just a marketing-induced pipe dream, dealing with the fear that your best work is behind you, and where to begin to create a UX strategy for a company that’s never had one before.SHOW NOTES:http://thecrazy1.com/episode79 FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook

DesignOps helps companies invest in design by operationalizing their workflow, hiring, alignment between teams, and more so that designers are able to focus on design work and let someone else take control of the rest. But who really needs DesignOps? When’s the right time to start thinking about it, and how does one even get started? We chat with Angelos Arnis, Design Operations at Elisa and Sonja Krogius, Lead Designer at Nordkapp, the people behind the DesignOps meetups in Helsinki. Let us know what you thought about this episode or give us new suggestions at nudgingpixels@houston-inc.com Things we mentioned in this episode: DesignOps Canvas OrgDesign for DesignOrgs Designops.lol @designopshel on Twitter Joint Futures conference

Episode 3 of the Empowering Women Podcast Guest: Jenny Han, Architect, Director of Design Operations at Skender Jenny Han is a licensed Architect based in Chicago. Her specialities include design of healthcare facilities. Ms. Han also has a special interest in the intersection of space and community. She shared her story of being the daughter of immigrants and what it was like to find her path at the intersection of art and science.  QUOTES “It is important to me to lead, to not say “no”, even if it is something I'm fearful of”. “If somebody else has faith I can do something, I give it a shot… That has enabled me to do things I wouldn't normally volunteer myself for.” “If there's three reasons to do anything, I always say you should do it.” “The overriding theme with golf is like anything in your career…. Just show up. Don't be so paralyzed and afraid that you don't even show up to your seat at the table.” “Find mentors in all aspects of your life that fulfill different roles and needs you might have…” Concepts and Resources Discussed      National Council of Architectural Registration Boards       Panopticon      Ethnography      Public Housing      Robert Taylor Homes      Lean Manufacturing      Value Engineering Jenny's Education      Cornel Architecture      University of Chicago Companies & Organizations Discussed      Proteus Group      Skender      Young Women Warrio

In this episode, Alison Wade and Jessie Shternshus chat with Kristen Brillantes, a woman who is a go-getter who inspires other entrepreneurial women. You can find Kristen in front of the room facilitating workshops or behind the scenes coaching and collaborating with executives and teams to evolve the way they work. She understands the intersection of craft, productivity, and relationships and does whatever it takes to empower people to build resilient, high-functioning organizations. Kristen Brillantes is currently the Design Operations at Stripe and the Co-Founder & CEO of The Sarap Shop.

What does sociology and the study of technology have to do with DesignOps? Everything! Lou sits down with Jacqui Frey, Director of Design Operations at MailChimp, to discuss her upcoming talk at the 2018 DesignOps Summit and why studying technology’s interconnectedness relates to all aspects of DesignOps. Reading recommendations from Jacqui: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Joins us at the 2019 DesignOps Summit: https://designopssummit.com

Josh Silverman ran Design Operations for Twitter’s product design team and has been founding and scaling design businesses for over 20 years.

In this episode Zeke and Matt talk about "operationalizing" parts of the product development process. This idea and way of working is becoming more and more prevalent in our industry. This may be new to many people out there (Matt included) so let's define just what this means and explore the possibilities. Dev Ops is likely a term you've heard before (though perhaps the definition was a bit hazy). And maybe the same goes for Design Ops (though this term is a little newer). The fruits of working in this way has turned out to be pretty obvious on the development side of things, but can we apply these same concepts to other parts of the product development process? We sure can and that's exactly what is beginning to happen. Zeke and Matt will dig into what this actually means and how this works in both the design and development portions of any project.

A lot of companies are investing more in design. As they do, the organization scales. As it scales, it has to operationalize, become more efficient, and plug into the rest of the company—but what makes all that possible? In this episode, Pinterest’s Head of Design Operations Meredith Black talks about the emerging practice of DesignOps, and how she introduced it to Pinterest more than three years ago. Meredith covers everything from when it’s time to start building a DesignOps team to advice for getting started. She even reveals where she finds most of her best hires. Listen as Eli and Aarron chat with Meredith about starting and growing a DesignOps practice—and how she nearly joined the FBI before finding herself in a different kind of “ops” career. Meredith's bio Meredith Black is the Head of Design Operations at Pinterest, where she's pioneered the Design Program Management organization and grown it to 11 design program managers in almost four years. Within Product Design, she’s also responsible for operations, recruiting, resourcing and risk management. Prior to Pinterest, Meredith worked at design firms Hot Studio (acquired by Facebook) and IDEO. Her love for design runs deep. Real deep.

In this "Spotlight on Leaders in Creative Operations" episode, Host Nish Patel discusses the role of Design Operations at 3M with Lisa Price - Design Operations Director. www.mmm.com www.creativeopshub.com www.creativeoperationssummit.com www.twitter.com/nishpatel ideas@creativeopshub.com