3 Fundamentals for enterprise DesignOps success

As businesses continue to adapt to the changes brought on by the COVID pandemic, many need help with demand and capacity planning. How do you shuffle around resources, assign and manage people, and save time, money, and effort on your projects? 

We’ve been working with many companies facing these challenges in the last few years, and we’ve seen some common pain points emerge.

• Difficulty maximizing existing talent—leaders know their team has bandwidth, but the project still doesn’t feel efficient
• Concerns about work being done on time or quickly enough
• Struggling to effectively prioritize work within the team

These problems are widespread and can affect any team. In our experience, DesignOps is the answer.

What is DesignOps?

DesignOps (short for Design Operations) is a methodology for establishing processes and implementing scalable solutions that maximize efficiency on design projects.

DesignOps addresses challenges like:

• Prioritizing team work
• Developing a clear roadmap
• Implementing a clear order of operations
• Meeting deadlines with existing resources

Having solutions for these issues creates space for leadership to grow the business and allows designers and other team members to focus on their work.

The 3 fundamentals of DesignOps

DesignOps is made up of three fundamental elements:

1. People
2. Process
3. Tools

People

Focusing on the people element of a team includes examining skill development, team structure, and team management. This is where you clearly define team roles, including defining your project’s stakeholders—who are the deciders vs. the influencers? 

Process

Who’s busy? When is the work due? Do you have time to do it the way you’re doing it today? And if not—how else should you do it? When looking into your processes, estimating work and managing capacity appropriately are vital to ensuring your project’s success. 

Tools

Are you using the best tools for your team and project? Look at what you already have in-house and be open to bringing in a new tool that could help your process. Good tools will help make your team’s work more visible, collaborative, and transparent.

DesignOps for enterprise

When we work with enterprise clients, their teams face common challenges. By implementing DesignOps, we see leaders efficiently maximize existing team talent, meet deadlines more easily, and prioritize work in their projects. 

Is your organization starting a product design project? Chat with our team of experts about improving your DesignOps today.