top of page

5 Benefits of Scaling your Business with DesignOps


Ever heard that story of a design team that works pretty hard, but can’t provide the value that your client or you need, as a marketing manager? Unfortunately, that’s a common thing in business. But what most design and marketing departments don’t know are the benefits of the design operations team. Or better know was DesignOps.


What does it mean? Basically, as a marketing manager, you have to make sure that all the creative areas can work together to achieve a goal. But, in that way, you can’t take care of the inner process of design, methods, and crafts that the design team must work with. That’s part of the designers’ team. What happens with all the other activities they should do, apart from just creating a great design?


The DesignOps is in charge of all that, the surrounding tasks such as integration with other areas, making research to provide most of the information to the designers. And also make sure that the creative team has all the needed tools, coming from other areas, to perform at its best.


When DesignOps takes the lead


Some of the best online business is working with DesignOps managers and teams to ensure and leverage the design team operations. To name a few: Airbnb started working with a DesignOps team to run a highly integrated design org. And the inspiration to start it came from the DevOps movement, where a collab bridge between design and engineering was built.


“Our mission is to provide agility to the whole product organization through centralized tools, systems and services that enhance speed and quality of execution. Our functions include Design Program Management, Design Tools, Localization, Production Design and Team Coordinators. We work closely with Marketing, Product, Design and Engineering to create the best user experiences possible”, the DesignOps team manager said in this article


Another great example comes from LinkedIn, where after the DesignOps team was built, designers would have to take care of administrative work on half of their productive time. Meaning that they would stop designing to do some other task. This task is now part of the new team in charge of dealing with other duties, such as planning or communicating with our teams.

.

These are 5 Benefits of Having a Proper Team


Whether you’re part of a design agency or work with one, you need to make sure the teams are just working at its best. So here are some of the pros to work with a DesignOps team in between designers and other parts of the business.


1. DesignOps makes sure that the designers can focus only on their craft. They provide them with the right information, create a road map to the project, interact with others to give feedback or ideas. And so, by doing this, they take out a lot of time and energy- something that’s a very tiring position for a designer. In the long run, these prevent from burning out your team.


2. By having someone in between, they should be able to create efficient workflows. As they are in charge of communicating with other teams, up, down and across. Building cross-functional relationships is a key role of the DesignOps team. And so, they can understand and represent the design team with other teams along with the organization.


3. Another benefit is that because they know and understand deeply the need of the group, they can hire professionals with the right skills. And also they know perfectly the project, its timeline, and its budget.


4. Overall, DesignOps should optimize and make the most of the design teams. In some groups, designers wear so many hats that they can barely focus on what they do best. But with a person or a team meeting those issues, designers can address their role and devote to users and products.


5. Lastly, the DesignOps should be in charge of always looking what’s the next, how to improve and inspire their team. Inspiration, collaboration, and continuing education is something that requires someone to take care of. This could mean, for example, to get out of the office for offsites, providing educational opportunities to improve their skills and more.


So, if you’re looking to scale your design team, keep in mind there’s a professional and interesting path to take by hiring a DesignOps manager.



bottom of page