To those about to ship, we salute you!

This blog is the culmination of more than 20 years of experience as a consultant and UX leader, in a variety of environments: from Silicon Valley startups to giant multi-national corporations, government, and non-profits. Although specific methods for getting the most from your DesignOps practice are often quite different, the practice usually delivers three key benefits:

1. Processes to streamline delivery from conception to code, so that you can innovate with confidence.
2. Continuous validation with customers, so you can ensure you maximize delivered value.
3. Collection of interface guidelines implemented by Dev as a set of reusable components, so you can ship faster.

I’m proud of what I and my teams have delivered over 20+ years. But at the end of the day, no matter how good our deliverables are, no matter how well-validated the designs, nor how streamlined our processes — they are not the product.

The *Product* is the Product.

Thus,

As a team, the emphasis of UX activity must be on SHIPPING. Shipping working code that delivers the most valuable functionality to the customer with the minimum effort.

I call this approach “UXecution”.

I will be sharing all of the time-tested, practical tips, hacks, and secrets I collected in my 20+ years of work to shipping faster and with less pain, and for making your DesignOps resourceful, efficient, and above all: effective and practical.

I will discuss:

• How to put together the ideal UX team
• How to work in creative harmony with Devs and PMs
• Why it’s important to be, to paraphrase Einstein, “As lazy as possible but no lazier”
• That aiming at perfection is folly, but aiming for an ideal solution is both an attainable and worthy goal.

You will save months of aggravation by not making useless updates to prototypes, creating reports no one reads, and polishing recordings no one listens to. You will also learn how to use your hallmark UX skills of observation, passion, and empathy to embrace both your customers and everyone in your organization as Experience Partners involved in an elegant cross-functional dance of product delivery.

All of the techniques in this blog build in the knowledge of myself, my team-mates, partners, and clients, who proved time and again that these techniques will help you ship consistently and quickly while maximizing the value delivered to the customer.

But don’t take my word for it — try them for yourself. See what works for you, what makes sense in your own organization, and watch new doors open with less effort than you ever thought possible. Now it’s up to you, the reader, to use these techniques and keep improving your own UXecution.

To those about to ship, we salute you!

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