DesignOps and Scaling the Power of Design
Zalando Design Leadership Series with Gloria Rupprecht
“It will feel like boiling an ocean,” said Dave Malouf in a talk about product design operations, just two weeks before I myself started in that position. It was a sentiment that made me feel both frightened and excited.
Three months later I’ve begun to understand what I signed up for and yes, there are days when I feel like I’m throwing a candle in the ocean. But I am growing everyday with the challenges, and the design community is growing with me, and in the end that makes it all worth it.
First, a bit of context. I’ve worked at Zalando since 2014 as a designer and researcher and I am the first design operations lead. We currently have 71 designers and researchers spread across different departments. The designers are building software and experiences for three different user groups: consumers who buy fashion and beauty products, Zalando partners (brands, merchants, influencers, etc.) and colleagues using internal tools (buyers, content creators, warehouse staff, etc.).
I am a chaos absorber, therapist, diplomat and older sister all in one!
Designers may work in centralized teams (i.e. building a design system), or be embedded in agile teams along with product managers and engineers. I am one of nine product design leads who report to our VP of design, Anne Pascual. Anne focuses on creating and maintaining a design strategy, whereas I focus on the organizational aspects of our team.
A lot of my day is spent building relationships and trust with three different types of stakeholders: designers and researchers, their leads and people who want designers on their teams (dedicated owners, product owners). Of course sometimes stakeholders have competing needs, so I engage in a lot of diplomacy and juggling of priorities. A successful design ops leader must be stress resistant and remain approachable no matter the internal struggles. I am a chaos absorber, therapist, diplomat and older sister all in one! My core tasks, I believe, are creating a safe space where everyone can feel they are being heard and respected, and building a healthy, inspiring environment where everyone can be their creative best.
A lot of my day is spent building relationships and trust.
When dealing with various stakeholders with different needs I have to wear many hats, but everything I do is inspired by the need to nurture the design community to set them up for success, and to increase the value of the organization’s investment in design. My days are mostly spent on the following tasks:
Recruiting
I’m obviously involved in interviewing product designers, but not just. We are currently redesigning the hiring process across Zalando and I’m helping train others, designers and non-designers, on the new system. I’m always asking, how do I grow the team across different departments and keep the standards high?
Task and resource alignment
This is all about prioritizing. How do we match the limited resources to the many projects? How do we make sure that the designers we do have are assigned to the right projects and topics?
Increasing design maturity
This is a big one. How do we scale the impact of design across the company when dealing with limited resources? How do we educate others in the organization (B2C, B2B and B2E) about the value of design?
Defining the job family
This involves creating a strategy for how we will grow and helping to define the competencies, mindsets, values and hard skills a person must have at Zalando to be part of our product design job family.
Ways of working
We are constantly working on improving how designers collaborate with product managers and engineers, as well their own leads… improving team health overall
Nurturing design community
One of my favorite parts of the job is being a sort of psychologist to the designers. Of course, I want them to be able to come to me with any issues they might be having. But it’s not just about problems…I value constructive people who want to take action and I love when the designers come to me with their ideas, proposals for conferences or events, or even just a chat! I also try to look out for the designers and always have their back, shielding them from tasks that don’t meet their core capabilities…too many of these and they won’t be able to be creative anymore.
Employer branding
As we grow our design team we want to present ourselves to the outside world as a potential place to work as well. I work closely with the employer branding team to attract the best talent we can through things like conference planning, sponsoring meetups, instagram and our design blog, which you happen to be reading right now!
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I am not doing any of this by myself, of course, no one could. We’re a big community and everyone gives their part. And we are always looking for great people. So if this is an environment you’d like to work in as a designer or researcher, and would like to help me heat up that ocean, please get in touch!
Gloria is product design operations lead with Zalando. Check her out on Linkedin or Instagram.
