How a DesignOps mindset can help you reach your design community’s highest potential
Learn how Zalando empowers its product design community to fine-tune its craft and grow meaningfully together.
DesignOps is to product design what infrastructure is to innovation. It is a valuable investment in the foundations that support optimal functioning and long-term growth in a design community. DesignOps, as the Nielsen Norman Group defines it, “refers to the orchestration and optimisation of people, processes, and craft in order to amplify design’s value and impact at scale.” That could mean strengthening team connections through community events or programmes, streamlining ways of working or providing training or resources to develop key skills or interests.
There are two approaches to DesignOps: the role, having a dedicated team, and the mindset, that anyone in the design community can contribute to DesignOps. Whether or not the organisation has a dedicated DesignOps team, establishing the mindset is crucial. When individual contributors are empowered to make an impact on the community level — focusing on people, processes, and craft — it helps us form a culture of effective collaboration so that we can all reach our highest potential.
DesignOps at Zalando
Implementing a DesignOps mindset means anyone in the community can contribute to an ecosystem of standardised processes, methods, and tools that support design and allow it to scale efficiently. At Zalando, a dedicated team of six was also established to further enable the design community to develop in four key areas: Community (creating connections at scale), Learning and Development (learning opportunities and training), ResearchOps (access to knowledge, tools, and communication channels), and Ways of Working (streamlining processes and operational tasks, and promoting team health).
“Our community of Product Designers, User Researchers, and Content Designers needs to work together synergistically,” explains Chad Wright, DesignOps Manager. “Applying the design mindset, the DesignOps team seeks holistic understanding of teams, disciplines, and people throughout their careers, so that we can create solutions that respond to the nuanced needs and challenges of the entire community. Crucially, we try where we can to track and measure efficacy to continually improve and scale this practice. Everything we do aims to amplify the impact and value of design for the business.”
“The end goal of the DesignOps team is enabling designers to do what they do best: design,” says Alejandra Molano, Senior DesignOps Manager. “Our responsibility is to help them by optimising as many of the operational tasks and processes on their plate as we can while enabling them to experiment and make their ideas a reality.”
Through DesignOps, our community can develop key management skills or explore topics of interest outside of project work. They can also contribute their knowledge and experience, forming best practices to share with the community. DesignOps allows the entire community to shine, including less outspoken talents, encouraging them to express themselves, showcase their skills, and drive topics within a safe space.
How is the DesignOps mindset activated in Zalando’s design community? Read on to learn about some people- and process-focused initiatives created in collaboration with members of our community. And learn our tips on how to apply the DesignOps mindset in your team.
Frameworks for healthy growth
A strong feedback culture underpins all progress at Zalando, and retrospectives are one of the universal ways teams check in on wellbeing, evaluate their ways of working, and cultivate psychological safety. After successfully organising engaging retrospectives in his team, Sriram Venugopal, Senior Product Designer, was invited to create a template that could quickly and easily be implemented by any team.
“Teams can customise the template based on their needs,” Sriram explains. “From the sailboat to the starfish, we incorporated multiple retrospective formats that address various problems. Most importantly, the template provides a basis for healthy conversation, helping teams understand each other better and build relationships — crucial in a community as diverse as ours. Collaborating with DesignOps provided a great opportunity to share the template more widely and evolve it.”
Team bonding is an essential component of any healthy team, cultivating a strong team culture that benefits collaboration. Sophie Nothnick, Senior Product Designer, created a team-bonding workshop in her team that she wanted to test with others, for which DesignOps provided the ideal platform. “The workshop goes deeper than the traditional team-bonding activities we all know, focusing on personalities, preferences, and empathy,” Sophie explains. “It creates a safe space to be vulnerable and to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and where we can support each other. After receiving positive feedback, I worked with DesignOps to bring its benefits to the community. It was a wonderful opportunity to validate my assumptions and strengthen my skills while learning more about my colleagues.”
Another people-focused DesignOps success story is Zalando’s mentorship programme, established by Alejandra Molano, Senior DesignOps Manager, Emrah Saribaz, Product Design Manager, and two designers from our community, Xen Szymczak and Alex Simon. The programme provides all the necessary tools to connect and enable mentors and mentees, fuelling our collective progress. With a focus on flexibility and mutual growth, mentorships at Zalando are a supportive starting point for personal and professional development.
A starting point for design exploration
Senior Product Designer Abhijeet Wankhade’s revamp of Zalando’s Sitemap is an excellent example of how the DesignOps mindset empowers our community to implement their ideas on improving processes. The Sitemap is a Figma file that provides visibility on the structure, connections, and ownership of different Zalando domains — an easy and visual way to understand different customer journeys. Though each team is responsible for maintaining their part of the Sitemap, a lack of clear guidance on this process meant that it had become outdated.
“We talked to designers to understand how they used the Sitemap, discovering that it was often a starting point for design explorations and inspiration,” Abhijeet explains. “However, this useful application of the Sitemap was counteracted by the irregularity of its updates. We addressed this issue by creating a contribution guide, collaborating with design managers to establish a monthly contribution ritual, and conducting an in-person workshop for contributors. We plan to continue iterating on it with the community.”
Ambassadors for sharing knowledge
Sergei Puchkin, Senior DesignOps Manager, established the DesignOps Ambassador Groups, encouraging community members to share their knowledge about tools, design practices, and process optimisation. Smoother design processes enable more efficient teamwork and raise design standards, resulting in a better experience for our customers. “For each tool, such as Figma and Figjam, we created a group of enthusiasts,” he explains. “Together we find bottlenecks in processes, come up with new approaches, create new templates and, by implementing them, support the community.”
Senior Product Designer, Thiago Tomasi’s accessibility checklist scales our design practices as well as the potential impact for customers, allowing designers to check accessibility issues in their projects at different stages of solution design.
Product Designer Gonzalo Vasquez and Senior Product Designer Santiago Camargo’s contribution is a great example of an initiative straddling processes and people. They created two one-hour training sessions for non-visual designers to enhance their skills in Figma. Initiatives like these not only increase the overall skill level but establish a close relationship between various disciplines.
Cultivating close connections
Strengthening team connections through community events is essential to applying the DesignOps mindset. The happier people are, and the better their collaboration, the more likely they will have fruitful careers. In fact, businesses with happy employees outperform the stock market by a factor of three. As well as organising events, Gare Anighoro, our DesignOps Community Manager, enables the community to lead initiatives themselves.
“Our Design Community Breakfast is a well-received initiative,” he explains, “offering a monthly opportunity to connect with others. In 2024, we’re enhancing the experience by allowing teams to host sessions. This provides a platform for teams to share more about their work, fostering cross-team learning and collaboration over food, drinks, and coffee to kickstart the day.”
Our recent Bonfire, the second edition of our end-of-year design event, was led by community members. It featured half-day workshops, an end-of-year wrap-up, and our design community awards. “The community appreciated the hybrid format,” says Gare, “providing us with the opportunity to acknowledge each other and celebrate our collective achievements.”
How to apply the DesignOps mindset
As Sergei says, “Establishing the DesignOps mindset within a design community serves as a unifying force that helps align diverse teams, breaks down silos, and forms a culture of effective collaboration.” So what are some effective ways we can all apply the DesignOps mindset, whether or not we have a dedicated DesignOps team? Sergei and Alejandra share their advice.
Cultivate communication and psychological safety
“The DesignOps mindset thrives in design teams that communicate often and give good visibility to their current challenges and the solutions they come up with,” says Alejandra. “This is especially important in big teams working remotely.”
Cultivating psychological safety is crucial. “Create a space that allows team members to feel comfortable sharing their ideas and experiences,” Sergei advises. Regular opportunities for informal exchange, provided by community events, forge empathy and strengthen connections.
Establish a feedback loop
Integral to the DesignOps mindset is a feedback loop with the community, enabling us to measure the impact of initiatives. “When teams can look back, evaluate their achievements, make changes, and continue to iterate together, it makes people feel valued and our processes smoother,” says Sergei. This feedback loop also applies to the practice of DesignOps teams. As well as tracking the success of initiatives, Sergei and Alejandra implemented a community survey to validate their assumptions and continually identify what to improve on next.
Celebrate, support, and empower the community
“Be always on the lookout, across teams and business units, for areas in which you can provide support for people who want to share their knowledge and explore their passions, or for practices that can be celebrated and shared to help us grow as a community,” Alejandra suggests. “Sharing success stories and case studies, implementing frequent knowledge shares, and documenting it all are key to establishing the DesignOps mindset. By nature, designers will want to solve problems or fill the gaps they find in their day-to-day work. Most of them will quickly come up with great ideas on how to improve things. The DesignOps mindset means supporting and enabling individuals to implement these initiatives while nurturing their growth.”
Do you have any tips on how to apply the DesignOps mindset? Let us know in the comments! Next, 24 members of our community share the developments we can expect to see in the product design industry this year.
