Rachel Posman and John Calhoun, seasoned DesignOps professionals from Salesforce, share their insights on harmonizing design and operations. They creatively parallel music orchestration to team coordination, emphasizing the artistry involved in DesignOps. They also discuss the evolution of the discipline and their new book, the first of its kind, which guides both newcomers and veterans. With a focus on advocating for the value of design operations, they stress the need for visibility and recognition of the critical contributions made by DesignOps teams.
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insights INSIGHT
The Musicality of DesignOps
Design operations incorporates orchestration, coordinating teams like a conductor leads an orchestra.
It blends design and management, emphasizing the often-underestimated creative aspects of design operations.
insights INSIGHT
Designing Design
Design operations (DesignOps) can be viewed as "designing design."
It applies creative and artistic principles to operational processes.
question_answer ANECDOTE
The Art of Operations
Lou Rosenfeld expresses frustration with traditional creatives who undervalue the artistry in non-traditional fields.
John and Rachel emphasize that DesignOps practitioners often have design backgrounds and apply design thinking.
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The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations
The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations
John Calhoun
Rachel Posman
The Power Broker
Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Robert Caro
This book is a monumental biography of Robert Moses, who was the single most powerful man in New York City and State during his time. It explores how Moses accumulated and wielded power, shaping the city through his public works projects, including highways, bridges, and parks. The book delves into Moses's early life, his idealistic beginnings, and his transformation into a powerful figure who dominated New York's politics without ever being elected. It also highlights the social and environmental impacts of his projects and his eventual fall from power. The biography is renowned for its detailed and nuanced portrayal of power dynamics in urban politics[2][4][5].
What do music and DesignOps have in common? So much that Rachel Posman and John Calhoun use music as a framework for their new book, The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations—the first book written about the subject. Both of the authors come from creative backgrounds (John as a musician, Rachel as a ballet dancer), and they describe how their personal experiences influenced their approach to the book and their work.
The music analogies are plenty. One example is the importance of orchestration in design operations, equating it to coordinating a team to work harmoniously, much like a conductor leading an orchestra. Rachel and John explain that design operations is a creative process, blending design and management, and that those creative aspects are often underestimated.
They highlight the maturing nature of design operations as a discipline, noting that the book fills a gap in resources for both newcomers and experienced professionals. The book is structured in two acts (another musical metaphor): the fundamentals of DesignOps, and the practical, tactical methods for building and scaling teams.
Rachel and John also discuss some common challenges in DesignOps, like making the invisible work visible and advocating for the value of the discipline. They stress the importance of "working loudly" to ensure that the contributions of design ops teams are recognized so that teams are properly resourced.
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- Why Rachel and John chose a musical metaphor to use in their book
- Why Rachel and John decided to write the first book on Design Ops
- How the book is formatted and why there is something for everyone
- Why Rachel encourages her team to “work louder”
Quick Reference Guide:
0:24 - Introduction of Rachel and John
2:45 - Brining a music metaphor to design ops and highlighting the creativity within operations
6:53 - The design materials of operations
7:42 - Communication
9:40 - Building the plane while flying
11:06 - What the book covers and who it’s for
14:22 - 5 reasons you need the Rosenverse
17:14 - The journey readers can expect to take
21:07 - The big errors and challenges in design ops
23:34 - Ideas for working loud and being visible
27:06 - Gifts for listeners
Rosenfeld Review Podcast 