Rosenfeld Review Podcast

The Design Conductors with Rachel Posman and John Calhoun

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
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations by Rachel Posman and John Calhoun https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/design-operations/ 
99 Percent Invisible Podcast https://99percentinvisible.org/ 
Adam Grant https://adamgrant.net/ 
 
Quotes:
“We use the methods of designers. The only difference is the experiences that we're making are the experience of making. It's the processes, not the pixels. It's the people, not the product.”
“Design ops is a form of design.”
“Operations can be invisible, especially if it’s done well.”
“Visibility is the most vital thing to be focusing on. You can't expect executives and stakeholders to invest in and prioritize your team's efforts without making your work visible.”

Co-Creating Operating Models for Design Teams with Daniel Orbach

The best operating models for design orgs are mission-driven, evolving, and team-developed. Those criteria might seem daunting, but Daniel Orbach, Lou’s guest and a speaker at September’s DesignOps Summit, explains how he facilitates a dynamic culture of co-creating with his team at JP Morgan Chase. Daniel outlines his framework, one where the whole team is involved. It’s a dynamic, fluid process that builds teamwork, creates buy-in, and establishes a framework of periodic review, which encourages continual evolution.
Lou and Daniel discuss the impact of rituals and mission statements on both teams and individuals. They also explore the impact of a team’s operating models on the broader organization and how interactions with various teams can foster shared understanding within the broader context of the organization. 
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How mission statements can inspire and drive operating models
The power of organic rituals and the unusual, unifying ritual of Daniel’s team at JP Morgan Chase
How cross-pollinating between teams can create a shared vocabulary and increase understanding
 
Quick Reference Guide:
2:36 - Introduction of Daniel
3:14 - Co-creating operating models with a team
4:33 - On mission and operating models
7:19 - Quarterly impact retrospectives
9:16 - Rituals and mission 
12:55 - Co-creating operating models
15:34 - Why you need the Rosenverse
18:39 - Operating models’ effects on broader organizations
21:00 - Shared vocabulary
23:07 - Cross-pollinating in organizations to facilitate shared understanding
25:05 - Operating models and the individual
28:09 - Daniel’s gift for the audience
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
DesignOps Summit
Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by John Coram https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316796883
Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush https://www.amazon.com/Pieces-Action-Vannevar-Bush/dp/1953953204 
 
Quotes:
“If we’re going to develop a healthy operating model, we need a team mission.” 
“The operating model isn’t static. It’s a contract, but it’s something that you continue to evolve over time.”
“Inspiration is a strong motivator. It provides clarity, especially in moments of adversity.”
“The rituals and ceremonies are a scaffolding for our culture.” 
“Openness as a leader, telling the team, ‘I'm open to evolving this. You also have a pen to write the story with me,’ is a huge lever you can pull to get the team bought in and get them owning the process.”
“You either happen to work or work happens to you. Having a strong personal operating model is the best defense against having work happen to you.”

Data-Driven Design with John Paul de Guzman

Being simultaneously data-driven and creative seems paradoxical. So does building statistics into the creative process. John Paul de Guzman has managed to do both. As the founder and chief creative of Frost Design and Consulting Group, and speaker at the upcoming Design Ops Summit, millions of Filipinos have been impacted by their work with major FinTech and telecom projects. 
Much of the UX/UI talent in the Philippines is self-taught, often struggling with the gap between academic training and industry expectations. To address this, JP developed a systematic approach to training and design processes.  
JP and Lou discuss how Frost has embraced data-driven design, which, contrary to the creative chaos one might expect, has led to more efficient workflows and better client outcomes. By integrating tools like Trello and Figma, and leveraging AI for task management, JP has significantly reduced administrative overhead. This approach allows designers to focus on their work rather than getting bogged down in busywork. They can track work in real-time, eliminating the need for status meetings and improving overall productivity—a win-win for both the team and their clients.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How JP and his team at Frost systematically integrated data into their creative processes
How JP addressed the talent gap in his company
The tools he uses to track workflows and achieve always-current status on projects
How probabilistic analysis helps predict project timelines and manage client expectations more accurately
How JP is integrating AP in the project-tracking process
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:13 - Introduction of John Paul
2:16 - The path that got John Paul where he is today
5:18 - What it means to be data-driven
8:39 - Systematizing the data-driven design process by tracking workflows
11:58 - Mapping the workflow
16:01 - Break
18:45 - Tools for probabilistic analysis and managing time
24:11 - The level of granularity John Paul’s team tracks
25:56 - Handling aspects of work that are more conceptual and difficult to atomize
30:46 -  John Paul’s gift for listeners
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
DesignOps Summit 2024 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designops-summit/2024/ 
John Paul’s free boot camp for designers
 
Quotes:
“There’s a downside to having so much talent.” 
“When you add more people, quality starts to degrade.”
“It's because of the way we track this data and then use them to our benefit that we're able to understand not only the flow of the work but also the nuance of how the work is being done.”
“[Thanks to AI,] rather than tracking the work, we actually do the work.”
“The big advantage of this – nobody needs to ask what the status of the work is.”

Evaluating Designers with Ignacio Martinez

Giving feedback to subordinates can be just as stressful as receiving it. Yet evaluations are a critical component of retention, employer/employee expectations, and production in general. Having an evaluation framework and system in place creates efficiencies, fills voids, and benefits everyone on the team. Enter Ignacio Martinez, associate director at Grand Studio in Chicago. He’ll be delivering a talk at the Design Ops Summit in September, “Fair and Effective Designer Evaluation”.  
In this podcast episode, Ignacio and Lou explore the importance of a well-structured evaluation framework that highlights “glows and grows” in the areas of craft, quality, client interaction, and teamwork. Ignacio’s system, built on the very accessible Google Sheets, combines quantitative metrics with qualitative feedback to reduce bias and offer a comprehensive assessment of designers' performance. His framework allows for continuous feedback from peers, project directors, and supervisors. 
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
The principles and methodologies behind creating a fair and effective designer evaluation system
How contributions from peers, career managers, and directors can create a robust evaluation system
The importance of a structured framework with clear categories and traits such as craft, quality, client interaction, and teamwork.
The benefits of incorporating both quantitative metrics and qualitative feedback to minimize bias and provide comprehensive evaluations.
How to create a framework for continuous ongoing feedback from peers, project directors, and supervisors
How evaluation criteria may evolve based on internal priorities
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:13 - Intro of Ignacio
3:54 - Evaluating designers then and now
6:32 - Gut feelings versus using a system
8:27 - Defining desired traits and levels
11:49 - The framework of the documentation
14:54 - The Rosenverse
17:34 - Who are the evaluators? Are they biased? Are they anonymous? 
21:33 - The frequency of evaluations 
22:36 - Consider what makes the business run
26:05 - The importance of transparency
26:51 - Ignacio’s gift for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Blurb of Ignacio’s “Fair and Effective Designer Evaluation” https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designops-summit/2024/sessions/fair-and-effective-designer-evaluation/ 
Design Ops Summit - September 23-25 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/designops-summit/2024/
Rosenverse https://rosenfeldmedia.com/rosenverse/
Donald Glover https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2255973/
 
Quotes:
“We wanted to make sure that designers felt comfortable in how they were being evaluated.”
“We want a generalized designer with a lot of ambiguity, which is something that we deal with a lot, and be able to use a lot of different skill sets.”

All about ResearchOps with Kate Towsey

Kate Towsey has certainly left her mark on research operations, pioneering the practice, helping launch the ResearchOps community, and now through writing Research That Scales: The Research Operations Handbook, which Rosenfeld Media is publishing in September of 2024.
In her interview with Lou, Kate reflects on her journey from content strategist to a pivotal figure in the research operations community. She recounts her early days at the UK Government Digital Service, where she unexpectedly found herself building research labs, and later at Atlassian, where she helped develop systems to manage vast amounts of research data. Through her work, Kate realized the need for a more structured approach to research operations, leading to facilitating a global ResearchOps community. Oh, and along the way, she coined the term “PWDR” (“People Who Do Research”).
The conversation delves into the strategic importance of ResearchOps, emphasizing that it’s much more than just administrative support—it's about designing systems that enable organizations to effectively learn and innovate. Kate likens research operations to city planning, highlighting the need for strategy to build successful, sustainable systems.
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How Kate’s early work in content strategy and her experiences at the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) led to the work she does today
The importance of aligning research operations with a clear research strategy
How research operations have evolved over the years
The distinction between research and insights, and the value of turning research findings into actionable insights that drive decision-making
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:27 - Introduction of Kate and her book
3:32 - Kate’s ah-ha moment
9:38 - Facilitating a global conversation before writing the book
11:47 - 8 elements unique to operations
14:09 - The Rosenverse
16:56 - Defining research operations
16:15 - Strategy in operations
20:50 - A story from overlooking the Hudson River in 2018
23:58 - On insight
27:14 - Human-centered research 
32:04 - Kate’s gift for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Research That Scales: The Research Operations Handbook by Kate Towsey https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/research-that-scales/ 
Cha-Cha Club https://chacha.club/ 
 
Quotes:
“I feel like we have to have strategy to get through our lives.” 
“One of my biggest goals for this year is to make sure that we can continue to shift the notion that research operations is administrative help.”
“Research operations design all of the systems that enable people of all types to commute to the research landscape.”
“You can only set out operations when you know what you're setting out operations for.”
“How do we get people to have that inward sight about something so that we can actually have results? Otherwise, it's just really well done research.”
“My hope is that you read it once and you’re just reprogrammed to be able to think operationally.”

Advancing Service Design with Ben Reason and Patrick Quattlebaum

Is it time to advance the practice of service design? 
Ben Reason and Patrick Quattlebaum think so. They’re veteran service designers and co-authors of a pair of Rosenfeld books—Service Design: From Insight to Implementation and Orchestrating Experiences respectively.
Ben, founder of LiveWork Studio, and Patrick, who founded Harmonic Design in Atlanta, join Lou to talk about launching a new Rosenfeld conference—Advancing Service Design—designed to highlight the service design’s potential for a new generation. They see opportunities for service design to go deeper—by integrating with and strengthening existing practices, like product management and agile, and broader—by better connecting systems that span multiple organizations (think healthcare).
Working with the Rosenfeld team, they’re creating a conference program that you can be a part of—they describe the kinds of presentation proposals they’re looking for from prospective speakers. Patrick and Ben hope you’ll join them in advancing service design; the conference will take place virtually December 3-4. 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
The real meaning of service design
How service design is evolving
Some crucial differences between work in the North America and Europe
Why communication between organizations is so important
How the upcoming conference will inspire and support you
How to contribute and become part of the upcoming case studies 
How the panel discussions at the December conference will be different
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:15 - Introduction to Ben and Patrick
1:50 - Being change agents to take Service Design to the next level
5:03 - Announcing a new conference: Advancing Service Design– Looking at Service Design Through Different Lenses
6:05 - Perspectives on different sides of the Atlantic
11:30 - Why service design exists in the first place 
12:38 - More about the upcoming December virtual conference
17:40 - Call for proposals for the case studies and what they are looking for
19:00 - Ben’s ideas for the conference: The next iteration of service design going from within an organization to between multiple organizations
21:09 - Patrick’s ideas for the conference: Getting the people who want to transform things to communicate and the complexity of partnering together
23:05 - Bringing success from the inside
24:45 - Commercial break
27:10 - Personal story from Patrick about communication highlighting the broader concept of the case studies for the conference  
32:30 - Personal story from Ben about connection across systems
37:16 - A different type of panel discussion to be at the conference
40:15 - Gifts for listeners
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Apply to speak at ASD2024 https://rosenfeldmedia.com/apply-to-speak-at-advancing-service-design-a-new-conference-from-rosenfeld/ 
LiveWork Studio  https://liveworkstudio.com/
Harmonic Design https://thisisharmonic.com/
Service Design: Form Insight to Innovation by Andy Polaine, Ben Reason & Lavrans Løvlie https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/service-design/
Orchestrating Experiences: Collaborative Design for Complexity by Chris Risdon and Patrick Quattlebaum https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/orchestrating-experiences/
Movie: Clueless  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112697/
The Ready  https://www.theready.com/
Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan  https://www.bravenewwork.com/
 
Quotes:
“We have to keep evolving in order to make impact.” 
“The reason service design exists is because services were being, and are still being, significantly disrupted by information technology and digital.”    
“When you really boil it down, there’s a handful of things we’re all trying to accomplish, and we’re better together.” 
“Everyone’s trying to transform. Can we get some of the transformers to talk together?”
“The value of service design in these contexts is to address human factors that are impediments to change.”
“In those stories, the service designers are the protagonists, but there’s these other roles, these other disciplines and roles and practices within the organization. I’m interested in having a panel of those people.”

Making a Classic Even Better with Leah Buley and Joe Natoli

Leah Buley and Joe Natoli have teamed up to make something great (check out the reviews on Amazon!) even greater. How? Well, considering that The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide was written more than a decade ago, it was time to revisit the content and make it even more relevant for today’s UX teams. After all, times have changed. 
But the fundamental principles of the original book haven’t changed. They are as solid today as they were 11 years ago. What has changed is that the methods have been adapted for the speed of change in today’s businesses. 
Joe says it best: “These methods are shorter. They're simpler. They’re more direct in a lot of ways, and they cut to the chase in a way that longer processes don’t. I've met plenty of senior people who are throwing up their hands and going, ‘We're doing all the things. Why isn't this working?’ And the truth is, they're kind of overworking and overthinking. Everything in this book is practical and direct and gets you from point A to B. I just don't think there's any better way to get there.”
 
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
About Leah’s experience as a solo UX practitioner and the inspiration behind the first edition of UX Team of One
How the UX field has changed over the past decade
How the second edition aims to provide comprehensive yet practical UX methods that can be applied in various organizational settings
About the shortcomings of UX boot camps and educational programs 
A perspective that balances UX advocacy with business objectives and the reality of corporate politics
How to navigate and thrive in a UX career despite industry challenges, focusing on practical, adaptable methods and tools.
Quick Reference Guide:
0:46 - Introduction of Leah and Joe
1:33 - The User Experience Team of One, second edition
6:46 - Large or small team, Leah and Joe’s book is comprehensive without being overwhelming 
8:58 - Righting wrongs
12:14 - What’s new in the second edition – striving to do more with less
15:58 - Break - plug for the Rosenverse
18:20 - The current shitstorm
21:39 - On speed
24:40 - On toolkits. Tools and methods are two different things. 
28:16 - Who needs The User Experience Team of One?
30:45 - Leah and Joe’s gifts for the audience
 
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Act-Way-Being/dp/0593652886 
Jakob Bro, jazz guitarist https://jakobbro.com/web/ 
Confessions of a Pricing Man by Hermann Simon https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Pricing-Man-Affects-Everything/dp/3319203991 
Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe https://www.amazon.com/Bonfire-Vanities-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0312427573 
The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide by Leah Buley and Joe Natoli https://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/the-user-experience-team-of-one-second-edition/ 
 
Quotes:
“This book is like the short course to get into work really fast. And it's optimized for how it really goes down.”
“I want simple, and I want practical because I think the world is messy. And I think work that happens inside corporate organizations is, by its very nature, messy – people, politics, pressure from all these different places that have nothing to do with product design.”
“Nobody talks about the fact that all these  detailed processes  will not fly in an organization that is obsessed with speed.”
“What we do – which is, for the most part, make digital products actually usable – is just increasingly and ever more and more central to every business. That is not going to go away at all.”
“We're still, now and in the foreseeable future, going to need to have people who know how to have a conversation with the customer.”
“If the world is not going to wait for us, then we have to adapt. The work is still worth doing.”

Make Things Better, Not Just Different with Erin Weigel

Have you ever thought about the similarities between art and science? Or about how math is the language of the universe? No? Welcome to a perspective shift. Ultimately this episode is about making things better, not just different. But how we get there is through a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with the witty and philosophical Erin Weigel.
Erin Weigel wants us to make things better, not just different. But how do we get there?
Lou had a thoughtful and entertaining discussion with Erin, always witty and philosophical—and often funny as hell. Join them on a perspective-shifting conversation that bridges disciplines and challenges conventional thinking, all in the pursuit of genuine improvement.
Erin is the author of the recently published Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments. She brings a fresh, accessible, and humor-filled take on what may seem like a dry topic: experimentation. Erin digs into the role of experimentation in design, advocating for always defaulting to experiments even if they’re the quick and dirty kind.
Erin and Lou also cover the following:
Wonky stuff like normal distributions, the central limit theorem, and what can be learned from outliers
The power of experiments to unite multidisciplinary teams by getting away from opinions and finding the truth
How professionals can use the principles of experimentation to navigate uncertainties and drive meaningful improvements
Discerning the impact of changes made
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
How Erin, with a fine arts background, became the principal designer at Booking.com and the Senior Group Product Design Manager at Deliveroo
The fundamental similarities between art and science
Why you should never skip the experimental phase
How experimentation unites people across disciplines
The difference between making things different and making them better
 
Quick Reference Guide:
0:32 - Introduction of Erin; similarities between art and science
4:05 - Barriers between art and science
5:58 - Statistics is fun!
12:37 - Defaulting to experimentation
18:06 - Break - 5 reasons to use the Rosenverse
20:36 - Experimentation as a uniting force
25:49 - Make things better, not just different
28:32 - Erin’s gift for listeners
Resources and Links from Today's Episode:
Design for Impact: Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments by Erin Weigel
Ologies Podcast with Allie Ward
Rosenverse
Factfulness: 10 Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and 10 Reasons  Why Things are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
 
Quotes:
“There's a closer connection between art and science than people typically see on the surface.”
“The second I reframed math as a language in my brain, it became a lot less scary because I love learning languages. . . Math is the language of the universe.”
“Experimentation does have a language of its own and it uses all these different parts of your brain.”
“Make things better, not just different.”