DesignOps work ranges from significant horizontal initiatives to minor logistical improvements. While larger initiatives tend to get more visibility, operational efficiencies can be just as impactful, especially when viewed collectively.
Here are some examples of the operational efficiencies I established at Citrix. While it’s been a few years, former teammates will tell me they’re still using some of the tools or processes or adopting them at their new gigs. It’s neat to hear about their longevity and impact.
Playbooks
At Citrix, the Product Design organization evolved and morphed through various company reorganizations, and our “how we work” documentation needed updating. Designers are visual folks by nature, so contributing, finding, or reading Confluence pages was no one’s idea of fun.
Inspired by Dianne Que’s presentation at DesignOps Summit 2019, I started documenting some of our operational information in playbooks. I chose Miro over a presentation tool to organize the playbook pages so my teammates could quickly scan them. The playbooks were a great way to inform the team without seeming too formal and intimidating.
In a year (and mostly on my own), I created 16 playbooks covering a broad range of topics, including:
- Setting career goals and giving feedback at Citrix
- Design system governance
- Designing for accessibility
- Designing for localization
- Story pointing for designers
- Running the Innovation & Planning sprint
- The Figma 101 starter kit
- Accessibility and localization coaches’ guides
Impact of the playbooks
I consistently received feedback on how helpful and engaging the playbooks are. It got to the point where people asked for more—and it worked out because I loved making them! They allowed the team to feel confident with our best practices and org processes. New hires also loved having this much information at their fingertips.
Tooling operations
Evaluating tools
I created a tool evaluation process to avoid becoming bedazzled by a new, shiny tool (we were guilty of it before). It worked well for us—we felt confident in our decision and we had concrete information to share with stakeholders. In 2024, I reworked this into a free guide and templates, Evaluate a design system tool in five days!
Sunsetting tools and archiving artifacts
At a large design organization and with years of work, we couldn’t just switch tools. There needed to be some sort of transition process. This was even trickier because so much of our work was in the tool’s cloud storage. I developed and facilitated a process for sunsetting tools and ensuring we archived our work according to our data retention policies. In less than a year, we worked through sunsetting three tools, which gave us plenty of opportunity to iterate and improve the process. For example, I advocated for hiring a contractor. This relieved our designers of the tedious work so they could focus on their projects and provided a cost-effective solution.
Adopting new tools
While there was excitement about adopting Figma, a few teammates were hesitant. I realized it was because of the learning curve and finding the time to learn something new while working on demanding projects. And there’s so much information out there that it can be overwhelming to know where to begin!
With the help of designers, we curated how-to content into a playbook that included links to articles, tutorials, and videos. Curating information allowed designers to focus on learning and adjusting to Figma. To support this, I also lobbied to get the design organization some focused time during our Innovation and Planning sprint so they wouldn’t have to learn outside of work. While it helped level up the organization’s skill set, it also made designers feel valued.
Improving team communications
At Citrix, our employee survey revealed that our team’s communication was unclear. There were many facets in play, but one was that communication was messy. We organically formed patterns and habits for how we communicated, but it wasn’t consistent across the organization or from person to person. People were missing important messages.
Another designer and I hosted a communications tool workshop to figure out a solution. From that, we got a sense of the successes and pain points with the tools we had. Our findings showed that people:
- Didn’t know which tool to use when (for example, “Should I use Slack or Teams?”)
- Were distracted by the noise these tools generated
- Were stressed because they couldn’t find important information
To make improvements, we created a few tools. She and another teammate created a simple decision tree on when to use which tool. We also created cheat sheets to help teammates get the most out of each tool. We included pro tips to reduce noise and feel more in control of the tool. Lastly, we audited Slack channels to create naming conventions and best practices.
Impact of the improvements
These adjustments streamlined communications within our org. Our work empowered teammates to communicate effectively and to find important information quickly. We all felt relieved and less stressed!
Story pointing for designers
People always raise their eyebrows when I say I taught designers how to story point their work. While at Citrix, I created a method and guidelines for this. Designers used this to break down their design activities and articulate their workload. When planning work, we had a shared sense of time and capacity to negotiate as needed.
Impact of story pointing
I always get asked if this actually worked—yes, it did! I love that this effort empowered designers to articulate how they’d like to design solutions. From when we started this to when I left, we used this method for a year and a half, and things still worked well. As we evolved, I created some more tools to make things easier. For example, I created a canvas to consider common “gotchas” that could affect pointing and timing. This empowered less seasoned designers to think more strategically with design solutions.
To learn more, check out my full case study of the first six months of this effort.
