The Design Conductors
Your Essential Guide to Design Operations
Your favorite apps and programs share one thing in common: they are all thoughtfully designed. Design Operations is the business practice that ensures great design and great designers thrive and deliver meaningful impact.
The Design Conductors is your comprehensive guide to DesignOps. You’ll learn how to successfully advocate for, build out, scale up, and ultimately operate design organizations.
PRAISE FOR THE DESIGN CONDUCTORS
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If you've been overwhelmed finding your place in the rapidly expanding universe of DesignOps, this book offers the ideal combination of broad perspectives and deep insights to give you direction on your journey.
JESSE JAMES GARRETT
Author of The Elements of User Experience
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Everyone needs this book - how is it possible we’ve not had anything like this until now?! It’s well written and exceptionally well-thought-through. I am impressed with how much goodness they manage to pack in - it's an essential guide for everyone!
PATRIZIA BERTINI
DesignOps Strategist and Leader
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Bravo! A maestro’s manual! Finally, a comprehensive look at how to establish, scale, and mature DesignOps no matter your org shape. Rachel and John say it loud for everyone in the cheap seats… DesignOps is Design!
DOMINIQUE WARD
Former Head of Design Operations, Atlassian
Rachel and John have crafted an invaluable resource with insights drawn from interviews with subject matter experts and years of hands-on experience, providing a solid foundation for how Design Operations contributes to building and managing effective design teams. In these pages, you’ll find an extensive collection of definitions, strategies, and best practices that you can put to work right away. Whether you're leading a small design team or managing a large-scale design organization, the principles laid out in this book will help you create a more cohesive, efficient, effective, and well-run team.
FOREWORD by KRISTIN SKINNER
Founder and Chief Experience Officer at &GSD, an Experience Design Collective and Co-author Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams
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In true DesignOps fashion, Posman and Calhoun deliver a practical and inclusive guide, chock-full of practical frameworks, definitions, and tools. This is an incredible resource for practitioners and companies alike!
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The Design Conductors illustrates how exceptional design teams are also culturally-strong and well-supported teams. This is the blueprint for growing small orgs into large ones and transforming them into design powerhouses
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Calhoun and Posman provide clear and comprehensive guidance in building a DesignOps program, which in turn enables Design and Research to be their most effective.
DANIELLE BARNES
Co-author of Present Yourself and CEO of Women Talk DEsign
CHRIS RISDON
Co-author of Orchestrating Experiences
PETER MERHOLZ
Independent consultant and co-author of Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams
AUTHORS
Rachel Posman
Rachel is the co-author of the book "The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations." (Rosenfeld, 2024) Rachel is a seasoned DesignOps leader driven by the opportunity to empower teams to deliver customer and business success while achieving personal and professional growth. Currently Rachel leads the Central DesignOps team for Salesforce’s global UX organization which designs programs, processes, and systems that enable the design of great product and employee experiences. Previously she led design and research operations at UberEats, and was a Design Program Management leader for the service and experience design teams at Capital One, Adaptive Path, and others. Rachel draws inspiration from her background in business, design strategy, service design, and a first career as a professional ballet dancer, blending these disciplines into her holistic approach to problem-solving and leadership in DesignOps.
John Calhoun
John is the co-author of the book "The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations." (Rosenfeld, 2024) John Calhoun is a leader of Salesforce's Design Operations team, which builds the platform for delivering best-in-class design solutions and experiences at scale. Previously, John was a producer and game designer for Electronic Arts, with 17 years of experience developing video games and their adjacent media. Cultivating a culture of great design through the principles of confidence, clarity, and partnership is what drew John to DesignOps; enabling teams to do great work and live great lives is will keep him in DesignOps for years to come. John is a frequent speaker on product design topics, and can be found cheering for the San Francisco Giants or playing bass in his spare time.
LISTEN & WATCH
Interviews and Discussions with Rachel and John
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Get in Touch
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