DesignOps: Scaling UX Design and User Research

"This course was extremely relevant and bang-up-to-date with how to begin to engage with DesignOps in your own organisation."

Catherine Beer, AQA

"The content is super good. It reinforced we are doing a lot of things right, while at the same time showed me what the next steps in the evolution of our design team/processes could look like. The case studies were very insightful and help seeing how the concepts and frameworks are adopted in practice by companies that successfully do it at scale."

Jonathan Vella, Hotjar

"Rachel is a brilliant presenter and everything she shared has been an eye-opener, encouraged me to be able to go back to work and try implementing straight away. Highly recommend this course."

Pavitra Sirse Tandon, Smartbox Group, Dublin

"Loved Kate! What a great speaker! Very informative class, very knowledgeable instructor."

Kuntal Patel, DMI

"Very insightfull and full of usable advice on building the right skillset and scaling teams."

Vladimir Koncar, Kiwi.com, Zagreb, Croatia

"This is exactly the course I needed! It was great to hear about other people's experiences to see that we share similar ones and that we aren't alone. Thanks again."

Marysia, Estates Gazette (RBI/RELX), London

"If you work for a company with design/UX teams that are growing, this course is excellent for you, as it teaches how to grow those teams in the best way possible and ways to avoid some common issues on large teams. If you are a team of one (or very small), your team isn't ready for DesignOps yet. It's great information, but not something you can really implement in a small team."

Ashley McWilliams, Jackson, USA

"This course is great for anybody who is looking to either begin to scale their design teams or bring a better structure to existing design teams of any size. The course was delivered in a really engaging way by Rachel Krause who was supported by Kate Kaplan. I have come away with so much knowledge and confidence to grow my team and nurture a design culture throughout our whole company. Thank you for a fantastic course — I would highly recommend to anybody looking to push design to the forefront of their company ethos."

Steve Jackson, Applaud Solutions

"This course was meant for me! It really helped to validate what I was already doing and gave me great ideas to take back to work."

Ashley Riner, Eastman Chemical

"Jam-packed of good info. Case studies, in particular, are helpful."

Leslie Humphreys, Baltimore, MD

"This course is the ultimate toolkit for creating a super efficient team that can tackle anything."

Chase Wing, Vera Bradley

"This was the most useful session I've taken! My notes are full of takeaways to improve my practice. It also validated my hiring and mentoring techniques."

Stacey Laurel, Corporate One

"Wonderful delivery — energizing and knowledgeable. Thank You!"

Jason Treulloch, Tampa FL

"There was a lot covered in the class, I think I got some good techniques to try things to think about as we scale the design practice at my company. I almost think it could be a 2-day class. It's also such a new concept, I think it's hard to narrow down the course material. I think this would be great for managers & hiring managers as a jumping off point for their organization."

 

"Really helped to give some real world examples to illustrate how design ops can scale and has been implemented in different ways. Excited to take back ideas to implement in the team."

Sarah Waters, Commify

"Amazing course! Great examples of case studies, interesting exercises. As DesignOps is a new term and there's a lot of information, I think it could be a 2 day course. The course helped me to understand what and how we can improve in our organization as UX team to bring more value to the business, but also to facilitate and make our work more efficient I'm finishing the course with many new ideas and more power and energy to change things. Thank you."

Katarzyna Potyrata, Philip Morris International, Krakau Poland

"This was an avalanche of relevant information for my situation."

Patrick, European Commission

"Super session. Gained a lot of applicable information on how to scale our design teams."

Joel Laumans, Schiphol

"A very detailed en comprehensive course on frameworks, planning and tools. A must for scaling design teams."

William Butt v. Gelder, Standard Bank, Dubai

"Great overview. Good to get all those things you feel need attention sorted out in a clear way."

Koen Schellekens, Hike One

"This class was super informative. It was really helpful to peek into how other companies are going about implementing DesignOps."

Amber Allen, Greenway Health

"I reinforced my knowledge and assumptions. I gained new tips to apply into the company that could help us improve our processes in a significant way."

Fabiola Arrivillaga, Smartmatic International

"Definitely a great course! Appreciate all the insight!"

Bill Margiotta, Discount Tire, Phoenix, AZ

"Awesome variety of tactics and strategies across different organizations and industries. Roadmap action plan was super helpful."

Kristin Sundermeyer, McGraw Hill

"So many ideas to take back to my organization. Will be recommending this course to others I work with."

Jeremy Culp, Our Daily Bread, Grand Rapid, MI

"Good strategic grounding in scaleabilty — especially when applied at enterprise level."

Jack Carpenter, Waters Corporation

"Thank you Kate! I thought you did a great job presenting and the material is really valuable."

Mary Hutson, J.B. Hunt, Bentonville, AR

"I really enjoyed all of the examples of how different organizations had applied these concepts you covered."

Kelsey Grant, GE

"This was a very informative and energetic class. It is rich with examples and Kate is thoughtful and insightful when answering questions."

Lisbeth Kozy, Northrup Grumman

"The net you spread in this course was wide enough that I think at least some of the content was useful for everyone, regardless of their current DesignOps model. The tools and case studies you shared were by themselves worth the price of the class (not to mention all the other great content). Thank you!"

Sterling Koch, Data Stax

"This was super relevant for me as I am in charge of Scaling a very young design team. I look forward to being in front of some of these upcoming challenges."

Brent Budolf, Shipwell

"Phenomenal job on the Zoom breakouts and making this work virtually. I found it equally as engaging as the past 3 NN/g conferences I've done in person."

Sophia Goreczky, Synopsys

"I would recommend this course for anyone looking to get into UX management or just to help the UX team they are a part of grow more smoothly. The course was very well paced and I felt the class flew by while I learned a ton of information. Great use of practical exercises to keep everyone engaged and provide networking opportunities."

Samantha Bollmann, Citizens Bank, Boston, MA

"Great course with relevant content applicable to companies on any level of UX maturity."

Norma Argonza, Procter and Gamble, São Paulo, Brazil

"Great course to bring a design team to the next level(s), from which ever level it is!"

Louis-Philippe Bellerose, Bellerose XD, Canada

"This course is an incredible source of new insights about how to organize a team even if you are starting from scratch."

Leandro Rezende, Brazilian Supreme Court, Brazília / Brazil

"Such a content-rich course filled with practical examples and exercises. Rachel was engaging, knowledgable, and responsive to our questions. I was very impressed and feel prepared to improve our ResearchOps approach at my organization — a day well spent!"

Rebecca Blakiston, University of Arizona

"The DesignOps course was phenomenal. It really helped solidify and fill in the blanks on some of the knowledge I had picked up organically so far, and I left the course with a ton of things to think about and investigate further."

Tess Dixon, Condé Nast

"This exceeded my expectations for gaining a broad understanding of Design and Research Ops, and gave me plenty to chew on and explore going forward."

Cary Euwer, Fearless, Baltimore, MD USA

"It was absolutely amazing, the course covered all the topics to scale a Design Team in a deep dive, with many cases, frameworks and examples, I definitely have a lot of work to have fun on the next year."

Lariane Rossanese, Berlin

"Although I'm at a Director level, I don't have all the answers to grow and maintain a highly talented team producing at speed ad quality, and the DesignOps course has given me guidance to implement high-impact changes to a large team of designers (over 45)."

Juan Madrigal, Huge Inc, Medellin/Colombia

"The knowledge I gained in this course could have saved me so much time wasted on inefficient and ineffective processes. Now I know what is needed, when and who to ally with to move UX initiatives forward. Excellent course!"

Jason N., Data Basis, Albuquerque / USA

"Rachel is a great presenter. I have never expected to learn so much from the 1-day class but the case studies were so informative. Lots of take away after this session. My brain is literally on fire!"

Simina Megyes, Syneto, Romania

"Liked everything, strongly suggest this cause."

Arjun, Target Australia, Melbourne, Australia

"If you are leading and shaping a modern Design org, this class is for you."

Jean Fujita, HMH, Chicago

"Rachel and team did a great job leading this class. Awesome!"

Chris Rigdon, Boehringer Ingelheim

"Great facilitator and up-to-date case studies. Useful and applicable toolkits and framework for all company / team sizes and maturity."

Antonio Sutjiadi, Papermint, Wheelers Hill

"Liked the case studies, helped us see how other organisations are applying designs processes."

Stevy Georgiadi, Architechts, Athens/Greece

"I loved the DesignOps course, it was a very clear route on all the points to keep in mind when starting to practice DesignOps in our companies."

Eugenia Casabona, Mulesoft, Buenos Aires, Argentina

"Thought that this was a great session!  Great overview of the topic and appreciated the moderator’s energy throughout and the incredible helpfulness from Therese!"

Marissa Fread, Sun Life

"Rachel delivers a great virtual class. She does a great job of balancing the needs of the extroverts while preventing them from squishing the experience of introverts like myself. She successfully walks that line of acknowledgement without distraction. The virtual adaptations of the activities seem to make the breakouts even better than live, with exercises that are logically broken into self work & team work components. The content is immediately useful and gives me ammunition to convince people that UX is a legitimate science. Her energy keeps the interest and engagement of the audience. She sets the bar by even taking care of the little details that make her, the presentation, and the NN/g as a whole so polished & credible, like lighting, camera angle, and background. Bravo, I'm a fan."

Sophie Daudenarde, Boston

"This was a very insightful and valuable course for me and my design team, with many extremely relevant topics, advices and suggestions for successful next-steps. I would fully recommend this course anytime!"

Ivana Randelshofer, Ubisoft, Düsseldorf, Germany

"Valuable and actionable knowledge to take back, get started with, and make an impact on your team."

Scot Przybylski, Nutrien Ag Solutions, Denver

"Despite the remote workshop I was thrilled by Rachel's way of presenting the topic. Nearly all of the questions in the chat were answered and in the breakout rooms there was enough time to talk to the participants about their experiences."

Caroline Bock, Staffbase, Germany

"It was an excellent session, and Kate covered all the topics that I was after. During the course, I had so many ideas that I can bring to my team and capability."

Vikas Bhutani, Telstra Purple, Melbourne, Australia

"I would encourage any organisation that is on the journey of scaling design to attend this course as it provides perspective on what is required and how others have done it!"

Ming Ting, Singapore Govt Agency, Singapore

"I've enjoyed the course tremendously! Kate was awesome! I highly recommend taking this class to those who do not know a lot about the topic and they want to build foundational knowledge driven from research and case studies."

Areej Aljarba, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

"Rachel and Kate were extremely engaging and interactive throughout this course. Not only was the content insightful, it was very applicable through exercises, as well as case studies to show the variety across different companies. Thanks for all the knowledge! Would highly recommend!"

Kat Richards, Hoffman York, Milwaukee, WI

"Overall, an excellent course with many valuable nuggets and great tools/tips that can be applied. Loved the skills mapping and will implement that right away :) Thanks Rachel and Kate!"

Tracy Tong, Aviso Wealth, Vancouver

"This course provided great conceptual frameworks as well as practical templates that I can make use of immediately in my job."

Chris Wrenn, Adobe, Seattle

"When design team become bigger and you have no visibility on your team: capability development, design quality and more .. you should consider design ops to build and manager design team to build value of design at scale. Skill mapping radar chart is very INTERESTING for me. I will use it to identify our design team."

Mungki Sulistiono, PT TELKOM INDONESIA, Jakarta Indonesia

"The speaker and the course were brilliant. I found the deep and wide experience of the speaker constantly insightful. That coupled with the relaxed human and humorous manner in which the course was delivered a delight and memorable! I look forward to more from the speaker - sold! :D"

Mo Almass, Apteco Ltd, Birmingham, UK

"The course is full of practical tips, tools, templates, and case studies. Whether you're a small fledgling design practice or a large scale team, you will find valuable takeaways in this course."

Homaxi Irani, SEEK Asia, Hong Kong

"It's a great course when thinking about all of the design disciplines and considerations when scaling teams. Very comprehensive with good resources to follow up later. Great job."

James Hatfield

"Learned a lot about building and scaling a design team and the design ops role!"

Dylan, block.one, Blacksburg, VA, United States

"As a UX Manager I reinforced my knowledge on Design-Ops scale-up and how this is applied in other companies. This will help me to have valuable conversations with my stakeholders."

Monika, Philip Morris, Switzerland

"An amazing course to have a strategic view of scaling design in your organization, I would love to have these course before a lot of decisions that we took in our organization about design."

Carlos Mejia, Bancolombia, Medellin, Colombia

"Must do course for aspiring UX leaders, design strategists & managers. Kate guided us through the session at a great pace which helped absorb theoretical & hands on learning in a wonderful way!"

Shreya Sharma, Boston Consulting Group, Mumbai, India

"Where to begin? This course was so incredibly jam-packed with case studies, guidelines and industry insights that I would say it is a must for any designer in a postion where they can influence the evolution of design within their organisation. Kate's delivery is funny, knowledgeable and succinct... allowing her to deliver a course filled to the brim with insights while keeping everyone engaged and involved. The best NN/g class I took so far."

Joren Devocht, Teamleader, Antwerp, Belgium

"Just comment with some colleagues how intense was yesterday. Lots of learnings and a big positive surprise about the content and how Kate was awesome leading the day."

Luiz Reolon, CI&T, São Paulo, Brazil

"It is an important for those who boost their maturity in UX design."

Luis Moreira, Banco Pichincha, Guayaquil, Ecuador

"For any senior-level design manager, this is a required, must-take class. It will provide instant actionable tools and approaches to improve the quality of your design team's work and communication."

Anthony, OPES CLOUD, Kensington, CA, USA

"Informative and helpful. Helped me grasp the width and depth of DesignOps and offered actionable steps and advice on how to start or progress this journey in our organization. Definitelly a must for future design leaders."

Dimitris Niavis, FTI Group, Athens, Greece

"I thought it was worth the price of admission halfway through the first session. There wasn't anything I disliked about it - this seemed like a well-oiled machine."

Tim Roberts, Webster Bank, Plantsville, CT

"I will definitely recommend to coworkers and friends. It helped me consolidate ideas I had and didn't have the knowledge and resources needed to move forward. It was the spark I needed to keep developing myself as a DesignOps professional and I will definitely come back to attend more NN/Group courses."

Dudu Torres, SweetRush, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

"The course gave a practical framework for improving design processes within your role and organisation, at any level of design maturity. Particularly noteworthy is the structure for advocating to the broader business on the need for DesignOps."

Sarah Burton, Rokt, Sydney, Australia

"DesignOps is a nascent discipline, and many people who practice it don't even know they do it. This is a great course to expand your knowledge and accelerate DesignOps in your practice."

Leonardo Hauschild, Digitec Galaxus, Zürich, Switzerland

"Take this course immediately! Very few courses like these out there."

Meher Jamil, Cytiva, Uppsala, Sweden

"Great intro with outstanding frameworks for developing a DesignOps discipline within your company."

Ellen Wixted, Avalara, Bainbridge Island, WA, USA

"I would say that the benefits go beyond design. It is a "Ops" course at its roots, but with a more solid foundation when it comes to design structures."

Gabriel Caldas Morais, Product Tank SP - Mind the Product, São Paulo, Brazil

"It's a good overview of the field of Design Ops and the examples of what other organizations are doing (or have tried) were helpful for thinking about next steps in my own organization."

Philip Levy, Bixal, Washington, D.C., USA

"I would recommend the course. I like the different case studies that broaden your view and bring you to new ideas. I'm keen on trying out some of the learnings. Nothing really that I disliked."

Jennifer Scherer, TomTom, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

"I have taken a number of NN/g classes in person and was skeptical of the remote format, but it was AWESOME! Rachel did a great job presenting, and all of the participants were engaging with one another in chat and the breakouts. Love, love, loved it!"

 

"This course is a must for anyone who struggles organizing design in a company. Especially when there is a dimension of design at scale ... loved the fact that there were a lot of tools provided to help us design our own DesignOPS roadmap."

Poun le sech, Onepoint, Paris, France

"This course is a great example of how to do research and take the most benefits out of it. Also, great case studies presented - I was happy with the course. Usually, the majority of conferences just don't have enough depth, but this one was spot on."

Viktoria Tsurova, VMware, Sofia, Bulgaria

"If you're a designer and you've caught yourself thinking about how to optimize your process, thinking, team, or tools - This is a great course. I liked how many practical examples were given in a clear context. The skills assessment team activity was quite helpful. I feel like I have a much more holistic view of the UX world and of organizational design."

Amy Dixon, Substrate, Seattle, USA

"I really liked the course, and I'll definitely do another. This course fit my learning aspirations perfectly, and I'd recommend that others identify skills they want to develop, and choose a course accordingly. The only thing I disliked was some peoples ability to stay on topic rather than filling the chat with useless banter - but Kate quickly scanned and brought up a point if it was valuable, or merely kept going which I found was great. Most of the time I had the chat hidden to avoid distractions from what Kate was saying, and I found her approach here valuable so that I didn't have to continually sift through irrelevant comments."

Ryan Thomas, UX Consultant, Sydney, Australia

"If you're someone who loves processes just as much as design, this is the course to understand what you can do to help grow yourself as well as your team."

Christin Kreml, Impossible, Menlo Park, United States

"I believe this course helps you truly understand roles and responsibilities of design teams. It also allows you to imagine the art of the possible for team growth and expansion."

David R. Bolton, Jr., San Antonio, TX

"It was comprehensive and full of resources that go above and beyond what I expected. I feel it has really helped me get set for success."

Russ, Omers, Toronto, Canada

"This is a great course to consider if team structures and resourcing are existing pain points you want to address in your organisation. You'll be given a versatile toolset to start tackling those areas with confidence."

Nathan Cocks, Tundra, Melbourne, Australia

"Deps Ops Is a new knowledge for me, and this is very valuable to build our team in company."

Bengris, UX Specialty, Indonesia

"This course provided excellent real-world examples and tools to help execute a DesignOps strategy at my company, I highly recommend it!"

Jillian Mara, The Community Company, Denver, USA

"The course is rich with information for people new to DesignOps and those with more familiarity. The presentation was engaging and well paced. The links associated with content were helpful and will provide additional opportunity to explore the content further."

Bill Bangs, A large aviation company, Denver, Colorado USA

"This course is a great way to get started with bringing DesignOps into your organisation. Kate has done an amazing job with her research across some of the largest organisation around the world to bring the best practices and case studies together in an easy to understand way."

Ben Maclaren, Department of Education, Skills and Employment, Canberra, Australia

"This course is great for people who wants to organize their team structure, evaluate team performance, and address any pain points they are currently experiencing. I learned a lot from this course especially on how we, our team, can create better designs yet be happy with what we are doing."

Danalee Loprandado, GCash, Metro Manila, Philippines

"Yes, this is an important course for new, experienced UX/UI and Product Managers to grow their knowledge and get some good learnings on self & team evaluation; and dept value and growth within organizations and team expansions as well."

Madhuri Erukulla, New York, USA

"Definitely do it! The course gives you the opportunity to reflect on your own organisation and how it is structured and how this can be improved."

Priyanca D'Souza, Companies House, Bristol, United Kingdom

"If you are curious on what DesignOps is and how you can bring it to your organization, take this course- it's a Must!"

Marlene Garred, Gjensidige insurance, Oslo, Norway

"I'm already telling everyone about it! Every single break I was just messaging my team about how inspired I am in REAL TIME!"

Genevieve C McCaw, Kaiser Permanente, Los Angeles

"Great intro to DesignOps. Lots of inspiring ideas to bring back to work."

Ole Lillebo, LeoVegas, Stockholm, Sweden

"The instructor was great and shared a lot of case studies."

Jacob Koesterich, MadHive, Emerson

"DesignOps was my first course in Management, it was a great course and helped me in understanding the how I can use, apply and bring value of DesignOps in my organisation."

Shilpa Misra, Metro-Markets.de, Germany

"Great course if you are scaling the UX team and want to explore different scenario's and it's impact. I can implement many learnings from this course with confidence, very grateful for this course."

Caroline Overgoor, Sendcloud, Eindhoven

"This information is invaluable if you need tools to help ID skill gaps and build processes and career paths for your design team. Tons of great info and research. Thank you!"

Stephy Hogan, (ISC)², Severn, USA

"Great course. Have a lot of practical recommendations!"

Dmitry Bortnitski, Apalon apps, New York

"You will literally feel like you are riding the wave of a current movement for Design at scale in organizations in 2021. Can't recommend highly enough. I can't wait to take another course by Kate!"

Bartholomew Sullivan, Viamo.io, Almonte, Canada

"I appreciated both the breath and depth of knowledge that was shared in this course. Very useful for anyone who is looking to expand their knowledge about how successful design teams scale and grow."

Brandon Weiss, Philadelphia, PA

"ABSOLUTELY! I loved the cases, Kate explain it very well and easy to understand even if you are not a native english speaker."

Luana Clara Oliveira Vieira, dti, Belo Horizonte/MG, Brazil

"This is best suited for those in larger organizations. Even though I found it very interesting I am not sure how much I will be able to apply."

Brian Berg, Onapsis, Boston

"Great fundamental, theory, and many real world cases are outstanding and realistic."

Yousuf Alamr, Thiqah, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

"I would say that the second half of the course talking specifically about the use cases, applications, and measuring quality were very beneficial."

Michael W. Boyce, U.S. Army, West Point, NY USA

" Extremely thorough and knowledgeable about the material, her delivery of the concepts is clear and easy to follow. Allows for lots of questions and discussion. Very effective Instructor."

VIKRAMKUMAR, Olam International, Chennai, India

"This course would be SUPER helpful for anyone struggling with team structure. The course covers many structures and roles."

Brittany Erickson, Government, United States

"I just know a little bit about the DesginOps function. Rachel's course was very gripping and clarifying. I learnt a lot of things, I took away many tips and tricks. I really appreciated the skill map tool to assess the skill of a design team. You will discover different organizations (centralized, decentralized, ...). You will learn how to make an assessment and a plan to make progress in DesignOpp and you will take away many added resources that I will read sooner.
A must-have course!"

Olivier Cottray, Audire Consulting, Lille, France

"Just do it! Rachel is an excellent speaker, she teaches very useful and practical information in a very nice and engaging way. I highly recommend this course to anyone who is interested in learning about DesignOps."

Sara Cordeiro Feijão, European Patent Office (contractor), Munich, Germany

"Rachel is great! High energy throughout. Great presentation and resources. She really gives you the knowledge, tools, and a plan framework to begin scaling DesignOps at your organization immediately. Highly recommend."

Ken Blodgett, Franchise Tax Board, Sacramento, CA

"Great starting point for "re-thinking" your design organization and processes including many hands-on tools on how to go about in real (work) life."

Gaby Wenneker, Walldorf, Germany

"Well definitely go for this course as it will give you a futuristic view of the DESIGN landscape in the digital world. If you are leading a team of designers or aspiring to do so this will be very fruitful."

Siddhi Gawade, India

"It's worth it. Especially the sharing with fellow students. It will help me facilitate DesignOps sessions to increase design maturity."

Anton Olivier, Logius, Zeewolde, The Netherlands

"I would strongly recommend this course to anyone in DesignOps, ContentOps or ResearchOps, or thinking about getting into these areas or starting an Ops team(s) within their organization. There is a lot of validation as well as helpful and useful details throughout all the topics."

Coran Lapierre, Asurion, Vancouver, Canada

"An exceptionally information-rich class."

James Harvey, PNC