Rosenverse
Getting in Flow with Your Team

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Getting in Flow with Your Team

Gold
Monday, January 8, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Share the love for this talk
Getting in Flow with Your Team
Speakers: Ruzanna Rozman
Link:

Summary

A design process is only as good as the people who run it, no matter how "efficient" the process claims to be. This talk will cover the circumstances of a case study and the strategies that took place to establish and maintain momentum on a product that didn't have a direction. With the collaboration of a team in "flow," the work seemed (sometimes unbelievably) natural, enabling and empowering everybody not only to trust each other, but also to trust themselves in their own decision making and their own exploration of their craft and strengths with mutual trust and respect.

Key Insights

  • Frameworks help non-designers understand design decisions and foster team inclusivity.

  • Team flow differs from individual flow by emphasizing interdependence, not independence.

  • Achieving flow requires balancing challenge and skills along with clear goals and feedback.

  • Open communication and early involvement of all team members strengthen alignment and trust.

  • Strong team relationships allow teams to pivot quickly without losing momentum or morale.

  • Individual states of flow vary based on personal belief in purpose, scope clarity, and feedback.

  • Team flow benefits when members can feed off each other's energy and adapt communication styles.

  • Replicating team flow can be challenging with frequently changing teams due to lack of familiarity.

  • Respect, trust, and alignment empower teams to balance seriousness and casual connection.

  • Developing team flow shares similarities with dating or athletic instincts, requiring intuition and practice.

Notable Quotes

"I am usually the only designer on the team, and it gets difficult to get the information needed for design decisions."

"Frameworks are a team sport; each player brings unique strengths that help create innovative solutions."

"Surgeons say during difficult operations the whole team feels like a single organism moved by the same purpose."

"To get into flow, I need a strong belief in the purpose and the work we’re doing."

"We started with almost nothing and didn’t really know what goal we were trying to achieve."

"Getting everyone involved early helped reduce the need for me to explain why we do things."

"When we pivoted because of business decisions, we felt anxious but kept adapting together."

"Respect, trust, and alignment helped us feel empowered and comfortable talking about anything."

"Flow is different for each person; you have to adjust your style based on who you work with."

"Developing team flow is a lot like dating—you have to nurture it, build instinct, and practice."

Ask the Rosenbot
Cheryl Platz
Embrace Your Fun Factor: Game Development Best Practices for Product Design
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
JP Allen
Navigating the UX Tool Landscape
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Alana Washington
Theme 1: Introduction and Provocation
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Robin Beers
Panel: Excellence in Communicating Insights
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Sarah Brooks
Fireside chat with Sarah Brooks and Jen Pahlka
2021 • Civic Design Community
Shanti Mathew
Civic Design at Scale: Introducing the Public Policy Layer Cake
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Brenna Fallon
Learning Over Outcomes
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Kate Koch
Flex Your Super Powers: When a Design Ops Team Scales to Power CX
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Kelly Goto
Emotion Economy: Ethnography as Corporate Strategy
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Becoming a Civic Designer: Making the Move from Private to Public Sector
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Maggie Dieringer
Cutting through the Noise
2020 • DesignOps Community
Bruce Gillespie
Learning from journalism: Balancing impactful communication with compassionate storytelling
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Nathan Shedroff
Double Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Jennifer Bolduc
What's involved with getting people back to work?: A panel discussion
2021 • DesignOps Community
Silke Bochat
5 Antifragile Strategies for a DesignOps 2.0
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Matt Stone
Scaling Empathy, A Case Study in Change Management
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold

More Videos

Alexandra Schmidt

"People and process design are real, real things we have to consider, not just the technology piece."

Alexandra Schmidt

Enterprise UX Playbook

December 1, 2022

Jen Crim

"If you want to have tattoos, you can have tattoos and show them."

Jen Crim Jess Quittner Saritha Kattekola Alex Karr Gurbani Pahwa

Culture, DIBS & Recruiting

June 11, 2021

Christian Crumlish

"Product managers are responsible for value – making sure something valuable is being created that meets real needs."

Christian Crumlish

AMA with Christian Crumlish, author of Product Management for UX People

March 24, 2022

Libby Maurer

"This candidate experience was terrible for everybody but especially disadvantaging folks who started with lower confidence."

Libby Maurer

Treating Diversity & Inclusion in Hiring as a Design Problem

December 5, 2019

Ali Jeffery

"When we engage people in the planning process, they take ownership of their city."

Ali Jeffery Sheri Chudow

How DesignOps Helped Enable Wall Street to Work Remotely

October 22, 2020

Daniel Gloyd

"We all say empathy is foundational for good design, yet contemporary research often remains oddly distant from real human experience."

Daniel Gloyd

Designing From the Inside Out: How Method Acting Can Inspire Design Research

February 12, 2026

Kristin Skinner

"Every student has unique strengths that should be recognized and nurtured."

Kristin Skinner

Five Years of DesignOps

September 29, 2021

Johanna Kollmann

"If you frame it as poor first experience risks a negative impact on adoption, you get way more eyeballs and attention."

Johanna Kollmann

Insights-Driven Product Strategy: Get your Research to Count

December 6, 2022

David Sternberg

"You don’t design interfaces anymore—you choreograph intentions."

David Sternberg

Uncovering the hidden forces shaping user behavior

July 17, 2025