People First - Design at JP Morgan
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
JP Morgan’s design operations team is global and multidisciplinary, supporting over 1,000 applications used by 2,400 developers and 200+ designers.
-
•
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts at JP Morgan focus on authentic representation to foster engagement and belonging within the design team.
-
•
The future designer must be skilled in data mining, storytelling with data, and balancing technical and cultural/business aspects of design.
-
•
Design operations has evolved from managing design systems to encompassing people processes, onboarding, retention, and professional development.
-
•
Scaling design in a large financial institution requires separating operational tasks from hands-on management to increase efficiency and focus.
-
•
Digital transformation is a multi-year journey that embeds design into the business culturally and operationally rather than treating design as an agency role.
-
•
Designers from diverse backgrounds, both with financial services experience and fresh perspectives, are valuable to JP Morgan’s design practice.
-
•
Effective design leadership partners closely with design ops to nurture teams and fuel design success through resource forecasting and reducing friction.
-
•
User empathy for back-office and complex systems is essential for gaining designer buy-in to manage necessary but less glamorous data inputs.
-
•
Large organizations are still evolving how to best balance roles between design ops and management, particularly regarding culture building and people care.
Notable Quotes
"When you see yourself and someone else, you see possibility, and that drives engagement and investment."
"The designer of the future will be really great at mining data, analyzing it, and telling the story with it."
"Design ops is about people, processes, and practice working together to reduce friction and help designers be productive."
"The growth of design as a critical business function has made it necessary for specialized design ops roles to support scale."
"Digital transformation is a multi-year challenge that requires commitment beyond using design as an agency."
"We need designers who can balance flexibility with ownership and bring entrepreneurial leadership to a complex landscape."
"A strong partnership between design ops and design leadership frees leaders to build relationships and focus on strategic work."
"Design is the process of moving from an existing condition to a preferred condition—a form of problem solving."
"Supporting designers with basic tools like a working laptop can be surprisingly complex but hugely impacts efficiency."
"No one organization has figured it all out; we’re all learning and evolving how to scale and integrate design effectively."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Current AI tools help summarize and sift large volumes of feedback into meaningful patterns."
Mark Interrante Harry MaxAI for Prioritization (3rd of 3 seminars)
July 11, 2024
"If you are not speaking to the CEO or C-executives about compliance and transformation, someone else will."
Patrizia BertiniThe (r)evolution of designOps: It’s Time to Think (really) BIG
September 11, 2025
"Speaking fluent language that translates into business discussions forces us to think and speak like a business owner as well as a designer."
Shan ShenTranslating UX Terms into Business Contexts
November 29, 2023
"You have to ask, what are we deciding, and what are we quitting, on a regular basis."
Adam ThomasSurvival Metrics – Making Change in a Fast, Data-Informed, and Politically Safe Way
December 6, 2022
"In the application process for merchant services, underwriting’s risk-first mindset conflicted with customer needs, causing friction."
Robin BeersResearch as a Catalyst for Organizational Transformation
March 12, 2021
"Accessibility at scale can put you into the VUCA world – volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous."
Sheri Byrne-HaberAccessibility at Scale
June 9, 2021
"Playbacks are stakeholder-focused meetings that sell the work’s story and drive buy-in, different from critiques focused on craft."
Joseph MeersmanSweating the Pixel: Scaling Quality through Critique
June 10, 2021
"The next big thing will be knowledge management powered by new no-code and integrative tools."
Deanna Washington Bria Alexander Jon Fukuda Saara Kamppari-Miller Farid SabitovConnecting the Ops: Plenary Panel and Closing Circle
September 9, 2022
"Equal solutions still leave some people out; tailoring based on needs actually provides equity."
Aaron Stienstra Lashanda HodgeLeveraging Civic Design to Advance Equity and Rebuild Trust in the US Federal Government
December 8, 2021
