The Big Question about Innovation: A Panel Discussion
Summary
What’s the most important question regarding today’s theme of innovation that we, as a community, need to address? We’ve asked you, you’ve spoken—and now we’ll tackle it with the aid of Jon and some of today’s speakers.
Key Insights
-
•
Defining and agreeing on core design values like integrity and respect is foundational for fostering innovation in design ops.
-
•
Innovation succeeds best when focused on solving one key prioritized problem, avoiding trying to fix everything at once.
-
•
Balancing innovation with existing organizational rhythms and tempos is essential for impactful adoption.
-
•
AI will transform design operations incrementally, with humans needed to maintain accountability and oversee outputs.
-
•
Large enterprises face unique AI adoption challenges due to security protocols and concerns over data residency.
-
•
Empathy is crucial in innovation workflows to truly understand and address user needs beyond mere efficiency metrics.
-
•
Workshops can help break down communication barriers and build collaboration even when chemistry is initially poor.
-
•
Aligning teams early on a clear, shared ‘north star’ problem supports sustained alignment despite differing perspectives.
-
•
Shared tooling and standardized taxonomies across design, product, and development teams improve communication and outcomes.
-
•
Overcapacity and competing priorities threaten sustainable innovation; operations must manage workload for scalable delivery.
Notable Quotes
"Each team should talk about their core values like integrity, accountability, and respect to work together with the same mindset."
"We’re lucky if we solve a single thing; everything else has to be parking lot."
"Innovation has to fit within the tempo and rhythm of the organization and leadership."
"AI won’t transform all things at once; it’s about piloting and delivering discrete business value first."
"A large organization’s security protocols make AI adoption slower and more complex than in smaller groups."
"Without a human in the loop, AI can go off and do crazy disastrous things."
"Empathy means constantly going back to the people using the tools and hearing their feedback."
"Getting people who don’t communicate well to at least work together on a single thing is the first step to innovating together."
"Aligning on a north star problem gets everyone excited and aligned from the beginning."
"If design, product, and development use different tools, we end up talking past one another."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"We have never played together before and never rehearsed, yet we pulled off a great rendition spontaneously."
Jim KalbachJazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration
November 6, 2017
"People saying you should write a book is nice, but it’s not the real reason you should write one."
Louis RosenfeldCoffee with Lou: Should You Write a (UX) Book?
March 7, 2024
"The difference between director and principal often lies in whether you’re inspired more by leading people or focused on outputs and craft."
Catt Small Micah Bennett Brian Carr Jessica HarlleeWhat's Next for ICs: Exploring Staff and Principal Designer Roles
February 22, 2024
"Less than a third of respondents feel like they work somewhere with a clear investment in customer-driven decision making."
Marieke McCloskeyUser Science: Product Analytics & User Research
March 11, 2021
"Even if you’re not doing facial recognition, storing face and voice data is under growing legal scrutiny."
Llewyn Paine[Demo] Deploying AI doppelgangers to de-identify user research recordings
June 5, 2024
"If you cannot remove a treatment, it may not be a true cause."
Joshua NobleCasual Inference
October 6, 2023
"Findings are observations with a short shelf life, whereas insights get deep into the why and the consequences."
Sara LogelYour Colleagues are Your Users Too
March 29, 2023
"There will be session notes and sketch notes so you don’t have to take notes yourself unless you want to."
Bria Alexander Louis RosenfeldWelcome
January 8, 2024
"More ways to contact support—chat, email, phone—are essential because different disabilities require different options."
Sam ProulxOnline Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience
June 7, 2023
