Moving into a new role in DesignOps, the team is asking for help in a lot of different areas. My lessons from the last role is that to take on any of these initiatives requires thought and planning. One (not very small) example is to move the team onto one design tool. Before making the decision on the design tool and attempting to implement it across the team, I need to lay out the realities of pushing this forward.
I have used this format to help teams visualize the process.
Now
Assess what design tools the people on the team are using now and why they are using them. Seek to understand what the challenges would be to move some off of one tool to another. If you have not done this, get an estimate for the cost of the new tool and review the budget with the team. Another pro tip is to look at the process of procuring the tool through your company. Think bureaucracy. You will need to work through the processes of other departments such as security and billing.
Next
After you research and analyze the first steps, outline the approach needed to onboard the team to the new tool. Think access and organization. How do you get them accounts? How do these accounts work with the company’s security?
Once the your team is on the new tool, how do they organize their work? How do we group files, name files, and share them?
Later
Since the UX team cannot work in a bubble, detail a plan to introduce the new tool to our partners. In the case of a new design tool, you will need to communicate what this tool is and why you are moving to it to Product Managers and Developers. Also, you will need to think about a clear process to get them access for viewing and commenting.
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