Changying (Z) Zheng
DesignOps Lead
Cloudflare

Presenter Profile: As the DesignOps Lead at Cloudflare, Z’s role and remit is grow the design practice and collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver software for customers with a focus on user centric perspectives through research, information architecture, strategy, and visual design. 

As a DesignOps leader, she improves the lives of those she works with with day-to-day. As a design educator, she is passionate about mentoring the next generation of designers. Z spent several years teaching and leading a team of talented industry specialists sharing knowledge in design, UX, and technology.

Presentation Title: Operationalising Service Design

Outline: Roadmapping, 2×2 prioritization and data analysis all sound too familiar for product development teams; these are the same essential skills for running a successful Design operation org, especially if we are the DesignOps team-of-one. The product management skills create stability, scalability and maps out a process.

Care personally and challenge directly is what Kim Scott taught people managers; this is the heart of a DesignOps manager, even if we are the DesignOps team-of-one who doesn’t manage any reports. We lead the entire design team with influence, and we care for the design team with empathy.

How to choose if we had to make a hard decision between people and process? This talk tells my story of transitioning from a product-lead to a DesginOps-lead and lessons I’ve learned in my day-to-day decisions while leading and supporting my design team.

Company Website: https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/