Ep 79 Listener questions: Design operations, start-ups, company “purpose", your career and building a team.

In this engaging Q&A episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates tackles listener questions covering key topics for designers and leaders alike. Discover what design operations really involves as a discipline, get practical advice for designers aspiring to launch their own startup, and learn how companies can make their purpose authentic rather than just a marketing gimmick. Stephen also shares insights on overcoming the fear that your best work is behind you and offers a roadmap for building a UX strategy from scratch for organizations new to user experience. Tune in for actionable guidance and expert insights to elevate your creative journey.

SHOW NOTES AND MORE:
https://thecrazy1.com/

WATCH MORE CONTENT ON YOUTUBE:
https://www.youtube.com/@StephenGates

WORK WITH CRZY:
http://crzydesign.com/

FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Stephen Gates : 0:00

What's going on everybody, and welcome into the 79th episode of The Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and everything else that helps to empower creative people. Now, be sure to subscribe to the show. So you get the latest episodes whenever those come out. And remember, you can always listen to all the shows, get the show notes and everything else. Head over to the crazy one calm. That's the words that crazy and the number one calm. Now for this episode, I thought we'd go back to doing honestly, what's one of my favorite things to do, which is a listener question show because you mean the unique challenge of this show is that it's just me, I'm not interviewing anybody. I'm not doing anything else. So you know that content is a little bit different to put together. So the more ways we can have this be a conversation. I think the better it is, the happier I tend to be. Now, that's why I said normally go through a bunch of these different things. So went out on social media, ask for questions. got five really good ones today. So some of the things we're going to cover today we're going to talk about design operations. What is it? When do you need it? How does it work? A little bit of advice about if you're working for or thinking about doing a start up? A really good a deep and interesting question about kind of your purpose as a designer and kind of different stages of your career, and some different things like that. And then finally, question around building a team, how to do it and who should be involved. So that's the plan for today is to go through those five things, and so we might as well get started. Now, the first question comes from a Ron reform and he said, Would love to get you to clarify design operations as a discipline? Would you do as practitioners a huge favor? There's far too much confusion with program slash project management. Also be good to get your thoughts on design systems in relation to design operations, specifically, whether or not an effective design operations strategy needs to include the industry or support of a design system. Now, design operations, for those of you who don't know, really is something that I think has come about probably in the last couple years, mainly on the in house design team side. And a lot of it really has been driven by, you know, as we're being asked to do more as we're being asked to become part of more organizations to become more integral to what they do. There's a lot of it that can go into that. And now design operations. I wouldn't say probably the technical definition of this is that this is just everything that supports the high quality design, craft, all the methodologies and all the processes. Because I think without this function, what you see is that what a designer should be doing is designing what a writer should be doing is writing without this sort of role. Now what you end up seeing is that a lot of these creative people what they can do is that they can do planning, they can do budgeting, they can do communications to the organization. They can spend a lot of time trying to get everyone aligned. Now, the problem with that is whenever you're doing that you're not creating. So that's really where the rise of design operations has come from. And now, you know, specifically to his point, I do think in a lot of cases, what I see is that there's a lot of confusion between what is the difference between design operations and something that's just like project management. Now, historically, that's why anybody who's in design operations, I would call them producers, not project managers, because what you're doing is very similar to whenever I worked in movies or video or things like that, you're producing this project. Now project management, usually, and again, I know this doesn't, this isn't going to apply to everyone who has that title. But generally, what project management entails are timelines and budgets. Those are the two things that you're kind of in there to do is to keep us on time and keep us on budget. Now, that is part of what a lot of design operations functions do, because Whenever you come in, it is about what is our way of doing things? How do we keep things on time? How do we keep things on budget? How do we what are our estimates, and different things like that. But I think it can go pretty significantly beyond that, because in a lot of cases, what this comes down to, it is also about how do you communicate and work with the organization? How do you communicate what happened in a meeting? How do you communicate decisions? How do you go out and make sure that everyone's staying aligned on what's happening? A lot of sort of just the the maintenance that goes in behind the scenes to doing anything creative. Now, in many cases, I think, you know, what you'll see happen is that design operations probably really comes about for a few different reasons or a few different things are kind of driving that. One is usually the scale of a team that is it goes from being smaller to being bigger. You just have more projects, you have a lot more going on so that scale will often emphasis To say, look, we need someone who can come in to be able to do this. And like I said, For me, it's calling it as project management is selling it way short, because the other part of what I think drives it is a lot to do with the people. And I would say two main cases, I think project management tends to deal with just the project piece of it. It doesn't tend to deal with the people part of it. Now by the people part of it. I mean, I think what I'm saying is really good creatives are a rare commodity. And the problem is increasingly they know that. And so you know, if you want to recruit them, if you want to keep them if you want to keep them happy and feeling fulfilled, keeping things like planning, budgeting, communicating and alignment away from them, tends to be a good thing, mostly because none of us went to school for that none of us are terribly interested in that. So the ability to be able to do that is hugely, hugely helpful. And the other part of it, I think, is that you've seen in many cases, just companies and organizations are growing they're becoming more complex with means the structure that you're dealing inside of is more complex. You may have multiple stakeholders, multiple roadmaps, multiple budgets, funding sources, all kinds of different things, the ability to sort of keep all that stuff straight and wrangled and point in the same direction, that becomes really critical. But I think in many cases, it also is that, you know, designing creativity isn't a job, you just show up to write, like, you need to get in there, you need to be developed, you need to have a way to advance and be promoted and be rewarded and be recognized. And, and again, I think in many cases, a lot of, you know, what designers and creatives are gonna be recognized for are not the operational pieces of that, because that's just the keep the trains running on time. But I think, you know, the biggest place where I think, you know, this sort of thing, and this operations role really helps probably is much more around expectations, because in many cases, you know, we're just being asked to do a lot more people are insisting on better design, they want better design outcomes. They want to be able to do it faster, they want to do it with more people they want to, they want to change up a lot of these things. So I think also, in many cases, there just tend to be a lot of moving pieces. So having someone that is on your side that is dedicated to looking at these sorts of things, becomes really, really important because I think design operations at its best, really is sort of the overlap of three different fields. And I think this is why sometimes it can get a little bit confused or a little bit muddy, I think one is that there is definitely a business operations piece to this. Now this is dealing with legal This is dealing with finance, this is the, you know, keep the lights on just sort of daily business operation of that. I think that you know, whenever I've been around design ops teams that work really well there's a people operations part of this, that they get, whether it's a community component, whether they're looking at the rituals of how do you do stand ups or, you know, potentially even some HR components to that to be able to sort of help out with the people side of that. To let people focus on what they're supposed to. And then the last part of it really is sort of a workflow operations. And this is often where there's that sort of overlap with Project Management. But by workflow. For me, I think it's bigger than that. Because it is things around logistics of how do you work, it's around process. It can be around methodology. It can be around research of how and when do you do that? But I think it also going back to the second half of the question, I think it also goes to design systems, because in many cases, design systems whenever you're going through and you're going to launch one of these, there is the creative part of how do we create the system and how do we stand it up? And what is it going to look like? That's the easy part. The hard part is how do we find adoption for it? How do we find a way for people to be interact with it and give us feedback on it and for us to be able to continue to move it forward and figure out how to keep it funded and how to, you know, let people know what's going on. There's a lot of that sort of thing that I think are more in the workflow operations piece. Because in many cases, that's what a lot of happens in creativity is we have this wild act of creation, doing something really cool designing something really great. And then it needs to be operationalized, then it needs to be made into something that can have repeatable success. And I think that that's the part where this really comes into play. So I'm going to leave you with on this one, because I know it's a little bit of an in depth answer answer here is, there are three signs that I usually see whenever you can start to tell that you need design operations. A big one for me is whenever you look at your team, and you're starting to see craft specialization, so this is instead of just having like the one unicorn designer who could do your wireframes and do the design and could write some of the copy, you're starting to see craft specialization, meaning that I have a designer, a writer and Information Architect a prototyper. You know, these sort of different roles then that in many cases as these sort of rolls roll in and out of projects, the ability to have air traffic control around that Starts become really important. I've mentioned this before, definitely whenever you're operating a team at scale, scale, meaning that it is getting to a place where you have 10s of projects out there, you have multiple different clients, multiple different stakeholders, multiple different timelines, there is so much of those sort of things that happen as your team grows, that again, you need a centralized function to help create that sanity. Also, because if you don't have it, like I said, what you're gonna watch is your velocity is going to really, really drop because all of your creatives are not focused on being creative. They're focused on project management, a lot of this other stuff. And the last part of it for me, and I think that this is probably the maybe again, for some it's a fine line. But for me, it's very important. I think what design operations does when it does it well, is that it really creates a safe harbor for the team. Now there are places where you can have design operations and this does not work well because I think you'll There are times whenever design operations can just sort of run it like a production shop, you can run it and just say yes to everything, you can run over the design piece of it and make it a little bit too operationalized into solace. But if you're able to find that balance between research design and operations, I think you can create a safe harbor where the team feels protected, because that's really I think one of the things that it does really well is whenever a client has a problem, whenever there's an issue on a project, whenever there's something like that, instead of the designer feeling like they need to jump in. And so the creative feeling like they need to take up this fight. They have somebody who's there to do it for them, they have somebody who's there as their partner, they have somebody who can be able to come in and help them on that stuff. And that's really, really big, because then they feel like they're being protected from having to do that. They're not having to do stuff that they probably don't love. And I think that's a really important piece of it. It feels like this probably should be an entire episode unto itself and maybe I will end up doing that here. in the not too distant future is looking at that. But the thing I tell you is like, if design operations is something that you're really interested in, I would point you to head over to design better.com. This is it's an envision website. But Aaron Walter and The design education team does a spectacular job of putting out books around different subjects. And there's a design operations handbook there that has a lot of what it is that I'm talking about there. And it goes into much, much more depth has more examples of different things like that. So I think, you know, look, if this is something that you're interested in, if it feels like this, maybe you feel like this is something that you're needing, or, as I'm sort of saying what it is you could do, you're kind of sitting there quietly going, Yeah, I feel like maybe we need that. Go and check that out. Because I think that's gonna be a really good resource for that. The next question we have comes from Sean Smith and Sean asks, What are your thoughts on startups? Any tips for designers who are currently running startups, or thinking about launching a startup? Ah, yeah, I mean, yes. I it's interesting for me, because I think, you know, obviously until 1314 months ago, didn't have a ton of experience in the space. I spent the last, you know, amount of time with a startup even though, you know, obviously, I think we're more of a unicorn stage startup, since we're eight or 900 people. I'll give you a few thoughts of I think what has maybe kept me from doing my own, or from what I've seen in other people or have learned from, you know, Clark, who was kind of at our company and other things like that. I think part of it is, especially if you're thinking about launching a startup, truly understand what you're good at. And also understand that you are launching a business because I see so many creative people who go into this with this sort of like Pollyanna hopeful, I just want to do great work. I just want to do amazing things for amazing clients. Great. I think that's a really good motivation for that. But businesses a huge part of this and I think maybe that's part of the reason why I have never done one is because I've never found a business partner who I felt Could complement me at the level that I'm able to bring to do things like, I don't want to think about prospecting new clients, I don't want to think about health insurance, I don't want to think about, you know, worry about our bank accounts. And yes, I know that you need to do that as a part of it. But I think to understand that there is a real business reality that goes into this. And I think the other part of it is and for the startups that I advise and talk to, and other things like that. The other big piece of advice I would say is that either if you lead one, or if you're thinking about it, you need to have a laser focus on what sets you apart, what is the point of your business and stay focused on it? Because I see as soon as they like, they'll kind of start with this really good sort of crisp little vision. And then before, you know, they're just wandering all over the place that you know, they're not really clear on who their customers are. They're just they don't know how to continue to stay really focused. And then the startups that I've seen that go to scale, the startups that I've seen who are successful really have a laser focus on saying look This is what we are good at this is the difference we want to make this is the space that we want to play at. This is the unmet need that brought us in there, right? Like whatever that is. But use that as a source of truth to refer back to don't start getting caught up in, you know, whatever the latest cool technology is, don't start getting caught up and all that other stuff, which I think is really easy to do. Because I think that sort of discipline is really hard. I think that's why a lot of startups fail is because, you know, they start to wander or they want to do other things or it's just, you know, we we have a really hard time staying focused on just one thing. So, it's not a ton of advice. But that would definitely be shown the thing that I would say is, like I said, understand what you're good at, and whatever your deficiencies are, or whatever those other areas that you need, find people that compliment you. And I think in many cases, you know, keep that focus. But the other thing I would probably also say is, if you're going to do a start up and you're gonna have other people in it, really make sure that you are invested. Clear on your relationship with those people. Because the other thing for me is that probably 60 or 70% of the startups that I see that fall apart, don't fall apart because they have a bad mis business idea. They don't fall apart because they're doing bad work, they fall apart because their founders can no longer seem to get along, their egos suddenly get in the way they, they've lost focus on all these other things, that tends to be what drives them apart. So again, it can be a little bit harder. But, you know, I think a little bit of humility and in some of those other things goes a long way to really helping you there. Next question comes from Tom Briscoe. And Tom says, It's hip for companies to quote have a purpose now. I want to give points to companies for attempting to grow a soul. However, what makes it real and not just this marketing induced pipe dream and how might designers help? Because we're also enabling the fantasy otherwise? I think it's a really, it's a really good question. It's a really good point. Because, and again, I think, you know, there may be in Tom, hopefully I'm gonna interpret this the right way. Because I think, you know, having a soul can be, I think be taken for me maybe two different ways. I think one for me around having a soul is do they want to have more of a conscience do social good? do things like that? Or I think, you know, having a soul may also be how do we actually care about our employees? How do we actually act like more than just a big soulless business? I'm probably going to skew a little bit more towards the second part of that because I think, I don't know we'll try to split the difference, but maybe a little bit more that way. So the first part is, how do you actually make a soul of a company real? I, you know, it's gonna sound like the obvious answer. But for me, it really comes down to the purpose that like, whatever your purpose is, needs to be real and if it's not real Then it is that marketing pipe dream bullshit. I think that, you know, an easy way for me whenever I go into these companies is to look at, do the employees really believe it? Do they bring it to life and how they do their work every day? Does it really inform you know, the decisions that are made? Because I think if you're able to see that come to life, if pretty much if people can just see how they plug into it, how can they bring it to life? How can they affect it, then it's real, because in many cases, whenever you go into Apple or Google or Facebook or like a you know, Airbnb or Netflix, or whenever they sort of have their soul they have their purpose they have this is what it is they're there to do. It I think just at the surface will look indistinguishable from what a lot of other companies do or have or say, or they all have values or have this different stuff. But I think that for them, people really believe it. They really have a connection to it because for me, like if it's just for show if it's something that's just talked about, and this is what I see a ton of companies do is whenever they Want to get a soul or a purpose? They'll say, you know, this is what we're here for. We're here to change the world. We're here to do whatever it is. But then the problem about is Yeah, it's just talked about, you know, we'll have some keynote at all hands, we'll do something else like that, where it's like, yes, this is what I really believe in already goes, yeah. And then the problem is, there's no training, there's no coaching, there's no way to bring it to life, there's no connection to the organization, there's no transparency to the decisions that we make and how it informs those that it says for show, because I think is there again, you can almost really tell because if you talk about the company's purpose, or their values or their mantra, like, again, whatever it is, and people just sort of roll their eyes or you know, kind of snicker or kind of know what it is, then you know, that it's not real. And so what I would say is, I think that, you know, for a company to have a purpose. There's a few things that I would say to do to this if you want to make it real, and I think this would get again to the second part of that question about how can design Help. I think the first one for me is that if you want to create a solid company, if you really want to help instill culture, which is what in many cases I think the soul will translate into, you need to think about it way more as a cultural movement than a process. Because for a lot of people, they're like, oh, let's make some posters. Let's get some values. Let's do like, that's great. But the problem is, in many cases, most people in the company have no idea how to connect to that, how to bring it to life, how to make it real, how to do whatever it is. So for me, like I said, it's much more of a cultural movement than a process. And so to that end, I think that creating things and I've talked about this before, like behaviors is a really good way to bring that to life. Because our souls is who we are a soul is what people say about us when we're not in the room. Right. And I think that those come to life through behaviors, through the way that we act, the way that we think the way that we listen the way that we lean in, do whatever it is, and in many cases, it is our ability. To define those, because here again, the companies I see that do this the best. What is they stand for? What is they want to try to do? isn't rocket science like you don't look at that and go, Wow, I've never thought of that, wow, we shouldn't. They're not doing anything that's that different. What they're doing that seems to be different is writing it down, coaching it, teaching it, believing in it, supporting it, and actually holding people accountable to it. That seems to be the difference for me between whether it's real or bs because if it's just that thing that ends up on a board of directors slide maybe we try to put it into a press release. We try to do those things but there's no real expression of it. It doesn't come to life in the way that we behave and the way that we act talk think do things like that. Then it's just that bs because I think I've been a part of those companies like even whenever I was at Starwood it, you know, we at one point had said, We no longer a hotel company. We were a design led lifestyle brand company. On the surface. That sounds like such bs But for us, it really was this sort of centering thought it was this way to really kind of understand who we were, and sort of what our purpose was to be able to do that. And that whenever we for us when we talked about hospitality, not hotel hospitality, that is a different mindset is the same thing with like lifestyle brand. This is this is a very different way of going about things and just saying, oh, we're a hotel company. So the problem here is with most topics like this, there's not a magic bullet. But everybody can tell you, especially you can, designers can tell if it's real or not. And if you're sticking with those places where it's not look at how you can make it into more of a cultural movement, look at how you can start to instill it into behaviors, look at how you can help lead the conversation about how do we change this over from this sort of thing that executives or HR somebody wrote that none of us can really connect to none of us really understand, to make it something that we can really bring to life that we can believe in, that we can be proud of, and be able to talk about because I think those are the things that will make the difference and will bring it to life. Fourth question. This is an interesting one. So, Oh man, this is one of those last names. I know I'm gonna screw up. So somebody's writing back and tell me what it should have been. Jared is the first name I know I can get that right. Trisha iski tr u s ch ke, Trisha trashy, trashy, maybe? I don't know, Jared, I'm sorry. I feel like I do this every show that I always screw up somebody's name. And especially because I think that the question on this is such such a tough question. Such an honest one. And it's one that I really appreciate that I feel bad if I just screwed your name up. But the question from Jared was, what if you're afraid that your best work is behind you? And you've already been as good as you're gonna get? It's like I said before, I think Jared, kudos to you, man. Because I think just asking a question like that. Probably, at least would hint to me that you're well on your way to not having your best work behind you. Because I think It definitely takes a certain level of self awareness, to be able to ask a question like that. But also be honest with you that I mean, I'm going to point in my career where those thoughts have started to creep in for me too. And I think whenever you get to a place in your career where you feel you started to accomplish something, I think as you start to get a little bit older, as you start to kind of wonder what's going on, these sorts of things start to creep in a little bit. And I mean, it was interesting for me, even when I was going through and doing the work with Apple and was doing the work with Apple Watch. I remember sitting in the keynote whenever it first got announced, and Tim was on stage and announced it and the thought that went through my head in that moment was is this as good as my life is gonna get? It was such a strange. I don't know what it's such a strange thing to be able to think about to be able to kind of say, like, Hey, is this as good as what it's going to get? Because, you know, for me, when you think about brands, I mean, there are a few that I've loved more than apple. Whenever you think about opportunities, there are a few that were bigger than words. On an unreleased piece of hardware for theirs, let alone be one of the featured companies for that. And to be able to have the executive support it like to be able to have all the things that had to line up for that to happen. Damn, that was rare. And I think especially as you go through, and this is why I've sort of done episodes on happiness and emotion and things like that, because it is an interesting question, and it's a good one, but but here would be my answer. I don't know if it's the answer, but my answer is that I will put it back on you because I think it's really up to you. Whether your best is behind you or not, right, it's easy to give up. It's easy to coast. It's easy to just be able to say you know, I've I'm not as hungry as I used to be or I don't want to work as hard as I did or my my parties are different. I have a family I have whatever that is right. I think can give into that. You see a lot of people do and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you've decided and I think you I would say by the nature of you asking this question you're probably searching or struggling with that. Is that my answer to that has been in my answer to myself in that moment sitting there, in the midst Apple keynote, was that it's up to me to rage against the fact that this, isn't it, that this isn't the best, right? Because you control you. And the more you can get control of your career, the more you can build your brand, the more that you can be deliberate about the opportunities that you're getting to do great work to be deliberate about the jobs, you take the positions you put yourself in the places where you're saying, Look, I'm not just going to settle for good I want to push for great. It can be a subtle line, it can be a line that, you know, some people may not understand. But I think the only answer that is going to come from you and it's going to come from how willing are you to keep pushing yourself. how willing are you to keep learning how willing are you to push yourself to change trying new things and to be uncomfortable because I think in many cases, that's the crux of this right is where it's easy to say, look, we've done enough, we've learned enough. How do I I can just kind of coast for a while and be comfortable, do it, I know be able to keep doing that.

Unknown Speaker : 27:16

But

Stephen Gates : 27:18

if you're in a place where those opportunities aren't there to do great work, if the better work feels that gets behind you, that seems like a real good indicator that maybe there's a conversation needs to be had with yourself or with other people about is that the right company for you? Are those the right opportunities? Maybe it's something where you're saying, look, you know, I've been a designer for X number of time and I want to go to try to do something else. I want to try doing leadership, I want to branch out and do other things like that. Again, you can certainly make that a possibility. But the challenge here is going to be I think, you know, the easy way out is to say that it's them. I've talked before about them, right? My Boston Give me the opportunity. My company didn't promote me, they don't recognize me. It's always somebody else, right? Like so you'd always say it was somebody else didn't get it, somebody Else, it was them. They were them, they were the reason why my best work is behind me. I don't buy it. I don't buy it from a second, I think, again, it is up to you to make those decisions. And if you feel like the best work is behind you, and if you're willing to make peace with that, then you're right, it probably is behind you. But if you look at that, and say, I don't buy that, I don't want that, that I don't feel like that's really the case. And that, you know, for me, the best still is yet to come. Then I think those are the moments that you need to then kind of say, Okay, great, what am I going to do about it? What am I willing to stay? How hard Am I willing to work? What am I willing to learn? What risks Am I willing to take? Because if you do that, then I guarantee you and if you are truly dedicated to that, that absolutely your best work is in front of you. Because I don't care what age you are. I don't care what experience you are, as long as you have that mindset, right? Because I think as long as you keep hustling, like you haven't made it, your best work will still be in front of you. But like I said, I think you know, definitely kudos on the question. Because I think you know, the I just love whenever people are able to be this vulnerable. I think so many of us spend so much time bullshitting each other, walking around with this sort of mask of always like, Oh, my best works in front of me. But then that's the inner voice question. So yeah, Jared, I think definitely kudos to you on that. The last question comes from Lindsey Marie Gomez. And Lindsey asks, What are the key roles to consider when building a UX team? How do you begin to create a UX strategy for a company that's never had one before? Now, I do get a bunch of questions like this, because I think as design continues to emerge in the world, as more companies sort of become aware of it, you have design teams of one, you have design teams that are growing and are about to hire their kind of first key person you have different things like that, right. So I think that it's always a little bit dangerous for me and I get a little bit cautious around wanting to say do this Exact sort of thing. Because in many cases, what I would say is the formula for who your first hire should be, or how to grow your team, or things like that, right? That becomes tricky because depending on the industry, you're in what part of the world you're in the maturity of your company can sort of change those sorts of things a little bit, right. So what I'm going to do is I will say, generally, whenever I look at building a team, there are sort of three areas that I will focus on. The first is the creative team, creative being designers, writers, prototype, ORS, things like that, right? Like, because in many cases, you need to start with just the basic execution of that. You need to be able to get in and get the work designed, get it prototype, get it in people's hands, be able to get it out the door, right like if you're not able to do that. I don't care what your scale is, you're not going to be successful. Now, I think once you start to be able to get the basics in place and you can even have the basics in place with Have a single person for me, then it's about how do we start to then layer in strategy because I think when you talk about UX strategy for a company has never had it before. This is why you'll hear me talk about delineating between design and creativity, design being executional piece of it, we need to be able to get in, we need to be able to just simply get the work done. Great. But as we talked about creativity, creativity is problem solving creativity is how do we approach it? How do we find differentiation in it? How do we use data? Like how do we do a lot of those sort of things, right? And so I think that this is where having a strategist can become really, really helpful strategist and somebody who can think about what is the approach to the problem, look at other you know, what is going on in the market, what are consumers doing bring an understanding of that ability to bring in research and competitive looks and other things like that so that it is much more of an informed decision and way in which you do your work. And then I think also the ability in the fact that strategy can also then having you Your creative team become more strategic, using things like design Sprint's or design thinking so that you can be more inclusive of that. Because I think that's the part of it for me is that in many cases, as you look at how do you grow it, and especially if you're trying to grow in a company that's never had a UX practice before, the ability to just say, this is what we do that like you come to us and we will help doesn't tend to work because for me, it's much more about how do you start to show value? And how do you start to get integrated in all those other parts of the company because the other parts of company have been there way longer than you have? So instead of getting them to bend to you, I would say think a little bit more about how do you work with them and to be able to bring them in. Then once that starts to find maturity, then it goes back to the first question about bringing in design operations and why that becomes important but I like I said is I would really say as you think about bringing it to a company has never had it before. For really key things to think about the first one we already touched on. understand the difference between design and creativity, right? Because what you don't want to do is don't get caught in the trap of which is probably going to easily happen if a company has never had this before, where it just simply becomes about UX execution, not UX strategy, not thought leadership, not the approach to that. Because again, I always go back to like great design as a visual expression of great thinking. So the thinking, the creativity, that has got to be where you plant the flag, that's got to be where people see the value, because that's going to drive the biggest differentiator bigger, the biggest help for you. Now, the part of that that comes with it. And again, you've heard me talking about this ad nauseum, if you listen to this show at all, is to get strategic problems, again, get a problem to be solved, not a solution to be vetted. I keep saying that time and time again, because as I continue to travel the world with more and more companies, I just see this over and over and over again. Because you want a problem to be solved. Because if you want to be able to do that, then you You can say great, this is what we want to go do. Great. You, nobody else is used to working with the design team. Let's bring everybody and let's remind them that they're creative, let's be able to bring those sorts of things in. And the third part of that is whenever you do that, use data to create informed strategies use data to help your decisions, data can be researched, it can be hard to like you can have a qual quants sort of approach to this. But again, understand that that's the language that they're going to speak, understand that that's the place where their heads are going to be coming in. So meet them halfway and to use that data to help create that sort of informed strategy. And then, like I said, I said this before, but involve people who are not designers in the design process. Because what you don't want to do is don't make as you build this practice, don't make it isolating. Don't make it one of those things where like designer creative is a department that that's a road to failure, I think because whenever you're able to say look, design has a very broad definition and that we are here to help Everyone become more creative. We're here to help everyone be a part of this process. Because at the end of the day, what matters is the product, what matters is what we're putting out to our consumers. That was that's what matters. And that we as creatives were much more comfortable being uncomfortable. we're much more used to working through this process. And we're here to help you be a part of it. We're here to be the shepherd, the Sherpa that whatever you want to call it. That's what we're here to do. Because I think whenever you're able to do that, it feels very, very different. It feels much more welcoming. It feels like fun. Because I think that's the way I'm usually able to design and scale my teams is that executives and other people, they really look forward to our meetings, because they're so caught up in all the rest of their day to day with the spreadsheets and with the meetings and the phone calls and the decisions and all the other noise, man but the ability to meet with the design team, that was something I always wanted to make it fun. I wanted to make it something they really look forward to it were there that was the thing they circled on their day that they knew they're really going to enjoy because I think you're able to To really cultivate that mindset, the scaling the value, the ability to grow, the team comes much, much easier. Because if it standoffish, then it's a resource war. And that never really works. But, again, I think, as with all these questions, maybe if there's anything more on that you want to press on any other questions, things like that, feel free to follow up, and I'll be happy to kind of share out the bigger, deeper answer on that. But that's the thing for me is to go back to much more of the mindset and the position because I think that's going to make you far more successful than anything else. So hopefully, you found these helpful if, and I make this offer all the time. Look, I'm here to help. And that, you know, reach out to me over social media send me questions like this, keep an eye on social media because I do these shows at a decently regular clip, to try to be able to interact with people and to be able to touch on subjects figure out what future shows should be things like that. So if you got questions you want to know more about any of this sort of stuff, reach out and and I'll be happy to get back to you as quickly as I can. The other thing for me is like I said, If you enjoy the show, whenever you're head over to your favorite podcast platform, be sure to subscribe. And whenever you're there, take just a couple seconds, leave a review, let people know what you think about the show, head over to the crazy one calm. It's a crazy one in the number one, you can find out more about the podcast, you can find related articles. I'll put a link to design better calm there. And so to go right to that design operations book, I talked about all that stuff. That's your place. Follow me on social media. Like I said, reach out ask questions. I try to post articles. If you want to head over to Facebook, you can actually like the show there just type in The Crazy One podcast, I try to post things there answer questions. And then lastly, the last two things that we always do. The first one is that everybody down and legal wants me to remind you the views here are my own. They don't represent any of my current or former employers. These are just my own opinions. And finally, I say it every time because I mean it every time. But thank you for your time. I know that time is truly the only real luxury any of us have was incredibly humbled. You want to spend any of it with me. So hopefully, the questions helped. Hopefully, you're writing down some new questions to be able Send me so that we can do that for the next show. And all the while. Remember, stay crazy