Case Study No. 1

Establishing Design Operations at CarMax

Background

In August 2021, CarMax's Experience Design team embarked on a journey to establish a design operations (DesignOps) practice.

This initiative aimed to support the scaling of the design team and enhance overall operational efficiency. Joining the team as a new associate and an individual contributor tasked with this responsibility, it presented an opportunity for significant learning, growth, and self-reliance.

Strategic Approach

The goals outlined below, identified in partnership with the design leadership team, ensured that my evaluation covered all areas of the business from a design and business lens as well as our internal partners, tools, and processes were equitably accounted for and prioritized appropriately. 

Goals

  1. Listening Tour and 1:1 Interviews: Conducted comprehensive interviews with leadership, designers, development leaders, collaborative technology leaders, HR, Recruiting, and Legal/PR/Compliance

  2. Goal Setting: Based on the insights gathered, the following focus areas were identified:

    • Revamping the onboarding process

    • Creating a centralized system for design resources and departmental information

    • Building cross-departmental relationships

    • Refreshing team rituals and communication methods

  3. Implementation of Team Rituals:

    • Quarterly All Hands: Focusing on culture, creativity, and collective learning

    • Monthly XD All Hands: Sharing in-progress and new work

    • Monthly Practitioner All Hands: Emphasizing skills, learning, and growth

Key Strategies for Success

  • Curiosity-Driven Approach: Invested time in understanding the organization's intricacies, challenges, and accomplishments

  • Leading Through Uncertainty: Demonstrated strong leadership in establishing a new practice, building trust with designers

  • Enhanced Communication: Implemented a weekly "welcome to the week" email and restructured team communications via Microsoft Teams

  • Standardization: Established consistent processes and guidelines to ensure quality, reduce errors, and enhance efficiency

  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Facilitated smoother interactions with clients, stakeholders, and other departments

Outcome

The outlined goals and strategies for my strategic approach ensured that my evaluation covered all areas of the business from a design and business lens as well as our internal partners, tools, and processes were equitably accounted for and prioritized appropriately.

It truly made a difference having collaborative designers who trusted me and gave practical insights for the current state of design and what opportunities, challenges, watch outs, and goals that had been previously established. 

I accomplished these goals by: 

  • Being curious. I truly wanted to get to know the ins and outs, challenges, accomplishments, good and bad about the organization and everyone I was going to be collaborating with. Doing this early on really established a strong foundation for successful working relationships. I also met  individually with every team member to invest time and energy in understanding concerns, what’s working well, and what information could be clearer.

  • Leading Through Uncertainty. Coming in new to a company establishing a new practice came with a lot of uncertainty, which allowed for me to share my values and how I lead through those situations. This built trust with the designers, since they saw I was truly invested in their futures and the future of design at CarMax. 

  • Establishing better communication methods. Each Monday, I share a “welcome to the week” email, giving a short overview of upcoming important dates and events, upcoming birthday and anniversaries, and 3-4 design centric articles, links, or workshops that I’ve found online the week previous that could be of interest to them. Overall, this really helped to establish an easy method for the designers to start their week without having to dig through their inboxes. This also provided the opportunity to restructure our team comms via Microsoft Teams to make information easy to find, share and engage with.

This experience has allowed me to flex skills I previously thought I had a firm hold on, and given me the opportunity to strengthen my leadership skills, approach, and values while continuously learning and growing, resulting in my becoming a more confident leader. 

Year Over Year Progression:

  • Year One: Established norms and identified opportunities for improvement, create action plan for change.

  • Year Two: Implemented changes and observed tangible impacts

  • Year Three: Demonstrated organizational agility in adapting to new challenges and changes

Lessons Learned

The organization has proven to be nimble and so long as communication is transparent, things are continuing to grow and success is visible day by day. 

By implementing these strategies and learning from the challenges, CarMax successfully established a DesignOps practice that not only improved the efficiency of its design team but also contributed to broader organizational growth and innovation.

What worked well:

  • Data-Driven Approach: Utilizing data effectively can refine design operations and enhance product development

  • Continuous Learning: Engaging with industry peers and mentors provides valuable insights and perspectives

  • Cultural Shift: Implementing DesignOps can initiate a broader organizational shift towards data-informed practices

  • Scalability: As design teams grow, the need for efficient processes becomes increasingly critical

What I could have done better: 

  • Documentation and Artifacting. Since I was hitting the ground running on day 1, I could have done a better job with documentation. The outputs I created worked as an MVP, but if I was to do this again, I would have done a deeper dive in creating repeatable / scalable outputs that I could reference rather than work around. 

  • Relationship Building: Additional investment in relationships with leadership outside of product could have been beneficial

  • Delegation. As a team of one individual contributor, delegation was a delicate balance of borrowed resources and collaborators. Overall, a more proactive approach to delegation could have improved efficiency and resource utilization

Next

Case Study No. 2