Rosenfeld Media

What do music and DesignOps have in common? So much that Rachel Posman and John Calhoun use music as a framework for their new book, The Design Conductors: Your Essential Guide to Design Operations—the first book written about the subject. Both of the authors come from creative backgrounds (John as a musician, Rachel as a ballet dancer), and they describe how their personal experiences influenced their approach to the book and their work. The music analogies are plenty. One example is the importance of orchestration in design operations, equating it to coordinating a team to work harmoniously, much like a conductor leading an orchestra. Rachel and John explain that design operations is a creative process, blending design and management, and that those creative aspects are often underestimated. They highlight the maturing nature of design operations as a discipline, noting that the book fills a gap in resources for both newcomers and experienced professionals. The book is structured in two acts (another musi