Design Operations & Program Management
Darin
Hansford
Building the systems, programs, and operational foundations that let high-performing design teams do their best work — at scale.
View my work →
About
The Ops
Behind
Great Design
I'm a Design Operations and Program Management leader with 10+ years of experience — but if I'm being honest, I think of myself as a designer at heart. I've always been drawn to the craft, the creativity, and the people behind great design work. DesignOps became my path because it lets me stay close to all of that while helping teams focus on what they do best.
I build the structure, clarity, and cross-functional trust that lets talented designers focus on their craft. Whether that's creating planning frameworks from scratch, building the rituals that keep distributed teams connected, or aligning design with product and engineering — I bring both the strategic thinking and the hands-on execution to get it done.
My approach has always been rooted in inclusivity and open collaboration. I believe the best outcomes happen when people feel heard, aligned around a common goal, and genuinely part of something together. I'm not interested in top-down process for its own sake — I'm interested in building environments where design teams can share, grow, and do their best work as a community.
Lately I've been deeply focused on AI design enablement — helping teams develop the workflows and practices to integrate AI in ways that are thoughtful and genuinely impactful. It's one of the most exciting challenges in our field right now, and I'm all in.
- UX Planning & Operations
- AI Design Enablement
- Cross-Functional Leadership
- Stakeholder Management
- Executive Communication
Operating Principles
How I Work
/ 01
Default to Clarity
Ambiguity is the enemy of good design work. I make sure teams can always articulate what they're working on, why it matters, and what's next. Plans, priorities, and tradeoffs are written down — so nothing lives only in someone's head.
/ 02
Design the System, Not the Artifact
One-off fixes don't scale. I build the rituals, cadences, and frameworks that compound over time — giving design teams a consistent, repeatable way to plan, collaborate, and deliver. The goal is never to solve today's problem. It's to build something that keeps working.
/ 03
Operate with the Org's Grain
Process exists to serve the people doing the work — not the other way around. I meet teams where they are, adapt to how they actually operate, and build solutions that fit their reality. Inclusivity and open collaboration aren't afterthoughts — they're how I get things done.
/ 04
Community is Infrastructure
The strongest design orgs aren't just operationally efficient — they're genuinely connected. I build the spaces, rituals, and shared experiences that help design teams feel like they belong to something bigger than their individual workstream. When teams share and grow together, better work follows.
Programs & Work
Programs
Built & Led
From Siloed to Connected
A 40-person product design team spanning multiple workstreams — each doing good work, but largely in isolation. No shared visibility, no common rhythm, no real sense of community across teams. I diagnosed what was missing and built the operational and cultural connective tissue to bring them together.
Unifying a Portfolio — Design System Adoption Across Cisco Security
Cisco Security's product portfolio had grown through years of acquisitions — each product carrying its own visual language, design system, and UI patterns. Over three years I partnered with design leadership to build a team, earn the trust of resistant product teams, and drive unified design system adoption across 18+ products.
From Community to Playbook — Building Cisco's AI UX Foundation
As agentic AI experiences emerged as a new product category, Cisco's design org needed a foundation for how to design them. As the embedded DPM on a small, dedicated core team, I helped get Cisco's first Agentic UX Playbook off the ground — from early development through alpha launch across 3 business units.
Career
Experience
& History
- / 01Apr 2021 — Present
Lead Design Program Manager
Cisco
Built the operational and cultural connective tissue for a 40-person product design org, and helped launch Cisco's first Agentic UX Playbook across 3 business units.
- / 02Mar 2020 — Mar 2021
Design Program Manager (Contract)
Meta (Facebook)
Embedded DPM driving cross-functional design programs across Facebook surfaces during a fully remote year.
- / 03Jan 2019 — Sep 2019
Director, Program Management
Y Media Labs
Led program management for a digital product agency delivering enterprise mobile and web experiences.
- / 04Jul 2018 — Nov 2018
Executive Producer
BASIC Agency @ Google
Ran executive production for a creative agency engagement embedded with Google's marketing teams.
- / 05Feb 2016 — Jul 2018
Program Director
Idean (Capgemini Invent)
Directed design programs across enterprise UX engagements; built rituals and frameworks distributed teams could actually run.
- / 06Oct 2011 — Jan 2016
Director, Project Management & Creative Services
Vibrant Media
Built and led the project management and creative services org producing interactive advertising at scale.
- / 072007 — 2011
Creative Project Manager
TV Land (Viacom) · CBS Television
Managed on-air promo and creative production across two major broadcast networks.
Toolkit
- Figma
- Miro
- Jira
- Asana
- Airtable
- Notion
- Confluence
- SharePoint
- GitHub
- Cursor
- Claude AI
"Great DesignOps is invisible. You only notice it when it's missing."
— Darin Hansford
Let's Connect
Let's Build
Something
Together
Let's talk about what you're building.