University of Calgary · Design operations

Connecting operations with design excellence

Building the processes, shared resources and team skills that support consistent digital delivery.

My role Senior Specialist, Content Operations and Projects

Team Digital Content · University of Calgary

Scope Intake, migrations, design projects, tooling and capability development

Practice Project leadership · Facilitation · Content and design operations

The challenge

Support delivery while strengthening how the team works.

The team balances everyday requests with larger migrations and design projects. This work needs clear requirements, coordinated decisions, accessible design resources and the skills to apply them.

My work addresses these needs through a connected set of operational and capability initiatives.

Goals

Clarify how requests are assessed, authorized and routed.
Coordinate priorities, owners, dependencies and reviews across projects.
Provide reusable tools and content structures.
Build confidence and design skills across the team.

My contribution

Connect direction, people and delivery.

I identify operational gaps, define requirements, organize work and facilitate collaboration. For the Figma toolkit initiative, I pitched the opportunity, secured leadership support and mobilized the team.

The team collectively built and tested the technical solution. My leadership contribution was to establish the conditions and direction for that work, then support adoption.

Approach

Improve the system around the work.

Clarify the work Intake, approvals and requirements

Enable delivery Project coordination and shared resources

Build capability Learning, reuse and adoption

1. Refine intake and routing

I use request patterns and turnaround data to inform clearer request types, authorization requirements and routing between student support and specialist expertise.

2. Lead migrations and design projects

Across Research Directory migrations, Faculty Redesign and Navigate, I translate priorities into scopes, tasks, milestones and review points, coordinating ownership and dependencies.

3. Mobilize a Figma toolkit initiative

I pitched and led a hackathon to bridge the gap between published design standards and a reusable Figma resource. The team collaborated on building and testing the toolkit, supported by shared documentation and training.

4. Support design upskilling

I create opportunities for designers and junior content specialists to develop Figma skills, practise design thinking and apply shared working methods.

5. Develop a reusable content framework

I’m facilitating a framework around eight content archetypes. Team exercises identify components, arrange information hierarchies and test structures against real UCalgary content, audiences and goals.

Outputs & intended impact

Shared foundations for future work.

Delivered through the toolkit initiative: a working Figma resource, collaborative review and testing, and supporting templates, documentation and training.

Developing across the broader practice: clearer intake, coordinated delivery practices, design learning opportunities and a shared content framework.

These initiatives are intended to improve consistency, reduce repeated effort and help more team members contribute effectively. Turnaround savings, reduced rework and gains in independence have not yet been quantified.

Reflection

Build capability into delivery.

The connecting idea is to address immediate needs while creating something the team can reuse. A project can deliver a resource and develop skills; an operational improvement can clarify both today’s task and tomorrow’s workflow.

My focus is on making good work easier to repeat across people and projects.

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