Design Leadership
Case Study
Scaling Design Maturity in a Holacratic Environment
My Role
Lead Designer
in collaboration with:
Lead Link PX
Lead Research
Objective
Objective: Transforming the organization’s UX Maturity from Level 2 (Limited/Ad hoc) to Level 4 (Structured/Embedded).
Context
A holacratic fintech organization with approximately 17 designers and researchers distributed across cross-functional teams.
Products in usage
A holacratic fintech organization with approximately 17 designers and researchers distributed across cross-functional teams.
The Challenge: UX Maturity Level 2
Despite having a significant headcount of design professionals, the organization lacked a cohesive design strategy. The holacratic structure, while promoting autonomy, resulted in operational silos.
- Inconsistency: Designers worked without shared standards, leading to fragmented user experiences.
- Lack of Strategic Impact: Design was frequently treated as a downstream service ("making things pretty") rather than a strategic partner.
- Disconnect: There was no established link between the central Brand definition and the actual Product implementation.
The Strategy:
Product Experience Enablement Circle
To solve this without violating the principles of self-organization, we established a central Enablement Circle. The mandate was not to manage the teams top-down, but to act as a service provider supplying methods, operations, and artifacts to the product teams.
Execution
1. Strategic Hiring & Role Definition
We audited the existing capabilities within the product teams. Where coaching wasn't enough, we executed strategic hiring to fill critical skill gaps, placing specialized talent directly where it was needed. Concurrently, we streamlined the definitions of Design and Research roles to ensure clarity on responsibilities and expectations.
2. Vision & Design Principles To align autonomous decision-making, we developed a shared UX Vision. Crucially, we defined and established Design Principles. These principles provided the necessary guardrails, allowing teams to make independent design decisions that still adhered to a consistent quality standard.
3. Community & Culture We founded a Design Community to foster exchange among the 17 professionals.
Mentoring: I mentored other design roles to elevate individual seniority.
Alignment: Regular syncs ensured commitment to a common vision shared knowlegde and supported design roles active in their day to
4. Business & Brand Alignment
Brand x Product: We established a regular exchange between Brand and Product teams to ensure brand values were correctly translated into the interface.
Business Value: We shifted the conversation with Product Management. By aligning design operations with business goals and maintaining regular dialogue with PMs, we were able to anticipate product changes and demonstrate the ROI of design.
Tangible Proof: Artifacts of Transformation
The strategic work was validated through two major operational initiatives:
The Europace Redesign (Link to Project) This project applied the new Design Principles in practice. It successfully differentiated the experience for B2B users (focus/efficiency) and B2C users (emotion/guidance) while maintaining a unified brand identity.
The Design System (Link to Project) Acting as both Product Manager and Designer, I oversaw the development of the Design System. This served as the technical foundation for the Enablement Circle, allowing the transformation to scale efficiently across all codebases.
Outcome: UX Maturity 4
The organization successfully transitioned to UX Maturity Level 4.
- Embedded Design: Design and Research are now integral, structured parts of the product development process.
Operational Efficiency: Cross-functional teams operate autonomously using shared tools and principles.
Strategic Relevance: Design is recognized as a driver for achieving business objectives.
Let's talk about it.
If you have any feedback, questions, or any type of input: don't hesitate to get in contact with me.
