How to Drive a Design Project When you Don’t Have a Design Team
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
Unifying a sign-in experience across siloed business units requires cultural alignment more than just technical design.
-
•
An experience vision that is agnostic of technology helps align diverse stakeholders effectively.
-
•
Empowered small core teams can accelerate decision-making and maintain project momentum.
-
•
Embedding designers fractionally from different business units enables scalable design collaboration without a dedicated central team.
-
•
Rapid iterations and mixed usability testing approaches help identify issues early across modules and terminology.
-
•
Lack of prior trust among designers from different units hinders collaboration and slows progress.
-
•
Conflicting roadmaps and priorities between business units create complexity in resourcing shared projects.
-
•
Over-reliance on a single content strategist created a risky single point of failure for messaging consistency.
-
•
A formal kickoff meeting is crucial to align scope, roles, and expectations, even if delayed.
-
•
Service blueprints provide a valuable deeper view into backend systems and stakeholder responsibilities often overlooked in UI-focused maps.
Notable Quotes
"The complex problem we were solving was not really solution based at all. It was a cultural team alignment problem."
"The experience vision provided a tangible goal that everyone could work towards, focusing on the user's experience rather than the technology."
"Consistency over business unit efficiency meant choosing a unified interface over letting each business unit do their own thing."
"We formed a core task force empowered to make decisions quickly, avoiding weeks of delay waiting for formal approvals."
"I wish I’d spent more time cultivating relationships and trust with the designers embedded in other business units."
"Our content strategist was a single point of failure—when she left, we scrambled to pick up unfinished work."
"There was never an official kickoff meeting to align all stakeholders and set clear expectations."
"A service blueprint would have helped show the complex backend systems supporting what looks like a simple user interface."
"Investing time in people, relationships, and collaboration pays off in stronger teams and better user experiences."
"The work we do is fundamentally human, and humans are messy—sometimes things work, sometimes they don’t."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Respondents who feel very connected are twice as likely to say they’re making a significant impact."
Marc Fonteijn Ru ButlerIncrease your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)
December 3, 2024
"Tolerance to uncertainty is a big thing in climate tech compared to other fields."
Dem Gerolemou Alexis Oh Neef RehmanClimate technology fundamentals
May 15, 2024
"Users tend to rate a familiar site better than non-users, especially for Amazon, because they feel more secure and familiar."
Daniela Magaña Flores Ariane Rahn Jeff Ephraim BanderAhead of Competition: Learn What UX Benchmarking Can Do for Your Business Today
March 10, 2022
"Think like a designer: approach how you build your team and scale your company’s product design practice like a design problem."
Abbey Smalley Sylas SouzaScaling UX Past the Size of Your Team
January 8, 2024
"We automated everything — now we click a button weekly to produce updated staffing and priority alignment scores."
Patrick CommarfordDesign Staffing for Impact
January 8, 2024
"We believe in global citizenship and de-westernizing research by including community members in the discourse and insight decisions."
Xenia Adjoubei Sean BruceEmpowering Communities Through the Researcher in Residence Program
March 29, 2023
"The only form of ethical persuasion that exists is when the goals of the persuader are aligned with the goals of the persuading."
Craig VillamorDesign Systems for Ethical Design
January 26, 2023
"This isn’t more work—it's consolidating work that’s already happening scattered across tools into one connected place."
Jon Fukuda Ellie KryslDesign Planning and Management Support
October 3, 2023
"Our hypothesis was we could create better product faster with more eyes looking at the problem, not just product."
Iain McMaster IHan ChengDesign and Product: from Frenemy to Harmony
November 29, 2023
