Case Study - Building an Enterprise-Wide Design Organization

Introduction

Overview

In the dynamic banking sector, specifically focused on lending technologies, I led an innovative design team within a startup. Our groundbreaking work allowed us to identify users through their mobile devices, qualify them for loans, and swiftly distribute funds to their bank accounts—a pioneering achievement in the industry. Our success led to aqcuisition by Fiserv, establishing a large scale design organization, and implimenting an enterprise-wide design system.

Timeline

2019-2022. Over the course of three years, I worked to establish design operations and scale our design team of 4 to an enterprise wide organization of over 30 individuals, supporting Fiserv's digital banking products.

My Role

As Director of Design I worked to establish design thinking, processes, and operations throughout the digital lending business unit for Fiserv. My team demonstrated tangible buisness value and returns, garnering executive support to expand our operations to other products and units. I then led the charge to establish an enterprise-wide design organization that would support a majority of Fiserv's digital banking products.

Challenges & Goals

Challenges

Meeting Aggressive Revenue and Expansion Targets: The foremost challenge was aligning our startup culture with the need to meet Fiserv's aggressive goals of reaching $250 million in annual revenue and expanding our presence to 500 financial institutions within three years.

Scaling the Design Team: We needed to rapidly scale our design team to support the launch of new products, ensuring that we had the necessary design capacity to meet our targets.
Ensuring Consistency Across Products: With the intention to scale implementations to hundreds of institutions, maintaining design consistency across our suite of products posed a significant challenge.
Quality Assurance and Alignment: Unexpectedly, ensuring the final product matched our design standards became a critical challenge. Additionally, absorbing several products into our portfolio required aligning them with our design style and resolving user experience issues.

Hard at work in the innovation lab.

Goals

Team Growth and Expertise: To meet revenue and scaling targets, we set goals to expand our design team from 4 designers to around 15, including a UX writer to ensure consistency in product verbiage. This growth in talent allowed us to effectively support new product launches and maintain quality. Our success led to the creation of an enterprise-wide design organization.

Early design organization directional alignment chart.
Click to enlarge.

Design System Language: We established a design system language to expedite the design and development process, ensuring that our products adhered to a unified design language.
Quality Assurance Integration: To address the challenge of ensuring product quality, we set goals to have designers actively involved in the development signoff and QA phases, ensuring that design standards were met and user experiences were optimized.
Product Integration and Improvement: For the products we absorbed, we tackled them one by one. This involved conducting in-depth heuristic analyses, implementing design updates to enhance UX, and aligning these products with our design system. Each product received dedicated design support to facilitate this transition.

Strategy & Leadership

Strategic Approach

Organizational Model: Our strategic approach began with researching and selecting the optimal organizational model as we scaled. I reached out to industry expert Peter Merholz, author of 'Org Design for Design Orgs', and benefited from his mentorship. We adopted the centralized partnership model, which involved establishing a central design organization with standardized practices, operations, and shared UX research methods, all guided by a common design language.
Key Roles: To execute this model effectively, we targeted key roles critical to its success. We hired a Design Operations Manager, an ADA UX Manager, a UX Research Lead, several Design Team Leads, and multiple Junior-Mid Level Designers to provide operational support and leadership.

Design System Language

Empowering Designers: Acknowledging the importance of design systems, I empowered a passionate designer to lead the effort. She spearheaded the research and development of our own design system language, resulting in a comprehensive design system with extensive documentation for designers, developers, and product owners.
Governance: Together, we established a governance team responsible for regularly reviewing and updating the design system to ensure it remained aligned with evolving design standards and industry best practices. The design system was rolled out enterprise-wide, benefiting all cross-functional teams.

Leadership Style

Empowerment and Trust: My leadership style is built on trust and empowerment. I believe in giving designers autonomy to pursue creative ideas, make informed decisions, and take ownership of their projects. I actively avoid micro-management, instead focusing on clearing blockers and providing support where needed.
Removing Barriers: I took on the role of a facilitator, working to remove barriers that hindered the team's progress. This involved securing necessary resources, negotiating with senior leaders to gain their support for our strategy, and ensuring that cross-functional teams were aligned with our design objectives.
Encouraging Passion: I actively fostered an environment where designers could pursue their passions, whether it was UI design, research, design systems, UX writing, or accessibility. This allowed each team member to contribute their unique strengths to our collective success.

One of the design teams working on an omni channel banking platform.

Building The Team

Hiring Process

Personal Approach: My approach to hiring and finding top-tier talent is distinguished by a rigorous process designed to identify not only skills but also qualities that align with our vision for design excellence. I personally review and screen every candidate, and those meeting specific criteria are invited to a collaborative design session.
Collaborative Design Session: What sets my hiring process apart is the collaborative design session. Candidates, after passing initial screening, engage in a design exercise alongside myself and other team members. This dynamic session evaluates their ability to think on their feet, creativity, teamwork, and initiative. It also provides direct evidence of their proficiency with design process and tools.
Culture Fit Interview: Successful candidates undergo a culture fit interview with non-design team members to ensure alignment with our organizational values and collaboration with diverse stakeholders.

Mentoring & Development

One-on-One Meetings: Supporting designers is a core aspect of my leadership. Regular one-on-one meetings provide a platform for feedback, coaching, and open communication. It's a space for designers to voice their concerns, frustrations, and feedback.
Tailored Growth Plans: Each team member benefits from a tailored growth plan that aligns with their unique areas of design passion. For example, one designer's aspiration to become a design operations manager led to her research and development of our design system language. This initiative eventually resulted in her promotion and the establishment of the design operations role.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Enterprise Design System: Collaboration with senior executives and cross-functional teams led to the creation of an enterprise-wide design system. This comprehensive effort involved proof of concept, budget approvals, financial proposals, and high-level conversations to demonstrate its organizational benefits.
Front-End Framework: A collaborative partnership with the CTO resulted in the establishment of a consistent front-end framework utilizing Bootstrap and a modified Material design library. This framework expedited growth, reduced developer inquiries, and enhanced resource availability, facilitating quicker software implementation.
Organizational Growth: Daily collaboration with the SVP of the department, who also served as a mentor, led to the approval and creation of the original design organization. This transformative initiative garnered attention from other senior leaders, resulting in the absorption of three additional design groups and numerous product lines, ultimately forming a large-scale design organization of over 30 professionals.

Results & Impact

Quantifiable Outcomes

Revenue Growth: Our design initiatives directly contributed to exceeding the ambitious goal of $250 million in annual revenue within three years. The creation and implementation of the design system allowed us to scale from implementing solutions in 5-6 financial institutions per month to a remarkable 40 per month within a few months of its release. This rapid scaling was possible because the design system provided a common style guide for product and development teams, streamlining front-end customization for our B2B and B2C prodcuts.
Award-Winning Design Teams: Our design teams won multiple awards, including best omni-channel experience and best online mortgage platform.

Stakeholder Testimonials

Fiserv Senior Leadership: Feedback from Fiserv senior leadership was overwhelmingly positive. Their recognition and support allowed us to continue scaling our design operations and absorbing other design teams, ultimately taking on Fiserv's entire digital banking product portfolio, with a combined annual revenue of approximately $5 billion, including products like Zelle and Popmoney.

Cultural Shift

Design-Led Thinking: One of the most significant cultural shifts was the widespread adoption of design thinking across the organization. Even senior product and business leaders who weren't traditionally involved in design began to approach challenges from a design perspective, placing user-centricity at the forefront of decision-making.
Design Organization: The creation of the design organization had a profound cultural impact. Designers found an environment where collaboration was seamless, feedback was abundant, and learning from peers was facilitated. They felt connected to a mission that extended beyond individual products, fostering a sense of purpose and community.

Conclusion & Takeaways

Conclusion

My journey as a senior design executive has imparted several valuable lessons. Collaborating early and often proved to be a cornerstone of success. Building strong relationships and minimizing obstacles through continuous collaboration played a pivotal role in achieving business goals and hitting deadlines.
Empowering designers to take ownership of their projects emerged as a key driver of both productivity and job satisfaction. Creating an environment where designers are given the autonomy to lead projects resulted in higher performance and a more fulfilled team.
Another vital takeaway is the importance of listening to unlikely sources. Valuable feedback and innovative ideas often come from unexpected places or individuals outside of the traditional design department.

Key Takeaways

Collaboration and Relationship Building: Collaborate early and frequently to prevent obstacles, nurture strong relationships, and increase the likelihood of meeting business objectives.
Empowerment: Empower designers to take ownership of projects, fostering a culture of initiative, higher performance, and job satisfaction.
Diverse Sources of Ideas: Be open to feedback and ideas from unlikely sources, as innovation can arise from unexpected places.

From Startup to Enterprise:

Building an Enterprise-Wide Design Organization