How I scaled design efficiency by replacing siloed workflows with a shared design system
Contribution
Led the design and implementation of a global design system that scaled consistent execution across teams
Role
Led in partnership with senior leadership
Scope
Cross-Functional System Implementation & Process Optimization
Takeaway
Replaced inconsistent, individual workflows with a system teams trusted to deliver at scale
The Challenge
As our product suite grew, design quality began to drift. Teams were working in silos, interpreting brand guidelines differently, duplicating efforts, and rebuilding from scratch. Design decisions varied across functions, creating misalignment and bloated implementation cycles. Handoff breakdowns and QA friction became common, with engineering and design doing rework due to unclear specs or inconsistent design patterns.
What had once been manageable through individual expertise no longer scaled. I reframed the issue not as a tooling gap, but as an infrastructure gap: design lacked a consistent operating layer that could unify expectations, reduce waste, and make high-quality output repeatable across functions.
My Response
I led the creation of a global design system used across five business functions and more than 200 components. It wasn’t just a visual library; it was a systematic operating layer embedded in the design and engineering workflow.
Engineering capitalized on the system by partnering with us on standards, naming conventions, and component integrity. This laid the groundwork for a parallel system that mirrored ours at the foundational component level.
Adoption didn’t come through mandates. It spread through usefulness. Product managers began learning the system to guide handoff conversations more confidently. Rather than relying on designers to clarify specs after the fact, they referenced the system directly and became a stronger bridge between design and engineering.
At the same time, creative and marketing teams adopted system components to accelerate asset production and campaign execution. As more teams used it in their workflows, the system became a shared language and a standard of trust.
The Win
The system quickly evolved from internal asset to organizational dependency. Teams began planning around it, assuming its availability as part of every delivery. What started as a design initiative became a shared infrastructure across product, engineering, and marketing.
Engineering moved faster with fewer blockers. Cross-functional teams built on top of it. For the first time, leadership reviewed rapid prototyped concepts that mirrored final implementation. The impact wasn’t just speed or consistency—it changed how teams did their work, and how they worked with each other.
Key Outcomes
Reusable patterns unlocked faster output with fewer blockers across functions
Clearer handoffs raised team confidence by reducing delivery dependency
System adoption synced design, engineering, and marketing into shared flows
Rapid prototyping better reflected what shipped in production
The design system became the default starting point for project planning
Strategic Insight
Systems create scale by changing how teams deliver together:
Speed comes from solving shared cross-functional pain
Trust grows when systems are assumed, not optional
Clarity scales when patterns replace interpretation
Quality sticks when the system becomes the baseline
cross-functional partnership