Optimizing Design Ops at Greenlight: From Workflow to Team Health
Sep 6, 2024
Background
When I transitioned into the role of Director of Product Design at Greenlight, I focused on enhancing our operational efficiency and ensuring our team was set up for success. I managed a team of 4-8 product designers at any given time. After successfully leading this team, I was given the opportunity to lead the horizontal team, including program management, design research, content design, and design systems, to better impact overall operations and work directly with each person's skillset.
Challenges
Operational Inefficiency: Projects were managed inconsistently, with small growth experiments being prioritized the same as major brand-defining features. Designers often jumped straight into high-fidelity work without adequate discovery or planning.
Scattered Resources: Designers worked in silos, creating bottlenecks and reducing cross-functional visibility.
Content Design & Systems Gaps: Content designers were underutilized, and handoff processes for development were unstandardized.
Approach
Redefining the Design Process
Structured Design Workflow: Implemented a new design process across the organization, focused on discovery, concepting, and iterative design. This involved requiring every project to have a kickoff, a design plan, and planned reviews.
Cross-functional Buy-in: Collaborated with the VP of Design and Design Program Management to roll out this process across the product team. After establishing the process, I kicked off every new project by creating the design project plan, leading product designers through each phase, and often contributing to initial discovery while guiding projects to completion.
Team Management & Development
Operational Planning: Worked closely with the Program Manager to plan every project, define scope, and ensure resources were allocated efficiently. Shifted the structure from isolated PM-designer pairs to a more collaborative model.
Content First: Instituted "Content Design Office Hours" to encourage better integration of content into the design process. Emphasized early collaboration with content design to align messaging and brand narratives upfront.
Supporting Growth Projects: Drove efficiency by identifying existing components that could be reused for quick-turnaround growth projects, minimizing redundant design work and reducing delivery time significantly.
Design Systems & Collaboration
Improved Handoff Standards: Collaborated with the design systems lead to begin standardizing our Figma files and introducing best practices for handoff, ensuring consistency across projects. We initiated this process, but it was not fully completed before my departure.
Adaptive Design Systems: Initiated discussions around using tokens to enable a future rebrand effort, ensuring that key aspects like spacing, typography, and colors could be adjusted more flexibly.
Leading the Horizontal Team
Content & Research Advocacy: Elevated the role of content and research in projects. Helped our researcher communicate the value of an archetype project to new leadership, gaining buy-in to restart the initiative after it was initially deprioritized.
Hands-On Guidance: Stayed deeply involved in larger-scale projects, guiding the team through discovery, iterative design, and implementation.
Outcomes
Improved Efficiency: The new design process increased design efficiency, resulting in projects moving faster from discovery to delivery. This led to a clearer distinction between major initiatives and smaller experiments.
Resource Optimization: Reduced duplication of work by reusing components, which significantly shortened the timelines for growth projects, freeing up designers to focus on higher-impact initiatives.
Greater Cross-functional Alignment: The integration of content and research into the core design process improved consistency and brand alignment, while standardized handoffs reduced friction between design and engineering.
Team Growth & Satisfaction: The structured approach provided more clarity for designers, increased the quality of work, and led to a more empowered and collaborative team environment.