Problem 7:
Absence of a centralized UX repository.
Situation:
The UX team lacked a centralized space to access key documentation, tools, and practical solutions. This gap resulted in wasted time, duplicated efforts, and barriers to autonomy. There was an urgent need to build a single access point that would support day-to-day work and consolidate collective knowledge.
Task
UX Researcher / UX/UI Designer
Tool kit
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I designed a Confluence homepage inspired by Nielsen’s DesignOps Menu framework, structuring the content to support intuitive navigation, discovery, and adoption. The design included clear categories such as methodologies, tools, best practices, rituals, templates, role definitions, processes, success cases, and onboarding materials.
Results
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The repository achieved 80% active adoption by the UX team, becoming a go-to space for daily consultation and documentation.
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It evolved into a key operational hub, centralizing all critical design information, reducing dependency on individuals, and promoting autonomy.
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Greater efficiency and reduced friction were achieved in recurring tasks, thanks to quick access to validated resources and solutions.
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It was presented as a best practice at the organization’s DesignOps roundtable and is now being considered for scaling to other regions and teams.
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The repository became a living, evolving asset—supported by a culture of continuous improvement and cross-functional collaboration.
Situation:
Temporary or permanent absences within the UX team posed a critical risk to the operational continuity of ongoing initiatives. The lack of formal handovers and clear documentation often led to loss of context, duplicated efforts, or significant delays. In an environment with multiple parallel initiatives, it became essential to establish a mechanism to safeguard team knowledge and ensure workflow continuity.
Task
Define a solution that would enable any UX team member to take over an ongoing initiative with the necessary context to continue smoothly. The goal was to ensure that absences would not impact progress or design quality, and that knowledge generated by each designer would remain accessible, traceable, and transferable.
Action:
I designed a dedicated UX handover and documentation tool. To build it, we studied and validated the key fields that needed to be completed: problem context, hypotheses, research status, key findings, design decisions, involved stakeholders, next steps, and outstanding risks.
This tool was integrated as a mandatory part of the UX workflow, encouraging its use not only at project closure but also during pauses or handovers.
It became a core component of the internal UX Repository—a centralized and easy-to-access platform we created to store all initiatives, their progress, and key deliverables.
We also defined clear handoff rituals and minimum documentation standards, which were introduced to the team through good practice workshops.
Results
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The tool achieved a 94% adoption rate across the team.
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It enabled fast, and in many cases asynchronous, handovers—even across teams in different time zones.
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UX initiatives maintained operational continuity without relying on any single individual.
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Design quality remained stable, even during team rotations or leaves of absence, thanks to the availability of documented context.
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The UX Repository evolved into a shared knowledge asset, used not only for handovers but also for onboarding, retrospectives, and as a reference for future challenges.
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This fostered a more mature and sustainable design culture, where documentation was no longer seen as a burden, but as part of the team’s collective impact.
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The solution also gave managers quick visibility into the status of each initiative, supporting better decision-making and prioritization.
Situation:
When I joined the organization-wide DesignOps committee, one of the main challenges was to increase the visibility and impact of the UX team within the broader organizational ecosystem. The goal was to boost UX participation in key spaces—globally, regionally, and internally.
In parallel, the internal UX session was showing signs of fatigue, with low attendance and limited perceived value.
Task
It was necessary to map all participation spaces—at any level within the organization—where UX should have an active presence, and to define a strategy to position the team's value in those forums.
At the same time, it was essential to redesign the internal UX session to boost engagement, increase perceived value, and strengthen the sense of internal community.
Action:
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Strategic Mapping: Together with DesignOps and Managers, I identified key ecosystem meetings and mapped which initiatives should be showcased in each, based on impact level, organizational relevance, and strategic focus.
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UX Elevator Pitch: I helped team members present their work clearly and confidently in short time slots (5–20 minutes), ensuring each appearance conveyed value—not just information.
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Tailored Guidance & Support: I supported the adaptation of presentations to match the tone and focus of each organizational space, ensuring narrative and visual coherence. I acted as a bridge between roles and areas, fostering smoother communication and collaboration.
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RACSI Matrix: Alongside my Manager, I co-created a matrix to clarify responsibilities (DesignOps, Managers, Designers) in visibility instances, using the RACSI model.
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Negotiating Space for UX: From the DesignOps role, we actively managed time slots in key meetings to guarantee UX had consistent presence and voice.
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UX Internal Session Redesign: We reduced the number of presentations from three to two, gave them more time, and added new segments based on real team feedback—such as organizational context updates and open participation. This created a more engaging dynamic where presentations were not just informative, but also emotionally resonant.
Results
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The internal UX session went from low engagement to achieving 92% active attendance, with increased interaction, a stronger sense of belonging, and higher perceived value.
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The team participated in 10 key meetings during the first quarter, significantly increasing UX visibility in both regional and global forums.
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A positive perception matrix was generated, with other teams recognizing UX’s strategic contribution—solidifying its role as a key player within the organizational ecosystem.
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UX communication became more aligned with business objectives, enabling more effective cross-functional dialogue, a clearer understanding of design’s value, and decision-making rooted in user experience.
Situation:
Within the design team, there was a specific challenge: team members who had never led a UX initiative lacked a clear reference for the level of complexity or effort required for different types of tasks. This led to imbalanced workload distribution and made equitable planning difficult.
Task
It was necessary to define a shared weighting system for all UX-related activities—from the simplest to the most complex—so that any team member, regardless of their previous experience with a specific task, could rely on a clear and consistent effort estimation aligned with the rest of the team.
Action:
We broke down the team’s already-defined Way of Work (WoW) into all its stages and processes. From there, we held a collaborative session to identify key activities and establish reference cases—both in ideal scenarios (happy paths) and edge situations (edge cases). This allowed us to define pivots that would serve as objective guides for assigning relative weights to each type of UX initiative.
Results
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A reference guideline was created, making planning easier—even for designers without prior experience in certain tasks.
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The system became a key onboarding resource, helping new hires quickly understand the expected effort across different stages of the design process.
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Most importantly, it was built on the team’s existing methodology, which led to high adoption and strong operational alignment.
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While variations in effort were acknowledged depending on seniority or specialization, the tool provided a shared foundation that promoted greater equity, transparency, and self-management when taking on new initiatives.
Situation:
When I stepped into my first technical leadership role, I encountered a team with no defined roles, no prior onboarding, and a widespread sense of uncertainty. Team members openly expressed that they were unclear about their responsibilities, which led to ambiguity, overlapping efforts, and roadblocks in collaborative work. It became urgent to align expectations and clearly define each person’s scope of responsibility.
Task
Define, together with the team, each role and its corresponding expectations—making responsibilities, direct relationships, and focus areas visible. Additionally, document this definition as a resource for future onboarding processes and as a foundation for skill development initiatives.
Action
I organized and facilitated an ideation workshop where each team member outlined their own understanding of their role and those of their peers. This exercise surfaced misunderstandings, gaps, and opportunities for alignment. With support from the Manager, we consolidated and refined the input until we defined clear roles and shared expectations.
I documented the outcome in a Roles & Responsibilities Guide, which was later integrated into the new onboarding process I also designed. This material helped set clear ground rules—both for current team members and for anyone joining in the future.
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Results
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Day-to-day friction was reduced and collaboration improved, thanks to greater clarity and mutual respect for each person's role.
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Internal communication became more fluid and effective, as responsibilities were now explicit and commonly understood.
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The onboarding process, built upon this foundation, enabled faster and clearer integration for new team members.
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This work also laid the groundwork for a future Skill Matrix, allowing us to identify both technical and soft skills needed for each role, with a view toward team growth and maturity.
Situation:
When I joined a new design team, I noticed a clear fragmentation in the way we worked. Each person approached projects using different methodologies, tools, and criteria — even when collaborating with cross-functional teams. There was no shared framework, which led to deliverables with varying levels of quality and a fragmented design experience.
Task
From my role in DesignOps, the challenge was to quickly standardize processes, provide the team with concrete resources to support their work, and clearly communicate—through practical examples—what the standard should look like at each stage of the design process. The goal: to ensure everyone was rowing in the same direction without losing their individual creative identity.
Action:
I proposed and led the creation of a set of tools and methodologies to align design processes without limiting creative autonomy. The first step was to create a collaborative space to explore how we were approaching design challenges — from the initial steps to final deliverables. This exploration included interviews, analysis of real deliverables, and internal workflow mapping.
Based on those insights, we co-created a specific “Way of Work” for our division, with active team participation through workshops. This framework outlined suggested (and optional) steps, making it clear that it was a living, flexible, and evolving system. We incorporated practices like Definition of Ready (DoR) and Definition of Done (DoD) tailored to UX design, co-defined by the team to ensure clarity at each stage.
I also designed and made available templates to help synthesize usability test insights and others to support the communication and defense of design decisions to the business in a more effective and structured way.
Results
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The team began to focus more on designing and testing, freeing up time and energy that had previously been lost to constantly reinventing processes.
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Deliverable standards were aligned, which was key to working smoothly with cross-functional teams.
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Thanks to the UX Definition of Done (DoD), we were able to make progress and completion of initiatives visible to the business, reinforcing the perceived value of design.
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The templates and frameworks we created elevated the quality of insight synthesis and improved how proposals were negotiated with stakeholders, driving more informed and aligned decision-making.
Situation:
The design team faced significant frustration: they couldn't propose their own solutions, often receiving predefined designs that they had to implement with little room for creativity. This model, imposed by the organization's rapid delivery needs, generated demotivation and resistance. It was necessary to support the team in adapting to this new context without losing their sense of purpose or their value as designers.
Task
The challenge was twofold: on the one hand, ensuring that each person could take ownership of their UX initiative, adapting it to the local context and running real-world usability tests to validate decisions; on the other, working from an emotional perspective to reconnect the team with their role and develop a more flexible, resilient, and collaborative attitude. The one-on-one sessions revealed that the root cause ran deeper: it wasn't just a matter of processes; it was a wound to professional pride.
Action:
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I proposed to my Manager a series of actions focused on changing mindset, prioritizing soft skills and a sense of belonging.
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We created a recurring team meeting, not only to align tasks but also to foster closeness.
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We facilitate a fun dynamic to explain the organizational context, promoting empathy for the business and global understanding.
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We designed the team values together, capturing what each person considered essential for working in this challenging environment.
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We created a team mascot, a symbolic character that later materialized into merchandise items that we shared monthly.
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We implemented a monthly recognition ritual, where the team chose someone who stood out for their resilience and constructive attitude.
Results
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Team cohesion was strengthened, breaking away from siloed mindsets and encouraging active collaboration.
Flexibility increased in response to the organizational environment, with a greater willingness to navigate predefined scenarios without compromising UX standards.
The definition of team values became a constant reminder of key soft skills, fostering more effective communication and improving internal negotiation.
The team emotionally reconnected with its purpose, which was reflected in renewed energy, creativity within boundaries, and day-to-day resilience.
Problem 6:
Lack of operational continuity planning in the event of absences.
7 real cases across different organizations over the past 4 years. Due to confidentiality agreements, images are not shown.
Problem 5:
Lack of visibility for the UX team within the organization.
Problem 4:
Lack of reference points for UX estimations.
Problem 3:
Lack of role definition and unclear expectations regarding responsibilities.
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DesignOps
2021 to present
It doesn’t matter if you’re a UX Designer, Product Designer, Lead, or Specialist — you have an Ops mindset when you aim for your team to work efficiently, minimize unnecessary operational tasks, uphold a high standard of quality, and scale with agility.
Problem 1:
Disconnection of the team from the organizational context.
Problem 2:
Standardize the quality of UX initiatives.
Learnings
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Many times, design decisions that can be made and that can impact vital metrics, no matter how simple they may seem, warrant usability testing.
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Identifying the maturity level of the UX discipline in your business helps you make decisions, such as determining at what level results should be shared in order to highlight the importance of the area and the value we add when building digital products.
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Data-driven mentality, since it is not just thinking about metrics for the sake of it, but based on a "Why?"
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Important decisions that are brought to managers and stakeholders, if accompanied by research and supporting data, enable them to take the proposed strategic direction.
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Developers are your allies. A good team relationship must be cultivated for effective development.