Empowering Design Ops at Digital Design Team: building foundations and driving impact

In 2023, we made a strategic decision to strengthen Design Operations for the Digital Design Team at Schneider Electric. This investment aims to enhance our ability to create delightful user experiences by leveraging expertise, methods, and tools to streamline our design processes. We also focused on organizing team learning and growth opportunities while nurturing a vibrant design community and culture within Schneider Electric.

Our mission is clear: “We infuse digital design culture at Schneider Electric to enhance UX quality and consistency by bridging brand, product teams, and end users.” This mission guides our efforts toward achieving excellence in user experience and driving innovation through design. Additionally, we’ve distilled three key messages to encapsulate our values:

1. Designers impact business at the heart of the product team.
2. The end user is at the core of each decision.
3. Design transforms complexity into simple human experiences.

Let’s review our progress and challenges from January 2023 onward.

Scaling up and laying foundations

In 2023, our Digital Design team at Schneider Electric grew significantly, expanding from 15 to 50 people. This substantial growth presented the challenge of laying the foundation and organizing the new team to ensure smooth operations and alignment. As we navigated this rapid expansion, our focus remained on fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and excellence in user experience. We centered our efforts on three core pillars: Visibility, Prioritization, and Development.

Visibility:

Our main goal was to integrate our design activities better within the product teams and cultivate a stronger design culture. To achieve this, we implemented several key initiatives:

• Crafting a clear design vision and speech: Emphasizing the pivotal role of designers within the product team and showcasing their business impact.
• Developing a global design workflow: Streamlining collaboration to keep the end user at the forefront of decision-making.
• Establishing a central document repository: Making it easy for team members to access essential resources, simplifying their experience and demonstrating how design transforms complexity into simple human experiences.

Prioritization:

Prioritization became crucial in a landscape where every decision holds weight. We introduced two initiatives to aid our teams:

• Equipping teams with quarterly OKRs and coaching programs: Providing a seamless roadmap and demonstrating the tangible value of design in every decision.
• Crafting a KPI dashboard: Measuring our progress and success, ensuring alignment with our overarching goals and highlighting the significance of design in achieving business outcomes.

Development:

Nurturing talent and fostering growth were central themes in our journey. We embarked on five key programs to cultivate our design ecosystem:

• Providing comprehensive HR presentations and career path templates: Empowering designers to chart their professional growth and reinforcing their business impact.
• Implementing a job board and expert dashboards: Facilitating talent acquisition and ensuring the right skills match the right roles.
• Launching community initiatives and mapping artifacts: Fostering a culture of learning and collaboration, turning complex processes into enjoyable experiences.
• Introducing team rituals and activities: Boosting morale and engagement, transforming the workplace into a vibrant hub of creativity and innovation.
• Welcoming new team members with a well-crafted onboarding process: Ensuring a seamless transition into the organization and highlighting how design transforms onboarding into a smooth journey.

For a deeper look at our 2023 Design Ops review, explore our detailed report here. It offers insights into our progress, enhancing user experiences, and nurturing a strong design culture at Schneider Electric.

Continuous improvement: successes and area for improvement

At Schneider Electric, our Design Ops team values feedback and continuous improvement to support great design and user experiences. We regularly review what’s working and what needs refining. Here’s what went well and where we faced challenges:

What worked

• Alignment on vision, mission, and key messages: creating a unified “Design speech” within our team and with external stakeholders.
• Co-creation of a new designer career path framework: in collaboration with Human Resources, making it easier for teams to plan ahead and hire new talent.
• Launch of a single source of truth documentation: adopted by team members, along with a resource management tool for the leadership team.
• Development of a design practice: establishing communication spaces and rituals for both our Digital Design Team and the Global Schneider Designers Community (the “Design Guild”).
• Setting up a Figma Enterprise organization plan: better fitting the existing team structure.

Areas for improvement

• OKR (Objectives and Key Results) agile framework: revising the format to better fit the current organizational maturity and prioritization.
• Transparent teamwork design workflow: creating a roadmap for new playbook delivery and aligning closely with Designers’ expectations.
• Building Design value acculturation with stakeholders: investing more in amplifying the value of design within Schneider Electric.

What’s new for our 2024 roadmap

Since the start of 2024, we have focused on setting and tracking metrics to drive even greater success. With our foundation set and goals clear, we are ready to continue transforming complexity into simple, human experiences. Our 2024 focus remains on elevating our efforts in Quality, Consistency, and Human Centricity, ensuring that every design decision reflects our commitment to delivering exceptional user experiences.