Scaling a design organization through constant change
In 2023, IBM's Data & AI business reorganized from the VP level down to individual designers. My job was to keep the team together and shipping. Two years later, that team became the base for leading design across IBM's core software.
- Role
- Director of Design
- When
- 2022 – 2026
- Team
- 40, then 60 designers, researchers and UX engineers
Before
- Teams moving between business units, and leaders changing above and below me
- A newly inherited Data Management team that felt cut off from the wider design community
- Design often brought in after product and engineering had already decided
- No dedicated design operations, and progress tracked differently team by team
After
- Every designer on my team stayed through the 2023 reorganizations
- Data Management folded into a larger design org, with new leaders in place
- Design leading architectural workshops and holding standing time with PM and engineering
- A design ops role, one OKR tracking model, and a shared view of talent and promotions
The situation
I took over the Data Management design team in the second quarter of 2023, alongside Business Analytics and Customer Care. Within months, designers were being moved to Security and Automation, leadership was changing at every level, and our flagship lakehouse product changed its name, its delivery vehicle and its strategic direction late in the delivery cycle.
Designers in that environment hear a lot of noise and very little direction. The risk was that the best people would leave, and that design would be the first function cut out of decisions while everyone else regrouped.
What I did
- Translated leadership changes into plain priorities
I made it my job to turn every message from executives into specific next steps for designers, so the team always knew what mattered this quarter and why.
- Put the right leaders in the right places
I helped restructure the organization from VP to individual designer, moved designers to Security with care, brought Data Management into a larger community, and recruited a new senior design lead. I coached new leads day to day while they grew into their roles.
- Created an accelerated product design group
I sponsored a small team that could join strategic bets quickly in a consulting model. We piloted it on IBM's lakehouse, then used it for watsonx BI Assistant, the Planning Analytics trial and watsonx.governance.
- Made the case for design operations
I set up a trial of a new design ops role to support the whole Data & AI design org, then advocated for making it permanent.
- Built the operating rhythm
As a certified OKR coach, I created a simpler way to track design OKRs across Data & AI, and pushed for linked tracking of talent reviews and promotion cases.
- Earned design a seat at the table
I traveled to our engineering labs in Ottawa, Toronto and Silicon Valley, met architects and PM leads in person, and set up regular meetings and shared channels. Design went on to lead the architectural workshop for our data products.
What changed
From January 2025 to May 2026, I led Core Software design across more than 35 products, including a new product introduction, and supported the 8,000-person Core Software, SRE and Support organization on engineering excellence and growth.
"Instrumental in retaining the teams intact through massive changes in strategy and leadership."