At Lightful, the challenge wasn't just building a social media tool; it was building a tool for a "tech-reluctant" audience (NGOs) while scaling a design department within a fast-moving startup. As the Head of Design, I was responsible for the end-to-end product vision, aligning cross-functional stakeholders (Product, Engineering, and Sales), and establishing the Design Ops framework that allowed our team to ship high-complexity features like the Social Media Composer and SMART Goal Creator with high velocity.
Client
Lightful
Role
Head of Design
Direct Reports
4
Scaling a Design Org & Ops
At Lightful I led on product discovery, scaling the team and design systems, ensuring every UX initiative moved the needle on core business metrics.
At Lightful I led on product discovery, scaling the team and design systems, ensuring every UX initiative moved the needle on core business metrics.
At Lightful, the challenge wasn't just building a social media tool; it was building a tool for a "tech-reluctant" audience (NGOs) while scaling a design department within a fast-moving startup. As the Head of Design, I was responsible for the end-to-end product vision, aligning cross-functional stakeholders (Product, Engineering, and Sales), and establishing the Design Ops framework that allowed our team to ship high-complexity features like the Social Media Composer and SMART Goal Creator with high velocity.
At Lightful, the challenge wasn't just building a social media tool; it was building a tool for a "tech-reluctant" audience (NGOs) while scaling a design department within a fast-moving startup. As the Head of Design, I was responsible for the end-to-end product vision, aligning cross-functional stakeholders (Product, Engineering, and Sales), and establishing the Design Ops framework that allowed our team to ship high-complexity features like the Social Media Composer and SMART Goal Creator with high velocity.
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The Challenges
Lightful’s mission was to empower non-profits, but our platform was becoming a "feature factory." My primary objective was to move the organization away from ship-speed toward impact-quality. There was misalignment on goals - the C-Suite wanted "more features" to close deals; Product wanted "stability." User research was often done ad-hoc, mostly just to validate already decided decisions. Handoff with devs was poor, with implementation often incorrect due to poor communication and misaligned documentation.
Lightful’s mission was to empower non-profits, but our platform was becoming a "feature factory." My primary objective was to move the organization away from ship-speed toward impact-quality. There was misalignment on goals - the C-Suite wanted "more features" to close deals; Product wanted "stability." User research was often done ad-hoc, mostly just to validate already decided decisions. Handoff with devs was poor, with implementation often incorrect due to poor communication and misaligned documentation.
Leadership Solutions
Alignment: Working with designers can be a challenge - we like to explore, but other departments just want things done. I worked with product to create a ticketing system in Jira (and later Clickup) to allow other teams to assign us tasks. I created a shared a "working with us" document I developed with my team. This outlined ideas like "Give us Challenges" Stakeholder Management: One of my key wins was aligning the C-Suite and the design/dev team. I facilitated Prioritization Workshops using modified RICE frameworks (Miro Friendly), ensuring our design efforts were focused on features that provided the highest ROI for our non-profit users. Architecting the Workflow: I implemented a "Dual-Track Agile" approach. While the engineering team was building current sprints, I led the design team in "Discovery Sprints." This ensured that by the time a feature (like the SMART Goal Tester) reached development, it had been de-risked through high-fidelity prototyping and usability testing.
Alignment: Working with designers can be a challenge - we like to explore, but other departments just want things done. I worked with product to create a ticketing system in Jira (and later Clickup) to allow other teams to assign us tasks. I created a shared a "working with us" document I developed with my team. This outlined ideas like "Give us Challenges" Stakeholder Management: One of my key wins was aligning the C-Suite and the design/dev team. I facilitated Prioritization Workshops using modified RICE frameworks (Miro Friendly), ensuring our design efforts were focused on features that provided the highest ROI for our non-profit users. Architecting the Workflow: I implemented a "Dual-Track Agile" approach. While the engineering team was building current sprints, I led the design team in "Discovery Sprints." This ensured that by the time a feature (like the SMART Goal Tester) reached development, it had been de-risked through high-fidelity prototyping and usability testing.
Alignment: Working with designers can be a challenge - we like to explore, but other departments just want things done. I worked with product to create a ticketing system in Jira (and later Clickup) to allow other teams to assign us tasks. I created a shared a "working with us" document I developed with my team. This outlined ideas like "Give us Challenges" Stakeholder Management: One of my key wins was aligning the C-Suite and the design/dev team. I facilitated Prioritization Workshops using modified RICE frameworks (Miro Friendly), ensuring our design efforts were focused on features that provided the highest ROI for our non-profit users. Architecting the Workflow: I implemented a "Dual-Track Agile" approach. While the engineering team was building current sprints, I led the design team in "Discovery Sprints." This ensured that by the time a feature (like the SMART Goal Tester) reached development, it had been de-risked through high-fidelity prototyping and usability testing.
Design Ops Solutions
Design System Creation: I spearheaded the creation of Ray, our unified Design System. By co-authoring the library with the engineering team, we moved away from 'handoffs' and toward a 'shared component' model that relied on atoms, which build into molecules, which built into organisms. Institutionalize user research: I created a strategic roadmap for reserach so it informed the roadmap rather than just validating designs post-launch. I also created a hypothesis structure that alowed us to test propositions and easily validate it through user testing or other methods. Mentorship & Quality: I established a Design Review Culture. By moving away from "approval" to "critique," I empowered my designers to own their work while ensuring every output met the high-quality bar expected of a lead-level studio.
Design System Creation: I spearheaded the creation of Ray, our unified Design System. By co-authoring the library with the engineering team, we moved away from 'handoffs' and toward a 'shared component' model that relied on atoms, which build into molecules, which built into organisms. Institutionalize user research: I created a strategic roadmap for reserach so it informed the roadmap rather than just validating designs post-launch. I also created a hypothesis structure that alowed us to test propositions and easily validate it through user testing or other methods. Mentorship & Quality: I established a Design Review Culture. By moving away from "approval" to "critique," I empowered my designers to own their work while ensuring every output met the high-quality bar expected of a lead-level studio.
Design System Creation: I spearheaded the creation of Ray, our unified Design System. By co-authoring the library with the engineering team, we moved away from 'handoffs' and toward a 'shared component' model that relied on atoms, which build into molecules, which built into organisms. Institutionalize user research: I created a strategic roadmap for reserach so it informed the roadmap rather than just validating designs post-launch. I also created a hypothesis structure that alowed us to test propositions and easily validate it through user testing or other methods. Mentorship & Quality: I established a Design Review Culture. By moving away from "approval" to "critique," I empowered my designers to own their work while ensuring every output met the high-quality bar expected of a lead-level studio.
The Outcome
Reduced Design-to-Dev Handoff: We reduced the time spent on UI QA and handoff documentation by more than 2 days per sprint via Ray Libraries and clear documentation. Mentorship: I mentored 3 mid-weight designers into Senior roles within 2 years through individual development plans and timely feedback. Stakeholder Alignment: I reduced decision time for features by more than 50% 'pivots' by introducing a Discovery Phase and a cross-functional RICE prioritization framework.
Reduced Design-to-Dev Handoff: We reduced the time spent on UI QA and handoff documentation by more than 2 days per sprint via Ray Libraries and clear documentation. Mentorship: I mentored 3 mid-weight designers into Senior roles within 2 years through individual development plans and timely feedback. Stakeholder Alignment: I reduced decision time for features by more than 50% 'pivots' by introducing a Discovery Phase and a cross-functional RICE prioritization framework.
Reduced Design-to-Dev Handoff: We reduced the time spent on UI QA and handoff documentation by more than 2 days per sprint via Ray Libraries and clear documentation. Mentorship: I mentored 3 mid-weight designers into Senior roles within 2 years through individual development plans and timely feedback. Stakeholder Alignment: I reduced decision time for features by more than 50% 'pivots' by introducing a Discovery Phase and a cross-functional RICE prioritization framework.
At Lightful I led on product discovery, scaling the team and design systems, ensuring every UX initiative moved the needle on core business metrics.
Client
Lightful
My Direct Reports
4
My Role