Sopra Banking (a subsidiary of the Sopra Steria Group), embarked on the ambitious journey of developing a Digital Banking Suite (DBS); a low/no-code SaaS platform to empower financial institutions in quickly building customized customer banking experiences. The objective was to both, penetrate high-growth markets and support digital transformational journeys of their prestigious long-term customers such Société Générale, BNP Paribas, La Banque Postale, HSBC, Crédit Agricole, RBS, Hyundai Capital, Bank of China, etc. 

Upon joining the org in late 2021, I quickly stepped up to overcome Design maturity challenges that included a low understanding of design's value, insufficient designers, lack of structure, and a technically complex, siloed ecosystem.

The problems encompassed a range of issues from awareness and resource constraints to organizational structure and the need for strategic design integration. As Head of Product Design for this global business unit, I was tasked with not only addressing these challenges but also with laying the groundwork for a mature, impactful design practice to scale across the entire organization in support of future initiatives.

My role was critically positioned as a bridge between the org's earlier attempt at a Central Design team and our Business Unit's (DBS) Product Design Practice.

The goal set in front of me from both sides was clear - Accelerate the path to Design Maturity!
The solution though, was not quite as easy to tease out and it involved careful consideration of tools, processes and people across a vast organization that had to keep the wheels turning and feature mills churning.

After months of gradually finding the right designers to join our nascent team and ensuring that design work was not a bottleneck; I could pinpoint a measured strategy from what had become evident in our day-to-day work and instituted these 4 steps that would evolve with our growing team:

1. [REPAIR 

• Identify and address customer pain points at an organizational level.

• Prioritize fixes, coordinate implementation, and measure results.
  
  

2.  ELEVATE 

• Share learnings and output from our design practices

• Establish UI style guides as best practices.

• Implement metrics to reward design excellence.
  
  

3. [OPTIMIZE 

• Develop UI style guides and a User-Centered Design (UCD) toolkit.

• Optimize UX processes and sharpen peer sensitivity to customer experience.
  
  

4. [DIFFERENTIATE 

• Apply advanced research techniques to gain new insights.

• Map existing and target customer journeys, identify opportunities alongside the Product Managers.

•  Drive innovation using an outside-in lens.

By consistently working towards the areas above, we were able to effect these high-impact outcomes:

OPERATIONAL ENHANCEMENTS

• Instituted a Design Intake process for efficient project initiation.

• Introduced Design Kanban and standardized a Figma Review processes to enhance collaboration.

• Formalized a Product Design System tied to a coded-component library.
  
  

PEOPLE MANAGEMENT & COLLABORATION

• Provided a simple framework for PMs to streamline collaboration with designers.

• Focused on cross-functional team alignment and mentorship for individual growth.

• Infused a culture of asynchronous feedback and collaboration across every function to kill unnecessary meetings.
  
  

DESIGN SYSTEM SETUP

• Established a robust Design System Governance Model towards a foundation for Centralized Design System to eventually power all Sopra Banking products boosting quality, consistency and coherence.

• Versioned React Coded-Components and Native RTL support for all designed components.
  
  

TEAM GROWTH

• Implemented objectives, KPIs and personal growth plans to foster individual and team development.

• Weekly show and tell for Product Designers to help align product understanding and strengthen design rationale.

• Refined design team onboarding and rolled out Product Design Governance.