Building Design Operations at Scale
Design operations for one of America's largest paint brands. I rebuilt the shared infrastructure that a research and design team of more than 20 relied on, across six digital products.
File Architecture
Scattered files across OneDrive and Teams, rebuilt into one numbered, navigable system the whole team could use.
Research Templates
Shared templates for interviews, insight decks, and stakeholder presentations, no more starting from scratch.
Handoff Process
A five-step handoff so research findings reached design as a starting point, not an afterthought.
All client work is under NDA. The file-architecture and process diagrams here are reconstructed from memory. The structure and the thinking are accurate; specific file names and content are illustrative.
One of America's largest paint brands, and a complex digital portfolio
Sherwin-Williams runs one of the largest digital portfolios in the paint industry: consumer colour tools, contractor apps, e-commerce, and internal coatings systems. The research and design team supporting all of it had grown faster than its infrastructure.
Products the team supported:
ColorSnap Visualizer
Web and mobile colour tool for homeowners
Color Expert App
AI-powered paint recommendation tool
PRO+ App
Contractor toolkit for professional painters
Paint Stores e-commerce
Main consumer shopping platform
Contractor & dealer portals
B2B account management tools
Specification & coatings tools
Internal, for the Performance Coatings Group
A team of 20+ with almost no shared infrastructure
Files existed, but nobody could find them
Research and design assets lived in personal OneDrive folders and scattered Teams channels. Folders existed, but were inconsistent, unlabelled, and constantly duplicated.
Duplication was the default
Designers and researchers regularly redid work that already existed, only to find out afterwards that the asset was there all along. The rework was the symptom. The broken structure was the cause.
Decks were made and abandoned
Research presentations had no consistent format and no connected home. Once delivered to a stakeholder, they disappeared into personal folders and were never referenced again.
Research rarely reached design
There was no handoff process. Insights sat in researcher files. Designers started work without access to what had already been learned.
Before changing anything, understand the real pain points
I interviewed researchers and designers separately before proposing any solution. The order mattered: diagnosis first, then structure, then iteration with the team in the loop.
Interview both sides
Separate sessions with researchers and designers to surface real friction without cross-contamination or bias. As someone who had worked both sides, I knew the questions to ask, and I made sure to speak to more than one person in each group so no single perspective skewed the findings.
Map the pain, not just the symptoms
The duplication and rework were symptoms. The real problem was inaccessible structure and no shared language between disciplines. Naming that distinction changed what we chose to fix.
Pressure-test with the Design Ops Manager
Brought findings back to the manager, challenged assumptions, and agreed on what to prioritise: research infrastructure first, then the designer side. Sequencing the work mattered as much as the work itself.
Fix iteratively, get feedback fast
Each improvement was tested with the team immediately. If it did not land, it was revised. The 30-40% efficiency gain came from accumulated small wins, each validated before moving on.
From scattered to structured
The first fix was the one everything else depended on: a single, navigable file architecture in Teams and OneDrive. Numbered folders, consistent naming, a read-only archive for legacy work, and cross-linked documents so a file could be found from more than one path.
Standardised templates across three formats
Interview Guide
- Standardised opening and consent framing
- Modular question blocks by research goal
- Probe suggestions for each section
- Consistent time allocation per block
- Debrief and follow-up prompts
Insight Deck
- SW-branded slide template
- Executive summary on slide 1
- One insight per slide, evidence-backed
- Severity and frequency scoring
- Recommended next actions at close
Stakeholder Presentation
- 3-slide maximum for leadership reviews
- Business impact framing first
- Data visualised, not listed
- A clear ask or decision required
- Appendix for anyone wanting detail
Each researcher had their own format. Senior stakeholders received decks of 30+ slides with no summary, no structure, and no clear ask.
Connecting research to design
The most valuable infrastructure was not a folder or a template. It was a process: a five-step handoff that made research insights part of the design workflow rather than a parallel activity.
Research conducted
Interviews, usability tests, and surveys. The raw material, run by the research team.
Synthesis & insight deck
Findings written up in the standardised insight format, linked to source files.
Handoff session
The researcher walks designers through the findings directly, not a document tossed over a wall.
Design takes over
Insights are referenced in Figma annotations, so the rationale travels with the design.
Design critique
A structured crit checks design decisions back against the research that informed them.
Research findings were delivered to stakeholders and then effectively lost. Designers had no consistent access to what had been learned, so they started from scratch, sometimes contradicting decisions research had already informed.
The team noticed the difference immediately
Each improvement was validated with the team before moving to the next. The feedback was immediate and specific, because people could see what changed and why it mattered.
What I finished, what remained, and what I learned
Completed
- Full file architecture rebuilt in Teams and OneDrive
- Research templates standardised: interview, insight, stakeholder
- Researcher-to-designer handoff process established
- Design critique framework introduced
- Cross-linking of documents for easy navigation
- Research infrastructure working consistently across the team
In pipeline · next phase
- Designer-side file infrastructure: Figma library governance
- Component ownership and version-control process
- Cross-product design consistency review
- Onboarding documentation for new team members
Design ops problems are rarely about tools or templates. They are about trust and habit. The file architecture was broken partly because nobody had taken responsibility for it, and creating structure also meant creating ownership. That took as much facilitation as it did design.
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