Process

• Evangelize the importance of “Sparta” to upper management —
  My first step was aligning our plans with business objectives. Where best to start rather than the top? I presented the impact adopting a design system will have on the business to the executives and got them to become advocates. I emphasized how time to market will reduce, and our overall product experience will improve.
• Get buy-in from business leads —
  Next, I engaged the business, product, and engineering leads of each unit to explain the benefits of utilizing a system-based approach in building products. This was not so difficult since I already had the full support of the executives.
• Understand how Sparta could seamlessly integrate with each team’s existing processes —
  Considering the goals, specific use cases, and nuances of each business was critical to how adoption was carried out. Where our component library needed to be adjusted, we improved it to adapt to each business’ workflow.
• Implemented guardrails —
  There have to be measures in place to prevent misuse or deviation from established guidelines.
  I introduced design and code peer reviews to detect inconsistencies in our product’s design before shipping.
• Measure success —
  An initiative cannot be considered a success or failure without defining what “success” is. For us, the success of our design system implementation was measured by two criteria.
  
  a. The time taken to get our products into the hands of a paying customer.  
  b. In-app customer satisfaction score (CSAT).  
• Refine — Strategies need to be constantly modified as needed, so I made improvements wherever teams felt there were gaps.