From Pixel Pushers to Strategic Growth Influencers

By embedding user-centric design principles into every layer of product development, I shifted the design team from delivering outputs to generating outcomes, fundamentally redefining the team’s role within the organization.

Building & Measuring Team Process

As I transitioned from Principal UX Designer to UX Manager, I initiated a transformation of the team's operational structure to ensure a robust and scalable approach while promoting better collaboration and communication across the product development triad. Simply put, the Google Sheet we were using to track work and the frequency of team ceremonies needed to mature.

Leveraging my history as a front-end engineer, I crafted team processes inspired by Agile software development, adapting them to fit the dynamic and iterative nature of design work.

Recognizing that creativity thrives with flexibility, I set sprint durations to one month. This time frame supports non-linear design thinking activities, ensuring space for exploration and refinement without compromising delivery timelines.

I created a UX Team JIRA board and backlog, enabling the team to track and manage deliverables seamlessly from inception to completion. This shift improved team, org, and company transparency, accountability, and efficiency.

The team board was structured around five key stages of the Product Development Lifecycle: Problem Identification, Solution Exploration, Sign-Off, Build, and Measurement. Each ticket was further subdivided into tasks, allowing designers to track deliverables/activities related to each of the five stages while monitoring time allocations accurately.

Weekly and monthly Agile ceremonies were introduced to better suit the remote team environment. These ceremonies facilitated progress reviews, helped identify and address roadblocks, and improved visibility of ongoing initiatives across the team. I personally led these ceremonies to ensure alignment and foster collaboration.

The five key stages of Product Development the JIRA board was organized around.

JIRA story with corresponding tasks.

Reviewing resource allocation metrics 6 months after implementation reveled trends that indicated not enough time being spent in the Problem stage. Instead designers were allocating over 80% of initiative time to the Solution stage, heavily focused on solution design, while only 10% of time was being allocated understanding the problem. And no time spent measuring the success of initiatives.

I had several hypotheses about the root causes, including the reliance on top-down solutions, the lack of early UX involvement and limited time for research, and a fundamental organizational misunderstanding of user-centric design. But, I needed a clear plan to address these challenges.

Starting Small

Driving meaningful change requires focus, especially in environments resistant to new approaches. To demonstrate the value of design thinking, I began with a targeted initiative, assembling a team of one UX Designer and one Product Manager. Our mission was clear: determine if user-centered design could effectively address two key challenges—an over-reliance on top-down solutions and the absence of early UX involvement, which limited the adoption of a truly user-centric design process.

To test this, we launched a targeted design thinking experiment to address inefficiencies and pain points within a specific business process. By embedding user-centered design principles, our team focused on deeply understanding the needs of key stakeholders, including underwriters and agents, through interviews and collaborative sessions. This approach ensured that solutions were grounded in real-world insights rather than assumptions or top-down directives, fostering a sense of ownership and alignment among stakeholders.

The process demonstrated the transformative potential of user-centered design practices. By involving users early and iteratively refining solutions based on their feedback, we identified actionable opportunities and built trust and collaboration between UX, Product, and operational teams. This initial effort proved that prioritizing user needs could uncover innovative, practical solutions while addressing organizational challenges, creating a strong foundation for scaling design thinking methodologies across broader initiatives.

Scaling Up: Transitioning the Organization

Building on the success of the small-scale loss run experiment, I led a broader organizational shift to embed user-centered design alongside Product-Led Growth strategies. Through targeted training, enhanced tools, and strategic collaboration with leadership, I ensured the organization was equipped to adopt a more efficient and user-focused approach.

Training Initiatives. I introduced a team-wide design thinking training program establishing a baseline understanding and shared language. Weekly team stand-ups were used to discuss key learnings, encourage debates, and solidify comprehension, with insights and progress shared with Product Managers during weekly Product syncs. This approach seamlessly extended into monthly Product Development meetings and company-wide all-hands, fostering alignment and organizational support for the changes being implemented.

Tools to Educate and Inform. Recognizing the need to document and share research findings more effectively, I organized the team to work collaboratively with the org to create user journey maps that documented primary user journeys, highlighting pain-points and process inefficiencies while providing a clear foundation for targeted product improvements. Additionally, I implemented a customer insights hub using Dovetail, to make UX’s vast library of ongoing research available to anyone in the company. This included insights into moderated and unmoderated user testing, surveys, session replays, and user analytics.

Inviting Others to Join the Conversation. To solidify the transition, I engaged others in the conversation by promoting user insights across Slack, implementing a real-time SalesForce feedback field for customer-facing Pie-oneers, and collaborating with teams on user-centric design process. I partnered with marketing to co-sponsor funnel master sessions, enabling ICs to explore user metrics and brainstorm small, impactful changes. Additionally, I worked with Business Development to involve product and design in regular agent sessions, both virtual and in-person, where they gathered feedback, tested prototypes, and discovered what drives agents to work with Pie.

One of many user journey maps created to influence roadmap strategy

Results

This multi-year long transformation shifted the UX department from pixel pushers to embedded ROI drivers. User-centric continuous discovery processes now inform the product portfolio’s roadmap strategy, embedding design as a core driver of organizational growth. This evolution culminated in renaming the team from UX to Product Design, reflecting its strategic value within the Product Development team.