Summary
As a startup in hyper growth mode, the design teams at Signifyd immediately faced the unique challenges in meeting the demands of a fast-paced, agile environment which rarely looked the same everyday. With growth, the pace of change continued, leading challenge of managing an organization in a constant state of transformation. How do you build and nourish teams to be both agile and hardy, having both flexible branches and strongly planted roots? Sharing stories from across two design teams–the largely centralized Brand and Marketing team, and the mostly embedded Product team–Kincade and Ortiz-Reyes will illustrate how in just three years, those teams have transformed models through cross-pollination and shared best practices. Brand and Marketing’s centralized model has become more embedded, and Product’s embedded model now largely resembles a centralized model. The result? Signifyd’s design teams are among the most highly ranked in terms of employee satisfaction. Join this session and gain valuable firsthand insights that will empower you to: Prepare your organization for transformation Implement and manage a participatory visualization of the org Understand and apply the psychology of change management
Key Insights
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Transformation is often messy and triggered by new ways of thinking, requiring leaders to be vigilant for emotional triggers like doubt and fear in their teams.
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Starting design teams with freelance talent can accelerate proof of concept and ease budget constraints before securing full-time hires.
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A clear mission statement or North Star is critical to align team efforts and guide decision-making during transformation.
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Centralized design teams may build strong internal culture but face challenges meeting cross-functional stakeholder expectations, risking being seen as a bottleneck.
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Hybrid pod models, combining centralized oversight with embedded alignment, can enhance communication, stakeholder relationships, and scalability.
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Embedded design can increase domain expertise but risks siloed goals and limited design influence if the team is outnumbered or stretched thin.
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Pairing designers provides strength in numbers, improves cohesion, accelerates output, and creates better capacity to impact larger business problems.
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Leaders must obsessively break silos and build bridges with empathy to keep teams aligned and reduce transformation friction.
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Regular check-ins and inclusive decision-making increase team buy-in, turning detractors into champions for change.
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Transformation models are never one-size-fits-all and may reverse course; leaders should stay humble, flexible, and responsive to evolving organizational needs.
Notable Quotes
"Transformation is metamorphosis. It's often messy and has the goal to create systems out of chaos."
"Doubt can come up if you haven't established the right communication and trust. It can trigger fear."
"Pairing up with Sarah was my first win; our relationship of trust was the foundation for the design journey."
"I had stakeholders surround me like a shiver of sharks — friendly, but still sharks. The pressure to deliver was real."
"I hired what I call my Swiss Army knives — multidisciplinary designers who can juggle multiple projects and embrace constant change."
"Stakeholders saw design as a slow-moving black box — the very thing we tried to avoid by bringing design in-house."
"We opted to try a hybrid model to keep what we loved about centralized and embedded models while avoiding their pitfalls."
"Design pairs gave us strength in numbers and faster turnarounds, which was a big selling point for the team."
"Agility is not just how fast engineering builds, but how quickly we discover and put out the right ideas."
"Leaders must obsessively build bridges across silos; empathy is the biggest antidote to isolation and resistance."
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