Building High-Performing Design Teams

Projects of every size were entering the organization through Workfront, email, Slack, Teams, texts, and informal conversations. Work was treated largely the same regardless of complexity, with limited alignment before teams began executing.

With more than 200 requesters and over 100 projects moving through the organization each week, the problem wasn’t effort. It was clarity.

I partnered across marketing, social, analytics, technology, legal, compliance, UX, design, video, and content. I led stakeholder interviews, facilitated working sessions, and regularly presented findings and recommendations to marketing executives.

We mapped current-state workflows and identified five priorities: simplify production work, improve prioritization, make Workfront easier to use, clarify roles and responsibilities, and establish a consistent way for projects to begin.

We defined different work types so process and resources could match the actual complexity of the assignment instead of forcing every request through the same path.

Through discovery and working sessions, we developed and tested new workflows, simplified templates, reduced communication channels, introduced clearer creative briefs, and defined accountability across teams.

The new operating model made it easier to plan, prioritize, and execute work across marketing and creative teams. It reduced friction at project start, improved accountability, and helped teams deliver more work on time without sacrificing creative quality.