Resources for Design Teams & Leaders
Along my design journey, I've led design teams and built the systems underneath them: role ladders, QA processes, growth frameworks, and handover practices that hold up even when I'm not in the room. For the past year I've been running my own studio, advising organizations on design maturity and building AI products of my own. I'm sharing these resources because most of what makes a design team actually work never gets written down. It lives in one person's head until they leave, and then it leaves with them.
Along my design journey, I've led design teams and built the systems underneath them: role ladders, QA processes, growth frameworks, and handover practices that hold up even when I'm not in the room. For the past year I've been running my own studio, advising organizations on design maturity and building AI products of my own. I'm sharing these resources because most of what makes a design team actually work never gets written down. It lives in one person's head until they leave, and then it leaves with them.
Design Leadership Toolkit
Design Leadership Toolkit
Five templates for running a design team, not just designing a product. Built while leading a design team across four product squads, refined into something you can adapt in an afternoon.
Design maturity isn't a score. It's whether growth conversations, QA, onboarding, and offboarding all run off one shared model, instead of five people making five separate calls about what "good" means.
I built this set while leading a design team inside a fast-scaling company: a role ladder, a QA process, a growth framework, and an offboarding process, all tied to the same definition of design maturity. The QA process alone cut design-to-development rework by roughly 30% across four product squads. This is that underlying structure, not just the result.
What's Included
1. The Design Team Operating Handbook Defines design maturity, a six-level role ladder, and the five-phase process everything else in this set runs on.
2. Design QA Report Template Turns "does this look right" into a checkable standard, reviewed before a feature ships instead of after engineering has already built against it.
3. Designer Growth Plan Template A growth plan and a monthly readiness scorecard that read off the same six dimensions as the role ladder, so a promotion case isn't the first time anyone's compared notes.
4. Designer Handover Template What a departure hands to the next person, instead of what it loses: ownership, open work, the reasoning behind past decisions, and known risk.
5. The Design Onboarding Quest A four to five week path that gets a new designer to independent contribution on a repeatable structure, instead of however their buddy onboards them that week.
Five templates for running a design team, not just designing a product. Built while leading a design team across four product squads, refined into something you can adapt in an afternoon.
Design maturity isn't a score. It's whether growth conversations, QA, onboarding, and offboarding all run off one shared model, instead of five people making five separate calls about what "good" means.
I built this set while leading a design team inside a fast-scaling company: a role ladder, a QA process, a growth framework, and an offboarding process, all tied to the same definition of design maturity. The QA process alone cut design-to-development rework by roughly 30% across four product squads. This is that underlying structure, not just the result.
What's Included
1. The Design Team Operating Handbook Defines design maturity, a six-level role ladder, and the five-phase process everything else in this set runs on.
2. Design QA Report Template Turns "does this look right" into a checkable standard, reviewed before a feature ships instead of after engineering has already built against it.
3. Designer Growth Plan Template A growth plan and a monthly readiness scorecard that read off the same six dimensions as the role ladder, so a promotion case isn't the first time anyone's compared notes.
4. Designer Handover Template What a departure hands to the next person, instead of what it loses: ownership, open work, the reasoning behind past decisions, and known risk.
5. The Design Onboarding Quest A four to five week path that gets a new designer to independent contribution on a repeatable structure, instead of however their buddy onboards them that week.
What's Included
1. The Design Team Operating Handbook Defines design maturity, a six-level role ladder, and the five-phase process everything else in this set runs on.
2. Design QA Report Template Turns "does this look right" into a checkable standard, reviewed before a feature ships instead of after engineering has already built against it.
3. Designer Growth Plan Template A growth plan and a monthly readiness scorecard that read off the same six dimensions as the role ladder, so a promotion case isn't the first time anyone's compared notes.
4. Designer Handover Template What a departure hands to the next person, instead of what it loses: ownership, open work, the reasoning behind past decisions, and known risk.
5. The Design Onboarding Quest A four to five week path that gets a new designer to independent contribution on a repeatable structure, instead of however their buddy onboards them that week.
Let’s Work…
I've designed for users at national scale, built design systems that hold quality across distributed teams, and led design teams. Based in Nairobi, designing for humans across the globe.
Let’s Work…
I've designed for users at national scale, built design systems that hold quality across distributed teams, and led design teams. Based in Nairobi, designing for humans across the globe.
Let’s Work…
I've designed for users at national scale, built design systems that hold quality across distributed teams, and led design teams. Based in Nairobi, designing for humans across the globe.