Product Design & Delivery Process

While working on the FordPass and Lincoln Way apps, it became apparent that VML as a whole was not set up for success from a process perspective, so a couple teammates and I took the initiative to improve our entire process – I focused primarily on global design team collaboration. My main focus was to implement new tools, new processes, and a new design language for VML and Ford in order to act as one product driven team while continuing to deliver thoughtful design. 

Through researching and introducing new tools such as Abstract, Sketch and Zeplin, I led our design teams in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia to adopt a more efficient process for global collaborative design. We were able to work on version-controlled files using a shared library to create a consistent experience all over the world - an achievement that hadn't ever been accomplished at VML or Ford.

This process is now the “gold standard” for product focused teams inside VML. I have acted as a consultant on multiple client teams to teach this process and help share it around the agency.

As a first step, we started by narrowing down the tools the team would use. Research about each tool was conducted as well as a competitive analysis. We landed on these tools for both UI & UX as well as product management.

We the defined roles and responsibilities for the larger team, Analysts, Experience Designers, Interface Designer and Copywriters, while still leaving room for our “all hands on deck” moments. The chart above shows the ideal process from internal kickoff to delivery. It was important for us to outline where each tool is not only useful to the team member but also works to improve their daily workflow. By outlining the reviews and stakeholder reviews, it helped us visualize and implement this process as a 2-week sprint, providing a source of truth to the team.

We implemented a numbering system for our sketch files as well. This helps to keep all designers aligned and in an orderly fashion. In the instance of Ford, our teams were spread across the world in China, Australia, North & South America and Europe. It could have been a recipe for disaster if it weren’t for having a singular process for not only design delivery but also a process for our files. The numbering process used in parallel with our version controlled files helped us insure our files acted as a consistent source of truth.