Michela Frecchiami

Every hello is a chance to have a wonderful life.

1. If someone asks you “what do you do?” resist the temptation to respond with your job title. Instead, respond with an “I believe” statement. Example:
   “So, Jim, What do you do?”
   “ I believe story, art, and design can bend the arc of humanity’s progress, and I try to bring that into everything I do: from movies to startups to paintings to books and to ballets.”
   A statement of belief will start more interesting conversations than your job title. If the person doesn’t immediately ask a question in return, you can ask them what they believe. Compare this to the usual path: if you open with your job title or rank, this sets up a confrontational hierarchy. And if you introduce yourself with something vague, like “finance” or “tech” or “science” or “art” this sends a signal that you don’t really want to talk about it. Open with an idea, and the conversation is already interesting before it begins. We crave interestingness over almost all else.

People on the outside will criticize things they have a limited view of. But if you give people the chance to be part of the solution, they will either take you up on it or they will see how their suggestion impacts everyone else.

The most general misconception I often see at scale is that, once a design system is established, every product must then use it. “100% adoption” is the goal, meaning design system work isn’t done until every product at the organization has been migrated to use the design system.

This is nonsense.

A design system prioritization matrix

Reading time: around 3 minutes

Design systems have massive impact at scale, especially with organizations that manage dozens, hundreds, or thousands of digital products. But that scale brings its own set of problems.

The most general misconception I often see at scale is that, once a design system is established, every product must then use it. “100% adoption” is the goal, meaning design system work isn’t done until every product at the organization has been migrated to use the design system.

This is nonsense.

For starters, migrating just the codebase of hundreds or thousands of digital products would take years.

The solution is a more pragmatic point of view: only some of an organization’s products should use the design system.

Which begs the question: which products should use the design system and which ones shouldn’t?

This is a question I’ve spent time on with every single organization I’ve consulted with.

A design system prioritization matrix

Luckily, I found a handy guide a few years ago that I use every time:

This is a super useful matrix by design system consultant Nathan Curtis entitled “Must/Should/Could a Product Adopt a System?” The two axes are “Product Stage” and “Upcoming Investment,” a smart combination that juxtaposes two of the most important factors of valuable design system work.

The green “Must” and red “Avoid“ areas make obvious what many teams struggle with without a matrix like this to help them:

• New products with more upcoming investment compared to the prior period must use the design system. Launching a new flagship website or app that’s gonna get a lot of executive and/or marketing attention? Use the design system for sure.

• Legacy products with no upcoming investment compared to the prior period should avoid using the design system. That old Lotus Notes-based application approaching end-of-life in 2 years? Don’t bother migrating that over.

The “Should“ and “Could” areas get trickier, so spend more time here. An emerging product with less upcoming investment? Hmm. It should probably use the design system, but it’s worth a few conversations to make sure. An established product with the same investment as last quarter? It could use the design system, but it’s worth considering if there are higher priority places to spend your time.