| name | design-team-workflows |
| description | Use when establishing team workflows for designers, design ops, design-dev pairing, and design-led product development. Covers the rituals, the tooling, the cadence, and how design fits into agile.
|
Design Team Workflows
A design team's workflow determines output quality more than headcount.
Core rituals
| Ritual | Cadence | Time |
|---|
| Design standup | Daily | 15 min |
| Design crit | Weekly | 60-90 min |
| Design review with eng | Per project | 30-60 min |
| Cross-team showcase | Monthly | 60 min |
| Design system office hours | Weekly | 60 min |
| Quarterly planning | Quarterly | Half-day |
Design + agile
Design should be 1-2 sprints AHEAD of engineering:
- Sprint N: Design works on Sprint N+1 features
- Sprint N+1: Eng implements Sprint N+1 (designed)
- Designers join eng standups to support
Anti-pattern: design and eng start same sprint → designer rushed → eng waits.
Project phases (designer perspective)
- Discovery — research, user interviews, problem framing
- Exploration — sketches, multiple directions
- Validation — prototype, test with users
- Refinement — high-fidelity, ready for eng
- Handoff + support — designer stays available during build
- Post-launch — measure, iterate
Tools stack (typical)
| Function | Tool |
|---|
| Design + prototyping | Figma |
| Design system docs | Storybook + Notion |
| User research | Maze / UserTesting / Dovetail |
| Whiteboarding | FigJam / Miro |
| Asynchronous review | Loom / Figma comments |
| Project tracking | Linear / Jira / Asana |
| Token pipeline | Style Dictionary + Tokens Studio |
Design ops responsibilities
A design ops person (or function) owns:
- Design system maintenance
- Tooling + licensing
- Process documentation
- Onboarding new designers
- Cross-team collaboration
- Designer career growth
First design ops hire at ~10 designers.
Common mistakes
- Designers join sprint at the same time as eng (rushed)
- No design crit ritual (quality drift)
- Tools spread across 8 SaaS without integration
- Design system maintained by no one specifically (rot)
- Designers ship without eng pairing (rework later)
Where this fits in X3 Compass
X3 Compass current state: 1 designer (Joshua + AI). Future: weekly crits + design 1-sprint-ahead + Storybook design system.
