Design Systems and Structural Integrity—Emerging Shape of Design Orgs (2nd in a series)

In my previous post, I laid a foundation for thinking about the emerging standard shape of a product design organization. In the comments and on LinkedIn, a number of questions and comments came through, and by far the most addressed Design Systems and related platform matters.

From what I've seen, while the overall shape of a design org is settling into something like I've shown, where specifically Design Systems lives varies from org to org. Earlier this year, I supported an enterprise software team building HR tools. From what I gathered, our plan for design org structure is one that's emerging as a standard within enterprise software. I've altered some details for the sake of easier communication (tap/click to enlarge).

Applications (or Experiences) and Platform. For years, working within product development organizations, I witnessed a lot of resistance to the idea of "Platform" or "Shared Services" teams. In the move to "Agile" there was a desire for every team to be an autonomous unit, capable of directly delivering value, with no dependencies on any other team.