Driving Team Alignment and Performance in a Rapidly Growing Studio
Supporting a growing team requires intentional strategies to foster clarity, alignment, and accountability across hiring, onboarding, resource allocation, and goal-setting. As a design lead, I extended my responsibilities to address these challenges, shaping a more effective, engaged, and collaborative team while reducing turnover and stress.
Primary role: UX and Accessibility Lead
Time frame: February 2021 – November 2023
Streamlining Hiring and Onboarding
Challenge:
A nimble, at-capacity design team faced inefficiencies in hiring and onboarding, delaying the integration of new hires into productive roles.
Solution:
Designed interview criteria and ideation activities to assess candidates’ fit for both the role and team dynamics.
Co-created a 3-month onboarding template with the design studio manager, tailoring it to the needs of my team of four designers.
Provided essential context, skills training, and insights into team workflows and standard operating procedures.
Impact:
Accelerated time-to-value for new hires.
Supported the broader studio of 40 designers by creating a replicable onboarding framework.
Martin, Design Director, KeyBank
“I rely on her clear-eyed analysis and forthright perspective in making hiring decisions.”
Optimizing Resource Allocation
Challenge:
Rapid growth in partnerships and product demands led to misaligned resources and overstretched designers.
Solution:
Created a Living Board UX Roadmap for my team of four designers and two UX writers, detailing:
Estimated effort and impact.
Design phases, delivery timing, and ownership.
Priorities linked directly to team OKRs.
Facilitated realignment conversations with product owners to prioritize work effectively.
Developed and led 20+ workshops over three years to enhance cross-functional collaboration and refine resource allocation.
Impact:
Consumer Digital adopted the UX Roadmap as a model for their product roadmap.
Improved resource alignment reduced designer burnout and enabled timely project delivery.
Martin, Design Director, KeyBank
“In a period where her squads experienced higher attrition, Mallory managed to keep projects moving forward on-time and on-schedule.”
Establishing Goal-Setting and Accountability
Challenge:
After a departmental reorganization, there was a need to align design efforts with broader business objectives and measurable outcomes.
Solution:
Collaborated with the head of Consumer Digital to plan and facilitate two workshops, focusing on:
Defining inspirational and measurable objectives and key results (OKRs).
Integrating human-centered design thinking, accessibility, and designers’ individual growth goals into the team’s objectives.
Ensured design efforts were directly tied to business goals for the first time in the organization’s history.
Impact:
Introduced measurable key results for accessibility and the design system.
Enhanced collaboration and clarity across feature-focused squads.
Stephen, Enterprise Design Officer, KeyBank