Dev Mode Analysis - Proactive Problem Identification
Identifying Enterprise Budget Risk 11 Months Early
Design Program Manager, Tools & Infrastructure
5-Months (January – May)
$189K budget forecast (accurate within $500)
Situation
During CVS Health’s Figma Enterprise upgrade and instance merger (scaling from 3,500 to 5,000 users), 80-100 engineers immediately requested access to Dev Mode—a feature that had been free during beta but was now $35/month per seat. Nobody was tracking this adoption pattern or budget impact.
Key challenge: Dev Mode seats weren’t in any department’s budget. Design teams had Figma funding; Engineering teams didn’t. Without tracking, we’d hit contract renewal with unknown costs and no planning.
Task
Quantify growing adoption, forecast budget requirements, and provide leadership with data-driven recommendations 11 months before November contract renew
Actions
Phase 1: Systematic Tracking
(January - March)
- Built weekly monitoring system logging seat requests and usage patterns
- Created growth trend analysis showing 15-20 new requests per week
- Projected 500+ active accounts by summer = ~$189K annual cost
- Analyzed business unit distribution for budget allocation planning
Phase 2: Value Research
(March - May)
- Designed two-phase survey strategy with 170+ initial respondents
- Conducted targeted follow-up with 58 users (39 designers, 18 developers)
- Built Airtable-based automated dashboard for real-time visibility
- Documented specific workflow improvements and time savings
Phase 3: Business Case Development
- Synthesized usage data with qualitative feedback
- Quantified benefits: 60% reported significant handoff improvements, 76% found it essential for staying current with design updates
- Created stakeholder review interfaces for leadership visibility
- Positioned early adoption as competitive advantage in design-dev collaboration
