Transforming Product Design Collaboration at Scale

Moving CVS Health from Sketch to Figma meant not only centralizing the working files of 500+ designers in the cloud, but also allowing for product and engineering partners to participate in the design process earlier and with more frequency.

Role

Design Program Manager, Tools & Infrastructure

Timeline

21 months (3 phases)

Impact

$221K annual savings, 1,300+ trained

Situation

CVS Health’s design teams relied on fragmented tools—Sketch (local files), InVision, Miro, SharePoint—creating collaboration barriers across 500+ designers in four business units. When COVID-19 forced distributed work, these limitations became critical business obstacles preventing efficient cross-functional delivery.

Key challenge: Replace entrenched tools across enterprise-scale organization while maintaining active project delivery and ensuring accessibility compliance.

Task

Build business case to convince leadership, lead comprehensive tool evaluation including stakeholder alignment and cost analysis, interview design staff to formulate requirements, then plan and execute phased implementation across 3,500+ professionals (design, product, engineering teams).

Action

Phase 1: Problem Recognition & Stakeholder Alignment

Documented collaboration inefficiencies with design leadership
Built consensus around need for unified cloud-based tooling
Established clear success criteria for evaluation

Phase 2: Comprehensive Tool Evaluation

Led formal assessment of 5 enterprise platforms (Figma, Sketch for Teams, Abstract, Adobe XD, InVision v7)
Coordinated 12-person design volunteer working group
Assembled accessibility advisory cohort to ensure compliance requirements (screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, visual contrast standards)
Tested against prioritized use cases: real-time co-editing, centralized file management, design-to-development handoff, single source of truth
Built comprehensive cost analysis demonstrating significant savings through tool consolidation

Phase 3: Enterprise Implementation & Governance

Developed 10-week phased rollout across four business verticals
Coordinated account provisioning and access management aligned with product delivery schedules
Organized training sessions for 500 designers and 800 product/engineering professionals
Created centralized Confluence resource hub with onboarding guides, FAQs, and governance documentation
Hosted weekly virtual office hours for real-time support
Developed enterprise naming conventions for files, projects, and team spaces
Established governance models for plugin usage and library management

Comprehensive risk assessment
Recognizing that enterprise software selection required consideration beyond standard feature comparison, I assembled a specialized accessibility cohort to identify evaluation criteria that most organizations overlook. This group helped define requirements for screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, visual contrast standards, and assistive technology integration.

Result

Enterprise adoption

400+ designers actively using systematic naming conventions by Figma migration completion

Change Leadership

Successfully led 16-month organizational transformation without formal authority through individual relationship building

Cross-team collaboration

Eliminated redundant design efforts through improved work discoverability

Efficiency improvement

Reduced time spent in coordination meetings and file location activities

Migration foundation

Systematic file organization enabled seamless Figma enterprise transition

Change Leadership

Created scalable governance structures supporting continued organizational growth

Overcoming resistance

Maintained professional execution despite executive director actively attempting to halt the work, ultimately achieving buy-in from all 22 design team leads

Tools and Methods