Bank Design & Discovery Playbook

Context

As a large Bank’s design organization scaled, each team practiced discovery differently — creating inefficiency and inconsistent impact. There was a need to standardize how design contributes to business value.

Challenge

Leaders needed a single, credible framework that could:

• Align design with business outcomes.
• Accelerate onboarding and cross-functional collaboration.
• Demonstrate design’s value across product, operations, and innovation teams.

Approach

I led a team of eight senior design professionals to create a custom Design & Discovery Playbook — a 16-week initiative that codified design thinking, research, and facilitation methods.

• Modeled the playbook on internal toolkits from IDEO and Atlassian.
• Defined step-by-step guidance from problem framing to validation.
• Oversaw content, writing, and visual structure to ensure clarity and accessibility.
• Partnered with the internal CMS team for publication and governance.

Impact

The Playbook became the foundational operating system for design at the large Bank — widely adopted across segments and teams. It improved collaboration, reduced redundancy, and increased leadership confidence in design’s strategic contribution.

Relevance to Today

A hallmark of mature design leadership — building scalable frameworks that turn design from craft into enterprise capability.