Maxime Amoudruz

Design systems specialist enabling teams to ship consistent high-impact products at scale.

Democratising a design system within a fast-paced, global corporation

Treat it as infrastructure, and it becomes a multiplier for product velocity and quality.

Design operations2021–2023

As a Senior Design Systems Designer, I was brought in as a specialist to restart and transform a dormant design system into a trusted source of truth.

Ownership was unclear, adoption was low, and trust had eroded across design, engineering, and product. By aligning 20+ teams around scalable foundations, governance, and a sustainable contribution model, I re-established the system for enterprise-wide adoption.

This repositioned the design System as a core organisational capability supporting consistency, collaboration, and scale.

The challenge

The challenge wasn’t rebuilding the system from scratch—it was restoring confidence while creating the structure needed to sustain it.

The stated goal was simple: anyone in the company should be able to trust, consume, and contribute to the design system. In practice, core fundamentals were missing, and the system lacked the structure required to support that ambition.

• No meaningful metrics to assess adoption or impact
• No shared processes to guide contribution
• No clear ownership or accountability

Without visibility and structure, the system fragmented, teams disengaged, and confidence declined. What appeared to be a tooling issue was, in reality, a systemic breakdown in how the design system operated across the organisation.

Design systems as organisational infrastructure

The root issue was not components or tooling. It was trust, ownership, and the absence of shared understanding.

A design system is organisational infrastructure. It should enable teams to move faster with confidence, not constrain them with opaque rules or unclear processes.

Without shared principles and clear ownership, systems become fragmented and unreliable. With them, they become a foundation that aligns teams, reduces friction, and supports consistent decision-making at scale.

Approach

This work focused on creating early momentum while laying the foundations for long-term system trust.

Work was sequenced to create visible progress without sacrificing long-term integrity. Rather than attempting a full overhaul, the focus was on addressing the areas where teams experienced the most friction in their day-to-day work.

• Prioritised high-friction areas across design and engineering
• Delivered quick wins that were visible in everyday workflows
• Shifted perception through consistent, demonstrated value

These early signals of progress were critical—not only to unblock teams, but to rebuild confidence and create the conditions for broader adoption.

System restoration

The system didn’t need a redesign—it needed visibility, structure, and shared ownership.

Progress was made visible early, and ownership was intentionally redistributed to rebuild trust. This allowed the system to evolve from a passive resource into an active, shared capability.

Before

  • Dormant system
  • Low trust
  • Fragmented contribution

Transition

  • Quick wins
  • Transparent communication
  • Shared process

After

  • Growing adoption
  • Clearer governance
  • Stronger ownership

This transition reframed the design system from something teams consumed occasionally into something they actively participated in shaping.

Foundations for scale

Trust increased as the system became more transparent, predictable, and shared across teams.

As visibility increased, the system shifted from a black box to a shared capability. The focus moved from delivery alone to stewardship—ensuring the system could evolve sustainably as adoption grew.

• Clear, regular communication with stakeholders
• Education on system principles and usage
• Governance that supported autonomy without chaos
• Improved visibility into system direction and decisions

These foundations enabled teams not only to use the system, but to understand it—and contribute to it with confidence.

Structured documentation

Documentation became a scaling mechanism—not just a reference layer.

Documentation was rebuilt as a shared, tool-agnostic source of truth, focused on intent rather than implementation. This ensured that knowledge could scale across teams, products, and platforms without becoming tied to a single context.

Each component was described through purpose, anatomy, behaviours, states, usage guidance, and accessibility—allowing designers and engineers to align regardless of implementation.

This reduced fragmentation, accelerated adoption, and made contributions safer, clearer, and more scalable across the organisation.

Impact

This work didn’t just improve the system—it changed how teams perceived, used, and contributed to it.

Outcomes extended beyond the component library into how teams collaborated, made decisions, and delivered products.

Adoption

A previously dormant system became actively used and referenced across teams, increasing reliance on shared components in day-to-day work.

Contribution

Clear processes and ownership enabled designers and engineers to contribute confidently, turning contribution into a supported practice rather than an exception.

Alignment

Design, engineering, and product teams collaborated more effectively around shared standards, reducing ambiguity and improving decision-making.

Advocacy

A growing internal community now supports, evolves, and champions the system—ensuring its continued relevance and sustainability.

The system moved from a neglected asset to a trusted platform with shared ownership across the organisation.

Final thoughts

A design system succeed when trust, clarity, and shared ownership are engineered—not assumed.

The system moved from a neglected asset to a trusted platform with shared ownership across the organisation.

GfK provides data and intelligence for the consumer goods industry, tracking 180M+ SKUs and surveying 2M+ people across 15 countries to deliver real-time market insights. Since 2023, it is part of NielsenIQ.

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