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2023–2024 | Role: DesignOps Lead
Identity Work in a Global UX Reorg
When three regional UX teams merged into one global organisation, the operational challenges were predictable. The actual challenge was helping people understand who they were in the new structure.
Context and organizational challenge
Three autonomous regional UX teams merged into a centralised global organisation, restructured into multiple subfunctions. While regional differences existed (distinct working norms, maturity levels, and decision-making styles) the more salient challenge was establishing how newly formed subfunctions would work together.
The org structure launched before all integration details were fully worked through, a sequencing I've observed in multiple reorganisations. This meant subfunction leaders were simultaneously learning their new roles while establishing working relationships and clarifying boundaries with peers.
Core challenges:
- Establishing clear subfunction mandates and reducing overlaps
- Creating engagement models for specialised competencies
- Building collaboration patterns between newly formed teams
- Aligning communication channels and documentation practices
- Bridging different expectations around "collaboration" and "autonomy"
- Maintaining psychological safety as reporting lines shifted
The central question wasn't "how do we standardise processes?" It was "who are we now, and how do we work together?"
Insight
Reorgs create operational friction, but primarily create identity disruption. Process alignment fails when people don't understand their purpose within the new structure. Identity work must happen alongside, and not after operational design.
Approach: Sensemaking as the foundation
I began with structured listening before proposing solutions. 1:1 conversations across regions and subfunctions, listening sessions, and mapping both workflow patterns and emotional undercurrents.
What this revealed:
- Subfunction boundaries needed ongoing clarification as leaders aligned on how their areas fit together
- Leaders were navigating both new roles and new working relationships simultaneously
- Different contexts had different norms (what felt collaborative in one area felt like unnecessary process in another)
- Specialised roles needed clarity on how they'd engage with the broader organisation
- Teams wanted transparency about the rationale behind the structure and their place in it
- Coordination overhead was high as new patterns established
This sensemaking clarified that we needed to address both structural clarity (how work flows between subfunctions) and cultural integration (how people understand their role in an evolving structure).
What I built: Integrated operating model
I co-designed a global operating model that treated structure and culture as inseparable, addressing both "how we work" and "who we are."
1. Transparent intake and prioritisation
- Unified intake process visible across the organisation
- Explicit prioritisation criteria and decision-alignment matrix
- Piloted demand-management process with regional and subfunctional feedback before broader rollout
2. Clearer decision-making and engagement rules
- Decision matrix across subfunctions (who decides, who contributes, who's informed)
- Clarified engagement models for specialised competencies
- Boundary work to reduce subfunction overlap through collaborative definition
3. Mission and identity framing
- Translated leadership's vision into accessible narratives. Artefacts like FAQs and onboarding materials were important to explain the "why" behind structural changes
- Shaped complex strategic rationale into clear, digestible communication
- Supported managers in contextualising changes for their teams
4. Knowledge and communication norms
- Established shared channels with explicit purposes (not just for efficiency, but to rebuild connection)
- Documentation standards that balanced consistency with flexibility for each subfunction
- Cross-subfunctional knowledge-sharing rituals
5. Team assignment approach (autonomy during disruption)
- Team members indicated their preferred subfunction from two options. This preserved agency during a turbulent period, giving people ownership over where they landed helped stabilise psychological safety.
- The tradeoff I learnt later: this approach created uneven team sizes and inconsistent delivery velocity. What served the immediate emotional need created downstream operational challenges.
Insight
Empowerment during disruption builds psychological safety, but autonomy alone doesn't create sustainable structures. Effective reorg design requires hybrid approaches: preserve individual agency while building mechanisms for organisational balance.
Implementation: Phased, culturally-informed rollout
Phase 1: Pilot and iterate
Tested demand-management process with volunteer teams, refined based on regional and subfunctional feedback before broader rollout.
Phase 2: Manager enablement
Built standardised infrastructure for administrative work—project tracking, capacity visibility, communication channels for newly formed teams. Removing friction from operational tasks freed managers to focus on the human and relational work of supporting people through the transition.
Phase 3: Collective sensemaking
Facilitated workshops where subfunction leaders could surface different assumptions about mandates, priorities, and boundaries. Created space for ongoing alignment as working relationships developed.
Phase 4: Cohesion-building
Organised global offsite focused on rebuilding shared identity (not just roadmap alignment). Created space for teams to process uncertainty alongside building new practices.
Throughout: treated the reorg as both structural work (clarifying subfunctions and their relationships) and emotional transition (supporting people through ambiguity). The challenge wasn't just implementing a new structure—it was helping an organisation establish clarity as the structure evolved.
Impact and organizational outcomes
The organisation stabilised with measurable improvements in clarity, trust, and operational effectiveness:
Operational:
- Transparent intake and prioritisation flow adopted across subfunctions
- Consistent decision-making norms reduced coordination friction between areas
- Stronger cross-subfunctional collaboration and knowledge-sharing
Cultural:
- Improved psychological safety (validated through pulse surveys)
- Re-emergence of coherent global identity
- Pulse survey scores rose steadily over multiple cycles, signalling recovery in morale, trust, and clarity
What mattered most: Teams understood not just the new processes, but their purpose within them. The anxiety that permeated early months dissipated as people found their footing.
Strategic takeaways
1. Identity work is operational work
Process changes fail when people don't understand who they are in the new structure. Identity work isn't "soft"—it's the foundation that makes operational changes stick.
2. Autonomy stabilises, but creates trade-offs
The team assignment approach taught me that empowerment during disruption creates psychological safety. But I also learned its limits: fully choice-based models can produce uneven capabilities and delivery velocity. Future iterations would blend individual agency with structured mechanisms for organisational balance.
3. Ongoing coordination requires intentional rituals
We built good structures, but they needed constant interpretation across contexts. I underestimated how much ongoing work the operating model would require, particularly as subfunctions established their working relationships. Would now embed more intentional rituals: regular cross-subfunctional retrospectives, rotating facilitation, explicit documentation of how overlaps get resolved.
4. Structure and integration are sequential challenges
When structure launches before integration details are fully worked through, it creates sustained coordination overhead. Leaders navigating both new roles and new working relationships simultaneously face compounded complexity. Earlier attention to integration planning, even if it delays the announcement, can prevent significant downstream friction.
5. The diagnostic question isn't "what process should we build?"
It's "what organisational conditions need to exist for this process to work?" Reorg success depends on clarity about how the parts fit together, not just cultural readiness, but concrete alignment on boundaries, mandates, and collaboration models.
What I'm still learning
The Efficiency vs. Autonomy dial
How do you balance speed (centralised decision-making) with sustainability (distributed ownership) during organizational transitions? The tension between efficiency and autonomy requires ongoing negotiation between all stakeholders.
Integration roadmap
When should reorg structures include integration planning from the start? I've observed the pattern of "announce structure, work out details later" in multiple contexts. But early integration work risks slowing momentum. Where's the balance between speed and thoroughness?
Org's tolerance for ambiguity
How much structural ambiguity can organisations productively tolerate during transitions? Some evolution of boundaries and mandates may be healthy as teams learn by doing. But how much is acceptable, and when does ambiguity become harmful?
This work involved collaboration across subfunction leads, regional teams, and organizational leadership from 2023–2024. The insights came from hundreds of conversations with people navigating significant change who were generous enough to tell me what wasn't working.