Building a UX governance framework an internal team can own independently

20 designers, 7 value chains, no shared framework

The organisation is a major energy sector player, undergoing an agile transformation. The transformation is structured around 7 business value chains covering production, commercial operations, tertiary services and shared support functions.

The IT Department relies on shared enterprise frameworks covering architecture, security, data and CSR. These frameworks clarify responsibilities and align practices across business and technical teams. UX had no equivalent.

On the ground: 20 designers were working across value chains with no shared standards, no governance framework, and no visibility on project-level UX investment. Practices varied across teams. Conversations between designers and business leads happened without a common framework for estimating workload or prioritising effort.

The brief was one sentence: "Build us a complete UX governance framework, one we can defend to the Executive Committee and roll out across all 7 value chains."

The Head of the UX Centre and her team had already mapped UX maturity across value chains and aligned their UX process with the agile process. That internal material was an invaluable starting point. The mission was not to start from scratch, but to structure, formalise and operationalise what had already been started internally.

The real challenge went beyond producing deliverables. The framework had to be solid enough for the Head of the UX Centre to present it to the Executive Committee, and to sustain it across 7 value chains over 24 months.

Three tensions to resolve under a tight timeline

Building a complete UX governance framework in 16 working days, inside an organisation undergoing full agile transformation, with a non-negotiable executive target.

Building a UX governance framework inside a large organisation in transformation means balancing three requirements that pull in different directions.

Four dimensions, four interlocking moves

I led this mission in partnership with the Head of the UX Centre. She owned the approach with her sponsors: the Transformation Lead within the IT Department and the Executive Committee. At each key stage, we aligned before moving forward: the initial scoping, the intermediate proposals, the simplified version, the enriched version, and the final version presented to the Executive Committee.

1. Read what exists before writing anything

   The internal team had already produced a significant body of work. I started by reading it: a UX maturity map by value chain, a mapping of the UX process onto the agile process, and the IT Department's strategic documents. From there, I identified what was missing and set up the collaborative workspaces for what came next.

   Output: Context notes, identified anchor points, areas to formalise flagged.

2. Building the framework, collaboratively

   Depending on the deliverable, we worked in three different ways.

   • The UX Policy and Governance were co-written with the Head of the UX Centre.
   • The 24-month roadmap and competency levels were structured by me, then filled in during workshops with the Head of the UX Centre and the two UX leads, who brought ground-level knowledge.
   • The project sizing model and estimation tool were built from a workshop where I collected the categories and time estimates already in use internally, then built the tool on my own, with a review by the three people involved.
   Output: Policy and Governance co-written. Roadmap and competencies co-built. Estimation tool built independently on a collective basis, validated by review.

3. Facilitating workshops so the framework was built together

   I facilitated a series of workshops throughout both phases. Two were particularly defining: the hypothesis-testing workshop on day three of Phase 1, and the co-construction workshops for the roadmap and estimation tool in Phase 2.

   Output: Framework co-built, actions prioritised by the people who would own them, functions aligned on the same vision.

4. Handing over so the framework could live without me

   Together, we shaped the written and visual storytelling structure for the Executive Committee presentation.

   • The Executive Committee presentation was not mine to give. It was the Head of the UX Centre's.
   • In Phase 2, I ran a demo of the workload estimation tool for all 20 designers to support day-to-day adoption.
   Output: ExCom slide deck owned and delivered by the Head of the UX Centre. Workload estimation tool in active use by the team after the mission ended.

Strategy first, foundations next

A two-stage logic: validate the vision at the highest level before investing in operational foundations.

Three tools, three distinct uses

Each tool has its audience, its scope and its lifespan.

What I would do differently