Project Zenith
Project Zenith — How I Scaled UX Across 7 Business Units Without Headcount Growth
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Case Study Snapshot
Goal: Make UX execution consistent across a global enterprise—without hiring enough designers to cover demand.
Context: 7 business units across multiple continents; UX needed to work even when no designer was available.
What I built: A 3-part UX operating system—role-based training, a UX Champions network, and a self-serve UX Playbook—to raise baseline quality and standardize delivery.
Reach: Enabled 1,400 developers/QA and 200+ project managers across the org.
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Problem:
UX wasn’t consistently embedded in delivery, so teams shipped complex enterprise software with uneven experience quality and avoidable UX-related defects. Demand outpaced designer capacity, and adding headcount wasn’t a near-term option.
Constraints:
Global delivery across multiple continents
Seven business units with different operating rhythms
Enablement at scale: 1,400 developers/QA + 200+ project managers
Needed a model that worked even when no designer was available
Strategy:
Turn UX from a scarce resource into a scalable organizational capability by:
Raising baseline UX competency across delivery roles
Distributing lightweight UX support inside teams
Codifying standards so execution could be self-serve
Solution: a 3-part UX Operating System
1) Education (raise the baseline)
Role-based UX training tailored to how each function contributes to quality:
Engineers/QA: interaction patterns, accessibility, usability defect recognition, “definition of done”
PMs: requirements quality, user outcomes, acceptance criteria, risk framing
Cross-functional: common language + shared expectations for UX quality
What made it work: practical, project-connected training (not theory) + materials that could be reused in onboarding.
2) UX Champions (distributed execution)
A network of incentivized advocates embedded in delivery teams, contributing ~10% capacity toward:
Pattern-consistent execution
Lightweight reviews and early risk detection
Raising issues before they became expensive defects
Reinforcing standards and best practices inside sprint rhythms
What made it work: champions weren’t “mini designers”—they were a force multiplier with clear scope, tooling, and guardrails.
3) UX Playbook (self-serve standardization)
A self-serve toolkit that standardized execution and enabled teams when no champion or designer was available:
Videos + quick-start guides
Heuristics and checklists
Templates (flows, IA, usability scripts, acceptance criteria examples)
Research guides (how to validate quickly without a dedicated researcher)
What made it work: it reduced dependency on a designer for common decisions, and it made “good enough” repeatable.
Results (12 months):
Established a predictable delivery model and reduced rework
30% defect reduction
70% organizational adoption (program used broadly, not limited to UX-led teams)
Why it worked:
This operating system scaled UX impact without scaling the UX org:
Train the .org so baseline quality rises everywhere
Distribute support through champions embedded in delivery
Codify quality into self-serve standards so teams can execute even without a designer