When I joined Locaweb as a Design Leader, I encountered an existing design structure that had been weakened by a long period without leadership. The team, composed of six designers, reported directly to Product Management and operated without clear processes, documentation, alignment, or consistency.
Design was internally perceived as a disorganized discipline, with high levels of rework, low predictability, and limited strategic influence. Leadership was aware of the issue, and my hiring had the explicit goal of restructuring design and restoring its relevance within the organization.
The initial diagnosis revealed:
It became clear that this was not a matter of isolated adjustments, but rather the need to build a solid, structured, and scalable Design Chapter from the ground up.
I defined the vision of building a Design Chapter capable of:
To achieve this, I developed:
The chapter was structured using a chapter model distributed across squads, ensuring close collaboration with products while maintaining strong disciplinary alignment.
The following were defined:
I implemented weekly and biweekly rituals focused on:
In addition, I established:
Processes were designed to cover the entire lifecycle:
During this cycle, the chapter grew from 6 to 19 people. I was responsible for:
I established:
As a differentiator, I developed AI-powered agents to support designers in defining their next career steps, based on studies and documentation produced within the chapter itself.
After a few months, Design:
The chapter also contributed to strategic company initiatives, including:
The main challenge was designing processes that could effectively support multiple disciplines, including Product Owners, Product Managers, Agile Coaches, and Developers. In hindsight, I would further separate workflows and establish more explicit handoff agreements.
It will be a pleasure to talk about projects,
aspirations, and opportunities.
