F2
15 days
Fractional Design Leadership
F2 - Design Function Build installs the operating model your designers work inside, and frames the function as the risk control your board funds. You have the headcount and the work still ships inconsistently because talented people are each doing their best in parallel, and nobody has named the risks poor design creates, which a hire will not name either. With the Design Function Build module, we start with a seven-risk audit, then add quality gates to the delivery process you already run.
Over fifteen days, at the cadence you set, I hold that seat: the model and the gates go in, and the designers you already have build the function inside them. You keep the audit with exposure ranked by cost, an operating model on one page with decision rights named per role, quality gates inside your delivery process, and board-facing framing that positions the function as a risk control.
Design is funded here as a service that produces work, and services get compared on cost when the budget tightens. Risk controls are funded differently, because somebody has to answer for the exposure if the control is not there.
Nobody has written down the risks poor design creates, so nobody owns or manages them. That is the gap, and it is a framing gap before it is a headcount gap.
So I open the mandate with a diagnosis: three weeks testing seven risks against the function you already have.
| Risk | What I test |
|---|---|
| Experience quality | Are there quality gates and review processes, or does inconsistent work ship unchecked |
| Delivery | Are handoffs clear, and does work arrive at engineering ready to build |
| Brand coherence | Does a customer moving between products experience one company |
| Compliance | Can you evidence accessibility and regulatory obligations when asked |
| Knowledge | Is practice documented, or does it live in individual heads |
| Talent | Can people develop here, and what does attrition cost you |
| Velocity | How much repeatable manual work sits inside every release |
I rank that exposure by cost. The ranking turns the seven risks into a conversation your board can have about control.
| Phase | Activities |
|---|---|
| Assess | The seven risk audit run, decision rights mapped, and the current operating model documented as it works today |
| Stand up | Pods or teams aligned to product, quality gates defined, and the contribution and review process written |
| Run | I hold the seat, chair the gates, and make the calls while the model beds in |
Assess runs first, in weeks one to three, because otherwise you build the function around whatever the last argument was about. Stand up runs from week four to week twelve, when I align the pods and write both the gates and the process.
The run phase starts once the build lands and continues to the end of the mandate.
Standing up quality gates means I will sometimes stop work, needing an executive sponsor’s political capital. Somebody above me has to back the call to stop something, or it does not survive its first test.
That is why I ask in week one who that sponsor is and what they are prepared to defend. Then nobody is deciding that for the first time when a gate bites somebody senior.
| The problem | What the mandate settles |
|---|---|
| You have designers and no design function | An operating model on one page, with decision rights named against every role |
| Work quality depends on which individual picked it up | Quality gates written into your existing delivery process, and a review process the team follows |
| Every budget conversation restarts the argument about value | Board facing framing that positions the function as a risk control, with exposure ranked by cost |
| A merger, a funding round or a new CPO has changed what the team is for | The current operating model documented, then rebuilt against what the function is now for |
| You intend to hire a permanent leader and want the role defined before you advertise it | The seat held and run in practice, so what holding it took defines the role |
Three weeks in, I may come back and tell you the function is not the problem. I cannot fix a function whose problem is headcount.
Where the team is genuinely too small for the work, an operating model will make that visible faster, and it will not make it untrue. I would sooner say that in week three, while you can still spend the money on people.
That slow discovery over nine months is exactly what I run the diagnosis to prevent. I need an hour with you and whoever absorbs the problem.
I want to know what happened the last time something shipped that should not have.
This is one of four mandates under Fractional Design Leadership, which carries the offer and the fee. Where your product portfolio itself is undecided, Product Portfolio Consolidation comes first.
If you have designers with no function underneath them, this module is for you.
If the products those designers work across have never been agreed, then Product Portfolio Consolidation is for you.
If the function already runs and nothing measures whether it holds, then Design Governance and Assurance is for you.
If a permanent hire has to take over the function, Leadership Handover and Transition is for you.