Figma Organization & Governance: Scaling Design

Overview

Role: Figma Account Owner & Design Operations Lead

Duration: 2021-2025

Challenge: Establish scalable Figma organization for growing design, product, and engineering teams

Impact: Enabled seamless collaboration, reduced onboarding time from weeks to days, maintained design consistency across all products

The Challenge

As DuskRise grew from a small team to a multi-product organization with US and European teams, our Figma workspace became chaotic:

• Files scattered across multiple projects with no clear ownership
• Inconsistent naming making it impossible to find current designs
• No documentation—designs required verbal explanation
• Developers couldn’t find specs without designer help
• New team members took weeks to navigate files

The solution wasn’t just organizing files—it was establishing governance that would scale.

The Solution

I established comprehensive Figma organization and governance:

1. Account Architecture
   • Structured teams by product lines
   • Created project hierarchy (Active / Archive / Exploration)
   • Defined clear file ownership and permissions
   • Established branching strategy for safe experimentation
2. Naming Conventions
   • Projects: [Product] - [Feature Area]
   • Files: [Feature] - [Status] (e.g., “C25 Dashboard - In Development”)
   • Pages: Standardized structure (Cover, System, Research, Designs, Archive)
   • Layers: [Component] - [Variant] - [State]
3. Documentation Standards
   • Every file has cover page with context
   • Every component has usage guidelines
   • Every complex interaction has annotations
   • Every design decision is documented
4. Developer Handoff Process
   • “Dev Ready” sections with finalized designs
   • Annotations for complex interactions
   • Color tokens mapped to CSS variables
   • Component states and edge cases documented
5. Team Training
   • Created Figma best practices guide
   • Onboarding process for new designers
   • Regular file cleanup and maintenance

Impact

Quantitative:

• 3+ designers and 10+ developers using organized system
• New designer onboarding: weeks → 2-3 days
• Developer questions reduced by ~70% (estimated)
• File search time: minutes → seconds

Qualitative:

• “Finally, I can find things!” - Junior Designer
• “Best-organized Figma I’ve worked in” - Design VP
• “I can implement features without constant design questions” - Lead Developer
• Enabled seamless continuation after my departure