UX Strategy & Delivery Approach
Based on our conversations, I believe I have a strong understanding of where CEM is today, the challenges the organization is facing, and how UX can help accelerate a successful product launch. Based on that understanding, this is how I would approach standing up the UX practice and supporting the greenfield initiative.
A decade of deferred UX investment has understandably left the platform fragmented, with workflows, patterns, and technical decisions evolving independently over time. At the same time, the scale and complexity of clients CEM is now winning require a more modern, scalable foundation. From both a product and organizational perspective, the decision to move toward a greenfield platform is the right one. UX should play a central role in ensuring that effort succeeds while supporting the legacy team should they encounter critical UX issues.
Start with research and product discovery
The greatest risk in a greenfield initiative is unintentionally recreating legacy workflows in a modern UI without first validating whether those workflows still solve the right problems. My first priority would be establishing a discovery practice that runs ahead of major product and design decisions.
I would begin with a heuristic evaluation of the current platform to document usability, workflow, accessibility, and consistency issues, while also identifying areas where operational constraints may have shaped the experience over time. That assessment becomes the foundation for broader discovery work involving stakeholder interviews, customer conversations, workflow analysis, and lightweight, ongoing usability testing.
The goal is to ensure we are building from evidence rather than assumption. UX should help the organization distinguish between what must be preserved, what should evolve, and what should be intentionally left behind.
Build a design system that accelerates delivery
I would recommend establishing a scalable design system early, likely leveraging branded MUI components governed through Storybook to jumpstart the UI quickly. The design system could be integrated with AI-assisted IDE workflows through Storybook MCP. This system gives AI agents structured access to approved components, patterns, and accessibility standards so generated code adheres to the company’s brand and interaction model rather than inventing new UI patterns.
Combined with human design and engineering review gates, this creates a governed workflow were a designer or engineer ‘AI Builder’ can rapidly translate well-defined requirements into production-ready deliverables.
Combined with automated validation and testing, this creates a governed workflow that reduces design drift, accelerates implementation, and helps teams move from concept to production-ready code with far greater speed and consistency.
Operate with a Lean UX and dual-track delivery model
Given the timeline and ambition of the initiative, I would recommend a Lean UX operating model paired closely with engineering through dual-track collaboration.
Discovery and delivery should happen in parallel where UX Discovery validates problems and solutions prior to delivery sprints to deliver just-in-time designs.
Aligning around an aspirational but well-defined, achievable MVP will allow us to define clear success metrics that will in turn facilitate a lean ‘ship and measure’ approach for those well understood, low risk features to further accelerate delivery.
Research would provide post-delivery reporting utilizing application analytic sources such as WalkMe to understand adoption, friction points, and feature effectiveness after release to continuously inform the next iteration of the product.
Team structure and capability development
My current understanding of the proposed structure is a UX manager, two designers, and two researchers, with an offer already extended to a researcher who brings valuable equity-domain expertise.
To move at the pace required for a greenfield effort, my recommended additions would likely be:
A Lead UX Designer who can own complex workflows, build design systems, and partner deeply with product and engineering.
A Senior UX/Frontend Engineer who bridges design systems, prototyping, accessibility, and implementation quality while helping drive adoption within engineering.
A Lead UX Researcher focused on qualitative discovery, personas, workflows, and systems-level understanding of the market.
A Quantitative UX Researcher (Quant UXR) focused on behavioral analytics, product interaction data, and measuring design effectiveness post-release.
My focus would be building a highly collaborative, execution-oriented UX organization that operates in a Lean UX model: ship, measure, learn, and iterate. The team should integrate tightly with product and engineering rather than function as a downstream service organization.
I also strongly believe in cross-functional skill development. Designers should participate in research activities, and researchers should remain closely connected to design and product strategy so insights translate directly into better execution and faster iteration.
90 Day Outcomes
By the end of the first 90 days, I would expect the organization to have a fully operational Lean UX practice tightly integrated with product and engineering, an active design system embedded within AI-assisted development workflows, initial greenfield features in users’ hands, and analytics-based measurement and feedback loops in place to support continuous iteration. I would also expect a UX impact report delivered to leadership outlining measurable progress toward end-of-year objectives.
