Aligning Design with Strategy:

Fixing Prioritization to Maximize Impact

Situation

When I joined the company as a Product Design Manager, the organization was navigating multiple reorgs and strategic shifts. The design team was spread across too many projects with no clear prioritization, while cross-functional teams frequently voiced a growing frustration:
“We’re blocked on design.”

Designers were busy, but often not on the work that moved the needle.

My Goal

To establish a clear, scalable prioritization process that would ensure design efforts aligned with business goals and create the most value for both users and the company.

What I did

Diagnosed the Misalignment

I partnered with design and product leads to identify misalignments between active workstreams, the product roadmap, and user feedback. This made visible the gap between effort and impact.

Created a Scoring Framework

Together with design leadership, we defined metrics to evaluate initiatives based on:

Customer Value
Cost
Market Differentiation

These scores were combined into a Business Value Index (BVI), helping us compare and rank projects objectively.

Engaged Product Leaders

I led structured interviews with PMs to:

Map out current initiatives against company priorities.
Score their top projects using the BVI model.
Gather feedback from senior product leadership on strategic alignment.

Visualized Workload vs. Value

I built a lightweight board showing:

What each designer was working on
Estimated effort per project
How those projects aligned with our new prioritization scores

This became a central tool in reallocating resources and driving clarity.

Results

✅ 30% increase in design projects aligned with strategic business objectives
📈 Created a prioritized roadmap that phased work without dropping valuable initiatives
🗓️ Planned design work two quarters out, enabling earlier involvement in discovery
👥 Opened new collaboration channels with PMs and engineers, including biweekly roadmap syncs
🔗 Design work became traceable: every major Jira product ticket had a corresponding design ticket and owner
🚫 "Blocked by design" sentiment reduced by 90% thanks to improved tracking and unblocking support
🔄 The process evolved into a sustainable prioritization system, continuously refined with stakeholder input and biweekly sync between Design and Product leads.

Impact & Reflection

This initiative unlocked a fundamental shift in how the design team operated—moving from reactive execution to strategic partnership. By creating clarity, shared language, and structured decision-making, we empowered designers to work on what mattered most and positioned the team as a driving force in product success.