When I joined PwC Digital, the design department was deeply entrenched in the Sketch, Abstract, and InVision ecosystem. My previous experience at a smaller company (with a team of five designers) had prepared me for this type of transition—I had recently helped migrate that team from Photoshop and InVision over to Figma, where I co-led the construction of the company's first design system. However, at PwC, this would be a much larger and more complex undertaking, involving over 120 designers.
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Timeline
1 year for migration; 2+ years of ongoing development
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Skills/Tools Used
Figma Miro
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Role
Senior Designer, Design System Manager
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tl;dr
The PwC design team faced inefficiencies and collaboration challenges using outdated tools like Sketch and InVision. To resolve this, I led a department-wide migration involving 120+ designers to Figma. This included securing leadership buy-in, piloting the tool, rebuilding 30+ design system components with atomic design principles, and creating 100+ pages of training and process documentation. The move eliminated versioning conflicts, cut prototype development time from weeks to days, and saved costs by removing the need for multiple software subscriptions. Designers became more efficient and collaborative, empowering them to work independently and streamline delivery.
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Our design system and workflow, reliant on Sketch, Abstract, and InVision, had become too slow for our growing needs. Designers were frequently overwriting each other's work, dealing with slow file syncs, and unable to effectively collaborate—an issue that became even more prominent in a remote, global workforce. We needed a more efficient and scalable solution. My goal was to guide the entire design department through a tool migration, moving us to Figma while maintaining productivity and reducing friction during the transition.
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Business Goal
Improve the design workflow by reducing inefficiencies and outdated processes, ultimately increasing the speed of production and quality of design outputs.
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User Goal
Enable designers to work collaboratively and in real-time without version conflicts, ensuring we had a single source of truth for our design system.
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