Build a Design Center of Excellence from scratch

About the Project

In short: SAP Labs Latin America had many skilled colleagues and many design initiatives, but no shared direction, and some teams had no design specialist. I founded and led the lab's Design Center of Expertise (CoE): one strategy, a leader for each workstream, and results measured by deliverables. In its first year, 243 people were trained, Design Thinking coaches grew from 43 to 63, 10 projects were design-led and Design Week grew from 50 to 500+ people.

Lots of design energy, no shared direction

Before the CoE, the lab already had skilled people and a lot of design initiatives, but they ran separately, and some product teams had no design specialist at all. At the same time, SAP's CEO was asking for experiences that are consistent and tailored to customers' problems and context, and design-centric companies outperform the S&P 500 by more than 200%.

One strategy, a leader for every workstream

I set three goals for the CoE:

• Be a center of excellence for design practices in the ecosystem

• Make sure products and services are delivered with a user-centered design approach

• Give interested employees best-in-class growth opportunities in design

I couldn't run every front myself, so I invited colleagues with design skills and an interest in leadership to lead or co-lead each workstream, under an executive sponsor. To fund training, including a UX research curriculum with instructors from Germany, I negotiated sponsorship with stakeholders at headquarters, using user satisfaction and adoption data to justify the investment.

Programmes that reached the whole lab

• Design GO: design consultancy at a fixed time and place for teams without a designer, covering user research, UX, UI, graphic design and Design Thinking

• Design Week: I founded it with talks, training, invited university professors and a design fair; it grew from 50 to 500+ people and was voted the lab's most innovative initiative of 2018

• SAP Design Talks: I brought the series from Germany, with speakers behind successful products outside IT, reaching 400+ attendees

• UX Community: monthly sessions, 100+ members and the first SAP UX Day outside Germany

• Design Thinking community: experienced coaches trained new ones and ran innovation workshops with customers

• Design Eye Opener: an 8-hour training on the value of design for every role, 4 classes of 32 people a year

Impact: a design culture that kept growing

• 243 people trained and 10 design-led projects in 2018

• Design Thinking coaches: 43 to 63 in 2018, then +57% in 2019

• Design Week: 50 to 500+ people, and the lab's Innovation Award 2018

• In 2019, training hours doubled and people trained grew by 50%

If I did it again

I invited SAP Design Talks speakers through LinkedIn with no budget for fees, relying on the visibility of an international event. I wouldn't do that again: I'd secure a speaker budget before launching the series.