Case Study

The head of design at a large industrial manufacturer was hired to lead product innovation. Instead, her team was buried in execution — and her instinct was that adding headcount wouldn’t fix it. She needed a diagnosis and a clear path forward.

Company & Position

NDH Advisory, CEO & Founder (2024–2025)

Details

A close review of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) made the problem visible; core Product Management work was increasingly falling to the UX team. Senior designers were absorbed in detail that should have been handled at junior levels. The head of design, hired for strategic leadership, was consumed with shipping features. The team wasn’t understaffed — roles and responsibilities needed to be re-evaluated in collaboration with the head of Product Management.

Actions

• Reviewed the SDLC in detail; identified and documented work that had migrated from PM to UX and mapped where accountability needed to shift.
• Built a roles and responsibilities framework by level — clarifying what each level of the UX organization should and should not own.
• Recommended hiring Business Analysts within PM as an alternative to UX headcount — a lower-cost solution that addressed the documentation gap without pulling designers from design work.
• Applied industry staffing ratios (UX to PM to Engineering) as an evidence base to validate the diagnosis and support conversations with PM leadership.
• Wrote a Manager-level job description for a senior external hire to serve as thought partner and elevate the team.
• Provided the framing and evidence needed to initiate boundary-setting conversations with PM counterparts.

Outcome & Impact

• Diagnosis validated: the problem was distribution, not headcount. Headcount ask kept modest; conversation redirected to the right issues.
• Clearer scope expectations established within the team, reducing overwhelm without adding resources.
• Conversations initiated with PM leadership to restructure the RACI on the SDLC.
• Senior Manager successfully hired — external perspective brought in, restoring capacity to lead at the level the role required.