BMC Figma organisation

Problem

BMC Software’s design team of around 40 designers was struggling to support over 80 products. The main issues included:

• Inconsistent hand-offs to developers
• Lack of uniformity in components across products
• Confusing onboarding for new designers
• Poor collaboration among designers

These problems were made worse because designers were stretched too thin, with some products going without a dedicated designer for long periods.

Approach

To tackle these issues, we started a project to create unified Figma guidelines. We kicked things off with a presentation to the design team, pointing out the lack of consistency and how it was affecting our work.

Goals

We identified four main goals that we wanted to achieve our approach:

1. Convergency: Helping designers see each other’s work for inspiration and consistency.
2. Productivity: Creating a clear and consistent workflow.
3. Knowledge retention: Making sure valuable insights weren’t lost.
4. Collaboration: Making it easier for teams to work together across different products.

Research

We looked at guidelines from other companies, both big (like Spotify and Shopify) and small. We noticed a few common features:

• Standard naming for files and projects
• Cover pages for files
• Dedicated pages for early exploration and developer hand-offs

Some guidelines also included:

• Project overview pages
• Local component libraries
• User research pages
• Design process checklists

We also saw different approaches to organizing files—some grouped by features, others by products or releases.

Workshop

To get input and build support, we ran a workshop with about 20 designers. The workshop had two main parts:

1. Opposing Features Exercise: Designers discussed and voted on how to organize files and projects. The most popular approach was:
2. • One team per product
   • One project per release, with one file per feature
   • Pages for each user flow
2. Optional Features Exercise: Designers rated the usefulness of less common features. The top picks were:
3. • A checklist page for the design process (including validation and QA)
   • Reflection pages in every file (for research, references, journey maps, and user flows)

The workshop went well, but looking back, offering multiple sessions might have allowed more people to participate and reduced some pushback later on.

Challenges

We expected two big challenges:

1. Solving the issues with a clear set of guidelines.
2. Getting buy-in from the team, especially more experienced designers.

To address these, we:

• Did thorough research and documented it.
• Involved the team in the process.
• Ran tests to show our approach worked.
• Created clear, well-explained documentation.

Proposal and Implementation

Based on our research and workshop, we put together a detailed set of guidelines and an implementation plan, including a trial period. We presented this to key stakeholders, and the proposal was well-received, paving the way for the trial.

Full PDF guideline

Trial and Evaluation

We tested the new guidelines for two months, then sent out a survey to see how the team felt about them and whether we were making progress on our four goals: Convergency, Productivity, Knowledge retention, and Collaboration.

Reflection

This project highlighted the importance of:

• Involving the team in the decision-making process
• Balancing structure with flexibility
• Continuous iteration based on user feedback

By creating these guidelines, we’ve made a big step toward a more unified and efficient design process at BMC Software. The goal is to improve both product outcomes and team collaboration. The process also gave us valuable insights into managing change and standardizing workflows across a large, diverse team.