Anaplan Design
Team Leadership: Processes & Design Systems
Problem: Anaplan design organization needed rebuilding
No real unified design function, Designers reported into PM
Design system not supported or used by most of the teams
Processes were slow and inconsistent
Product was very difficult to learn
Approach: Unify the global design team
New leaders promoted from within, dedicated “pods” per project
Full time designers/researchers for new Anaplan Palette design system
Empower the team to use modern process, dedicated design operations manager
Clean up the product: create a minimal, holistic and enjoyable experience that is intuitive and quickly adapted
Design and rendering by Olly Aston
Design by Anaplan Design Team
Design by Anaplan Design Team
Images and Design by Olly Aston: A mobile application for iOS and Android that enables decision making on the go, with a highly responsive and secure experience that simplifies the informed decision-making process across devices.
Design by Anaplan Design Team
David Townsend started his leadership of Design at Anaplan by placing a heavy focus on the design system. By allocating additional resources and emphasizing that everyone within the organization use the system, he unified the UX into a consistent experience. Creating patterns and templates improved efficiency, freeing up design resources to move over to the platform.
Along with modernizing the look and feel of the product, David focused the team on simplifying it, to reduce the learning curve and enable new users to get up to speed and running quickly. By focusing on the download and go system and reducing the startup complexity Anaplan shortened the process time by nearly 30%.
Overall summary:
1. Simplify the product, modernize the look and feel
2.Provide collaboration space to help speed up model building
3.By using the Palette Design System, create templates for repeatable experiences
4. Build a consistent, repeatable experience and greatly reduce the time to learn the product