Operating model · Talent
Building a federated design organisation
Execution decentralised. Standards centralised.
~50
designers across seven product domains
3
countries in one distributed org
1
operating model, agile-aligned
- Company
- Flutter Entertainment
- Period
- 2021 — 2024
- Role
- Director, Product Design — organisation design and talent systems.
Situation
The studio model engaged design through intake requests: late involvement, no strategic influence on roadmap formation, and craft governance that depended on who was in the room.
Task
Design an operating model that supports product ownership and craft excellence simultaneously, as part of a wider Agile transformation.
structure and rituals
Autonomy scaled; quality preserved.
- Designers embedded continuously from discovery through delivery
- Strategic influence built into roadmap formation, not requested afterwards
- Experience systems centralised: design system, unified research practice, content and brand coherence
- Craft community, peer critique and formal launch-readiness governance
making growth systematic
A talent system connecting performance, potential and development — hiring standards, levelling and career competencies, and performance calibration.
Result
Excellence became predictable — not dependent on individual talent.
- Faster, squad-level decision-making with centralised craft standards
- Higher release confidence across product teams
- Stronger roadmap influence tied to revenue initiatives
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