Alignment is about creating shared belief and direction for your design system. Without it, teams risk working at cross-purposes, leaders may doubt the value, and the system may struggle to gain traction. This strategy helps you bring diverse perspectives together, surface risks and opportunities, and secure leadership support. Use it early in your journey to establish clarity and buy-in, and return to it whenever the system's role needs reaffirming.
How to
-
Ground with a hypothesis
Write a Hypothesis Statement to frame what the system will solve and test. Use insights from a Maturity Assessment to show where the business and system are ready, and where risks or gaps may need to be addressed.
-
Identity stakeholders
Run an Influence Mapping exercise, to identify different stakeholders to bring into the following activities.
-
Gather early insights
Use Interviews and an Audit to document how the current challenges your business is facing and where a system might fill those gaps.
-
Explore system direction and constraints
Run a System Vision workshop to imagine what the system should look like. Use Rigidity vs Flexibility Mapping to align expectations around consistency, autonomy, and control based on maturity and business context. Use Risk Forecasting or a RAIDs Workshop to surface risks, dependencies, and opportunities.
-
Secure leadership alignment
Bring leaders into these workshops early or run a dedicated Leadership Alignment session to get commitment.
-
Continue into Setup
If more evidence or buy-in is needed, move into the Setup strategy to create a Business Case that combines outputs from Alignment and Setup decisions into a concise case showing value.