Raising the Bar Without Slowing Down

Jason Ramirez published on 10/17/23

Updated 1 day ago

The Challenge

In January 2023, our design organization went through a reorg. I was leading design across 4 groups with 12 squads, supported by two managers and two senior architects. 30% of the people had joined Dropbox in the last 6 months.

When I stepped back to evaluate the work, I saw issues: experiences below our quality bar, duplicative bespoke patterns, and overly designed solutions. With so many new folks learning unfamiliar surfaces, I knew the problem would only compound. My task was clear: raise the quality of solutions—without slowing the team down.

The Approach

We already had processes documented, and our managers were empowered to lead. So I made a conscious choice: instead of micromanaging execution, I would focus specifically on solution quality.

I aligned with the managers and senior ICs to define a “quality standard” for the team. The philosophy was simple: if leadership is calibrated, we can scale feedback consistently across all squads.

To reinforce the standard, we added rituals: critiques followed by leadership calibrations, a living document to capture overlapping experiences and conflicts, and plans of action that made design intent transparent and ROI-driven. We also introduced velocity tracking to ensure that our focus on quality didn’t come at the cost of speed.

What Changed

The results came quickly. Teams began to identify quality issues themselves, cutting down on bespoke one-offs and increasing cohesion across experiences. Designers leaned into usability testing, negative feedback dropped, and velocity actually increased.

Pattern cohesion improved, connectivity across experiences strengthened, and the overall quality bar rose noticeably. Most importantly, it wasn’t me alone setting the bar—it was the managers and senior ICs pushing for specific changes and scaling that expectation across their squads.

“By aligning leadership on quality, we empowered the whole team to raise the bar—without sacrificing speed.”

Key Lessons

  1. Quality scales when managers and senior ICs are calibrated and trusted to lead.
  2. Transparency through plans of action surfaces ROI trade-offs early.
  3. Velocity tracking keeps “quality” from becoming an excuse for slowing down.
  4. Standards need to be living, reinforced through rituals—not static documents.

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