governance & contribution

Planet operates at the intersection of high-velocity product development and strict platform needs (scalability, performance, scientific visualization). I led the design system governance initiative to balance speed and quality: a clear contribution path, quality gates (accessibility, token usage), and a lightweight stewarding body to drive system decisions.

Role:
Senior Product Designer
Company:
Planet
Industry:
Satellite Imagery

Problem

  • Designers and Engineers regularly requested new components/patterns without an established intake or triage process.
  • System debt accumulated due to ad-hoc variations, and no one team owned long-term maintenance.
  • Drift in multiple products for searching satellite imagery and analytics were represented across UIs.

Roles

  • Lead designer for governance: mapped workflows, created templates, and facilitated cross-functional councils.
  • Set up a core steward team with engineering, product, and design team

Solution

  • Designed a federated governance model: Core Stewards (responsible for stability), Advisory Contributors (product teams), and Community Contributors (designers/engineers).
  • Implemented a contribution workflow.
  • Created triage/decision templates, component proposal forms, and service level agreements for maintenance.
  • Introduced quarterly design system roadmaps and retrospective reviews.

Process

  • Mapped current pain points and interviewed 12 stakeholders.
  • Trialed the workflow on a high-impact component.
  • Ran governance workshops and set SLAs for triage and release.

Impact

  • Reduced ad-hoc component creation by ~70% and lowered system debt items flagged in retrospectives.
  • Faster, predictable design system releases (monthly cadence) with clear owners.
  • Increased cross-team contributions with higher quality proposals and fewer rollbacks.

Lessons

  • Governance needs transparent metrics (time to triage, time to publish).
  • Next Steps: integrate automated checks (token usage, accessibility, visual diffs) into the contribution pipeline.

Design Artifacts

UI and Component Auditing Sessions
Component Structure and Rules
Core Steward Team with Swim Lanes
Contribution Proposal Form