Clarifying Design’s Role Across Team Boundaries
Bringing design into product and engineering conversations earlier made ownership easier to understand. On a partner-led streaming program, I clarified our team’s responsibility for the console experience and gave the designer a practical framework for contributing.
Sony Interactive Entertainment / PlayStation
UX Manager; cross-functional coordination and role definition
Partner-owned streaming experience within PlayStation media
Product, engineering, design leadership, visual design, and the partner team
Console, with a partner-built web experience
Partners needed a clearer view of how design worked
Across programs, design had often joined product development close to the point where screens were needed. I worked gradually to bring design into exploration, validation, and definition, where the team could contribute before the solution was already taking shape.
Part of that work was relationship-building. Counterparts needed to know they could invite design into an earlier conversation. They also needed to understand how the design team was organized, because their expectations did not always match the way designers were allocated.
Some partners were used to one dedicated designer for an area. Our designers could be split across programs, including 50–50 or 60–40 allocations. I created a slide explaining the structure and allocation model, making that context visible rather than leaving partners to infer how to work with us.
Involving designers at a useful point
I handled early triage myself, then brought the designer into the work near kickoff. I adjusted that involvement to the designer’s level and readiness to work through ambiguity.
The intent was to support early participation while preserving the designer’s ownership of ideation. I could help clarify the initial situation and relationships without doing all the creative work before the designer arrived.
Over time, partners brought the design lead into exploration, validation, and definition more often. That was a gradual change in collaboration, not a single rollout with an adoption metric. It provided the broader context for how I approached work that crossed organizational boundaries.
Defining responsibility on a partner-owned program
The streaming program made those boundaries particularly important. A partner organization owned the web experience and its development, while the work was woven into PlayStation media on console.
I clarified with a director that the partner owned the program. At the same time, our design team still had responsibility for how the console experience fit together. Those responsibilities needed to coexist: the partner’s ownership did not remove the need for a coherent experience on the PlayStation surface.
I created a lightweight responsibilities framework for the designer on my team. It identified where the designer was accountable and how they should participate alongside the partner. That gave the designer clearer boundaries for contributing without implying that our team owned the partner’s build.
Supporting the designer’s contribution
The designer led the console UX review. The team also worked through a brand standard for a third-party TV icon, which the visual design team approved.
These were concrete parts of the experience that our team could influence. They connected the role definition to actual design work, rather than leaving the framework as an abstract agreement about participation.
I also planned how to communicate the work. When leadership chose not to show it early in a design spotlight because it was the partner’s project, I adjusted the approach and packaged updates for the partner lead directly. This kept the communication aligned with the program’s ownership while giving the work a route to the person responsible for it.
What the work established
On the streaming program, ownership was clarified, the designer had a responsibilities framework, the console experience received design review, and the TV icon standard received visual-design approval. The partner remained responsible for its program and build.
The launch outcome was not established at the end of my involvement, so I do not attribute viewing, engagement, or revenue results to this work. The completed contribution was the clarity around participation and the design work it supported.
Across the broader portfolio, I also helped make the team’s allocation model understandable and developed relationships that brought design into earlier stages of product development. Together, these practices made it easier for partners to know when to involve design and for designers to understand the responsibility they were taking on.