There's a project the team and I still think about often, one that never moved forward at all. It's stuck with me for what it taught us about the questions we ask before the work ever begins.

A little while back, we here at Baseline were brought in to help a very big client take on a major project: to build out an entire mobile design system. This was the kind of project we could only hope would show up in our inbox, and it was one that landed in ours. It was a chance for us to help build something foundational for a team we all highly respected and admired, and to work with a team who we could tell were excited to have us there. This group had so much talent, and very much cared about doing right by both their products and their users. Naturally, more support for mobile was at the top of their list, and we were honored to help.

So, we kicked off the way we always do. Meeting designers and engineers across the company, asking lots of questions, and doing even more listening. We wanted to really understand how work moved through this particular organization, which was especially interesting given its size. Not because we doubted that there was work to be done (trust me, we could see that huge mountain again), but because we’ve seen that a brief can only ever tell us so much. The rest we’d only learn by talking to people.

So, off to discovery, it was! And within this early phase, we learned so much about the project and the team. We were able to hear much more about the team’s ambitions, and about how this project came to be. We couldn’t have been more excited, but it wasn’t long before things popped up that, well, we weren’t expecting.

Through our conversations, we learned that the project of creating a mobile design system only had the support of one designer and one engineer, both in a part-time capacity. Don’t get me wrong, these individuals are fantastic. But this is a company with a huge market cap taking on a brand new mobile design system with one part-time designer and one part-time engineer. I'm sure you can see the discrepancy.

When we asked about the sponsorship of this initiative and how it all connected to the larger goals of the company, we quickly realized that leadership didn't know this project was happening. No one was intentionally hiding it. The whole thing had grown from the ground up, from people who saw a need and cared enough to act on it right away. Honestly, no harm there at all. That’s one of my favorite ways for something to begin. But it also meant there was no executive sponsor, with no concrete plan for what would happen with the work three months after we left. This was tough, because the team who brought us in believed they had the support necessary, and from where they sat, they did! Nobody mentions in a proposal call that leadership doesn't know about the initiative, because the people hiring you don't experience it that way. For them, that was the whole picture. It took being inside, sitting with people across the company, to see the more accurate view, and I think it took that for the team to see it, too.

I never want to jump to conclusions, especially as every company and team differs, but this is something we’ve seen before. The team wanted a system, and we knew how to build one. But it was starting to feel like this would turn into a well-crafted library ready to go, yet adopted and maintained by no one, resting on the shoulders of a team not yet equipped to support it. This was a tough moment, and it was hard to reckon with. With all of this new information, what would be the best thing to do? Do we just build out the system anyway? Could we even build it? We were scoped, signed, and ready to start, but would it be wrong to keep going, knowing that this may not succeed in the way everyone had hoped? All of us in design systems have seen some version of this before, and this team, we believed, deserved better than an expensive lesson.

Before deciding anything, we created a report of everything we had learned and found, along with what we believed to be the best next steps, including how to bring leadership onboard and what staffing was actually needed. As we were writing this report, it became clear that the right move for us was to pause this engagement indefinitely. A difficult decision to make.

At this point, I wasn’t expecting the client to be furious, but I also didn’t anticipate much joy either. They had gone to bat for us through a long procurement process, and we were coming back with an answer that prevented the project from moving forward. But what happened next was a pretty interesting moment for me and the team. The client thanked us. Genuinely thanked us. There was disappointment, absolutely, but there was also something in the room that felt a bit like relief. Through our discovery process, the team finally had the full picture of their own situation, in writing. They could see why the timing wasn't quite right, and knew exactly what it would take to carry the work forward and make this one a success.

Not All Uncertainty is the Same

When reading through this one, it might be easy to hear “always ask questions before you move forward,” and honestly, I agree! But the thing I actually learned is much more specific: not all uncertainty is the same, and being clear with yourself about which kind you’re facing matters.

When we begin with any new team, the uncertainty we have is rarely ever about if there’s meaningful work to do. There always is! What we’re often actually feeling uncertain about is everything that determines if the work we do will succeed. What we've been told, versus what turns out to be true once we're there. What the effort will really require, in both people and time, so that no one is surprised by a scope change in three months. Where the team believes they are versus where they actually are are almost never the same place. That's no one's fault. It's just very hard to see your own organization clearly from inside it. These are the questions we’re determined to answer in the discovery process.

For us, those early weeks are all about answering these questions. What we learn will determine where we focus next and how the next phase in the work takes shape. Learning what it’s like to be a member of this team, on a regular Tuesday, trying to push something forward. Or understanding who maintains the components and system today, and whether that’s their actual job, or just a passion project that no one has formalized just yet. Sometimes what we learn is small, like two teams maintaining two versions of the same component without knowing it. Other times it's big, and it can change the entire shape of what can and should be built.

Seeing the Same Problem

Our client knows there’s a problem to solve, and we know there’s a problem to solve. Those early weeks were never about proving that one existed, they were about making sure we see the same problem, and that those who’ve hired us would support the proposed path forward. A team or agency can have all the experience in the world, but if it’s not aligned with the people it’s helping, the project is very likely to fail. And every once in a while, the most honest and useful finding is simply: not yet. That mobile project never got built, at least not then. I've still never thought of it as a failed engagement.

What Doesn’t Expire

If there’s one belief underneath this, it’s that I think perspective matters more today than it ever has before. Ten (or two) years ago, you could hire an expert to hand you a solution, and that solution would hold up for years to come. But workflows are changing so fast, with new tooling, new approaches, and new technology, those solutions now have a much shorter shelf life than ever before.

What doesn’t expire? Understanding. Knowing why your team works the way it does, and what a system would need to survive inside your organization. That understanding is what allows a team to continue making the best decisions for the success of the work and their mission long after any single answer has gone stale. The people I find myself trusting the most are the ones who don’t come in with all of the answers right away. They’re the ones who are still asking questions, who are still learning, and right now, I believe we’re all still learning.

That’s why we’ll keep asking first.

If you're sitting with a project that feels like this one, we'd love to hear where you're at.

Thanks so much for reading, as always! 💛
– Joey

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