Scaling Design Operations — Migrating AT&T Creative Teams from Sketch to Figma
Summary
As part of AT&T's enterprise design team, I led the cross-functional migration from Sketch to Figma — a pivotal shift that modernized our design workflow, fostered real-time collaboration, and laid the groundwork for a scalable design system. I also initiated and hosted a weekly Figma learning series to upskill over 40+ designers across multiple teams.
The Challenge
AT&T’s design teams were siloed across multiple tools and file systems, making handoffs, collaboration, and asset consistency increasingly difficult. Our transition to Figma had to:
Maintain momentum during active product cycles
Ensure component consistency across projects
Upskill designers with varying levels of software proficiency
My Role
Defined and documented component naming conventions and structure
Set up a centralized design system in Figma with a core library and shared components
Created onboarding materials and weekly training webinars for internal teams
Collaborated with design leads and engineers to align naming, usage, and token handoff workflows
Transitioned ownership of systems and training to dedicated support teams after launch
Process Overview
1. Audit & Planning
Conducted a component audit across teams using Sketch
Identified duplication, inconsistencies, and gaps in naming logic
2. Figma System Setup
Created shared libraries, templates, and usage guides in Figma
Set standards for variant usage, atomic structure, and documentation
Collaborated with dev teams to align Figma components with front-end tokens
3. Enablement & Adoption
Launched a weekly internal webinar series called “Figma Fridays”
Held live demos, design critiques, and real-time prototyping sessions
Created async learning materials for self-paced training
4. Handoff & Scale
Successfully transitioned both the design system and training series to dedicated team owners
Documented all processes to ensure sustainability
Impact
Migrated 40+ designers across departments in less than 3 months
Increased design system adoption across 6 product teams
Reduced tool-switching friction and design inconsistencies
Standardized naming conventions and asset management for long-term scalability
Enabled faster onboarding of new designers into Figma workflows
Reflection
This project helped me realize that systems aren’t just about components — they’re about culture. It was deeply rewarding to guide a creative team through a platform transition, and to see Figma become the connective tissue for our design language and collaboration.