02 · Cisco
Unifying a Portfolio
Driving design system adoption across a fragmented Cisco Security product portfolio. Over three years, I partnered with design leadership to build a team, earn the trust of resistant product teams, and drive unified design system adoption across 18+ products — reaching 70% adoption of the shared UI shell.
Role
Senior → Lead Design Program Manager, Cisco Security DesignOps
Scope
18+ products across the Cisco Security portfolio
Tools
Figma, Storybook, Confluence, Jira, Airtable
01 — The Challenge
A portfolio that didn't look or feel like Cisco.
- Cisco Security's portfolio had grown through years of acquisitions — each product carrying its own design system, visual language, and UI patterns.
- Inconsistent headers, navigation patterns, color systems, and components made it hard for users to recognize they were even using a Cisco product.
- Product teams had built and maintained their own systems for years — they were understandably resistant to giving them up.
02 — Approach
Earn trust first. Scale through people, not mandates.
01
Built the Team & Earned Trust
I partnered closely with the Design Director to build a dedicated team and charter a single initiative: unify the portfolio under one design system and visual language. Rather than mandating adoption, we worked with each product team to understand their context, constraints, and adoption journey. That trust took time — and became the foundation everything else was built on.
02
Direct Team Engagement
We worked with each product team individually — providing onboarding support, migration guidance, and hands-on collaboration to help them transition to the unified UI shell: shared header, left navigation, and color tokens that form the visual foundation of the portfolio. Design work was maintained in Figma, coded components tracked through Storybook, and program documentation in Confluence and Jira.
03
Design Ambassador Program
We recruited 2 designers from each product area against defined criteria and put them through an 8-week training program covering the design system, contribution guidelines, and how to support adoption within their teams. Ambassadors became a key pillar of governance — internal champions who carried the program into every corner of the portfolio.
04
Governance That Scales Through People
The Ambassador program turned adoption from a top-down mandate into a network of advocates — building momentum and accountability from the inside out, and giving the central team a credible voice inside every product area.
03 — Outcomes
From fragmented to unified — 70% adoption across 18+ products.
- Over three years the program reached 70% adoption of the unified UI shell components — shared header, left navigation, and color tokens — across 18+ Cisco Security products.
- The remaining 30% represents engineering teams still adopting the coded component library in Storybook — an ongoing effort that continues today.
- Product teams that once guarded their own systems became active participants in a shared one — because they felt heard, supported, and part of the journey.
- The program established a sustainable governance model that doesn't depend on a single team to enforce.
What Stakeholders Say
Darin played a critical design role in several initiatives, including the unification of a single design system across Cisco's networking and security products. He is a highly collaborative leader who consistently approaches complex design challenges with a scalable, systems-thinking mindset.
04 — What I Learned
"Sustainable adoption requires both top-down support and bottom-up trust — and neither works without the other."
"Patience and flexibility are non-negotiable. No single playbook works for every team; staying curious and adapting the path is the work."
"Working horizontally across the org gave me the visibility and credibility that established me as a strategic DPM and operational leader."
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