What kind of terminology does your organization use when talking about design?

• Do the owners of a new initiative refer to themselves as “Product Owners” or as “Project Leads”?

• Are terms like “Design”, “Product Design”, “Project Management”, and “Product Management” shifting over time? Is there a push for your organization to move from an older way of doing things to a newer way?

Where does your User Experience function sit organizationally?

Do your user-experience team members report to a Head of Technology, a Head of Marketing, or a Head of Design?

Relationship Management

• What kind of relationship does your design team have with business stakeholders and product owners?

• How early are designers invited to be part of a new initiative? Do your product owners believe in running a discovery phase for new initiatives?

Tools Access

• AI acceptable use: What is your policy around AI usage in user experience, for research, prototyping, and design? Do you provide license accounts for your employees and contractors?

• AI tools: Do you provide enterprise access for Claude or Gemini? If your design team and/or contractors are using Figma Make, what are your ballpark monthly token limits?

• Figma Dev Mode: Is it enabled in your organization? Are your designers using Figma’s built-in capabilities to facilitate a smooth handoff to developers, or are they creating “redline” markups manually?

• Design tools: What tools does your organization provide to your design team?

• Interview audio & video recording: Do your designers and/or researchers have “record” rights in Zoom?

• AI transcription policies: Do you allow UserZoom, Zoom transcriptions, or Otter for transcription? Do you use Dovetail or similar for transcription analysis and tagging?

Design Team Culture

• How often does your design team meet in person?

• How many online meetings per week does your full design team hold?