Meet Mathieu: Design lead driving transformation

As Design Lead at CME, I joined the company in 2020 during the pandemic when they had no dedicated design team. With my background in computer science and UX design since 2009, I worked collaboratively with leadership to establish a design unit that has now grown to 20 active designers over just four years.

CME operates as a professional services company providing specialized talent to leading global organizations including Subway, Saudi Vision 2030 initiatives, and numerous Fortune 500 companies. Unlike traditional outsourcing agencies, our designers belong to an internal talent pool that focuses on career development, knowledge advancement, and quality control.

We wanted designers to work with clients as a vendor, but unlike other freelancing agencies, our designers belong to an internal unit that takes care of their careers, advances their knowledge, and quality controls the output.

The challenge: Developing excellence across distributed teams

Creating a thriving design practice within a professional services model presented unique challenges that traditional learning approaches couldn't address:

Fragmented team experience: Our designers primarily work embedded within different client teams rather than alongside peers. This makes consistent skill development difficult to coordinate.

Limited visibility into growth: Without objective assessment mechanisms, evaluating designer growth relied heavily on subjective client feedback. This feedback might not reflect true capabilities.

Time constraints for learning: Client billable hours created pressure to minimize internal training time. We still needed to ensure designers maintained cutting-edge skills.

Diverse skill requirements: With mostly senior and mid-level designers, we needed learning resources that could challenge experienced practitioners. These resources still needed to provide foundational knowledge where needed.

It took over a year after founding the design unit before I had enough time to work on the career path. I needed to look through many resources to create a logical progression from junior to mid to senior to lead. Our company requirements include proving that people have actually acquired skills professionally when they advance.

The transformation: creating a strategic learning framework

Rather than attempting to solve these challenges alone, I engaged my team in finding the right solution. I leveraged their insights to discover innovative learning approaches.

I depended a lot on Gen Z teammates who love to hunt for tools or search for the next big thing in the industry. While I focused on strategy and business growth, they explored learning resources. One designer recommended Uxcel, highlighting its excellent gamified approach to learning that appeals to all levels.

After evaluating Uxcel against more traditional options like Interactive Design Foundation, I recognized its potential. It balanced theoretical foundations with practical application through a more engaging format.

IDF was too theoretical with courses that were too long. For practical execution, we needed a tool with exercises to gauge skill level and up-to-date courses relevant to the industry. Uxcel provided exactly that.

We strategically integrated Uxcel into a comprehensive career development framework. This established clear learning expectations across seniority levels:

Junior designers: Begin with beginner-level lessons in the UI Design career path Mid-level designers: Advance to more challenging aspects of UI Design Senior designers: Progress to the Product Design career path Leadership roles: Complete specialized courses like Design Workshop Facilitation

Beyond these structured vertical progressions, we use Uxcel's skill graph to identify personalized horizontal development opportunities. We base these on individual strengths, preferences, and project requirements.

Business impact: measurable transformation

Implementing Uxcel has delivered significant benefits across multiple dimensions of our design practice:

1. Data-driven talent development

The skill graph visualization has transformed our ability to understand individual designers' capabilities and aspirations. This insight has proven particularly valuable during one-on-one meetings and annual evaluations.

I use the skill graph at specific touchpoints in the year. During annual evaluation preparation, I replay the skill graph to check engagement and growth patterns. In one-on-ones, it helps me guide designers into new areas and discover if they're avoiding specific skill categories.

This visibility has revealed important insights about career aspirations that directly inform project assignments. In one case, we identified a senior designer who consistently avoided research-related content while immediately engaging with visual design courses. This allowed us to align their project work with their natural strengths and interests.

2. Accelerated junior development

The platform has dramatically improved our ability to develop early-career designers. This created new opportunities for talent acquisition despite management's initial concerns.

Management was initially scared to convert interns into junior designers. They worried interns would drain our time for upskilling while clients were paying us hourly. Using Uxcel, I've proven twice that interns can gain basic knowledge with minimal hands-on support. This allows them to start contributing productively much sooner.

This capability has expanded our talent pipeline. We can now develop junior designers internally rather than competing for experienced practitioners in a competitive market.

3. Objective skill assessment

Uxcel has provided an external, objective benchmark for skill assessment that complements subjective client feedback. This strengthens our promotion decisions.

Sometimes a designer's only feedback is their client's opinion, and managers might form a complete impression from that subjective view. I've used Uxcel to show that we have a standardized tool guiding our promotion decisions. If someone questions a designer's capabilities, they would need to challenge the industry-standard assessment tool.

4. Knowledge retention and application

The platform's microlearning approach has proven particularly effective for knowledge retention and practical application. This compares favorably to traditional extended courses.

With longer courses, designers might never apply what they learned unless they immediately get a matching project. With Uxcel, we never worry about this. If someone took color fundamentals and waited a year to put them into practice, they can quickly refresh their knowledge in much less time.

This capability has transformed Uxcel into a reference resource for the entire organization. It provides just-in-time learning when needed for specific challenges.

Strategic insights for design leaders

Based on our experience transforming CME's approach to design excellence, I offer several insights for fellow design leaders:

1. Understand your full learning pipeline

Think of learning as a pipeline from pre-hire assessment through onboarding and ongoing development. Understand which parts of this pipeline address your current team's gaps. Maybe your company already tests candidates effectively, but perhaps you can't track progress during their first year. Focus your implementation where you have the greatest needs.

2. Leverage objective assessment for career advancement

Uxcel has helped me prove to stakeholders that we can measure progress for designers' work objectively. I've established it as not just a learning tool but as a framework that influences how people get promoted internally.

This objectivity creates transparency in career advancement. It ensures decisions align with industry standards rather than individual preferences.

3. Recognize professional services' unique needs

Professional services represent a distinct use case for learning platforms. It's not like having a team of designers working together daily at a product company. Some of our designers may never work together or even meet. They might be on separate client projects for years.

This reality requires training approaches that accomsssssssssssssssssssssssmodate distributed teams working on disparate projects. We still need to maintain consistent quality standards.

Looking forward: Expanding impact through partnership

As we continue growing our design capabilities, I anticipate deeper integration with Uxcel across the talent lifecycle. With a second design lead joining soon, I'll have more capacity to focus on strategic initiatives. This will allow me to leverage the platform's capabilities more fully.

I need to ensure everyone uses the platform consistently to see patterns emerge and be more proactive. With more time focusing on strategy, I can catch up on what's new with Uxcel and push more consistent engagement.

I also envision expanded capabilities that could further transform our approach to talent assessment and development:

I'd love practical exams where AI could generate assignments based on the role and skill level we're hiring for. This would help us assess candidates more effectively while ensuring the right skills for specific client needs.

Through this continued partnership, CME is building not just design capabilities but a sustainable competitive advantage in the professional services marketplace. We're creating exceptional value for our clients through continuous learning and skill development.