Wolters Kluwer

Wolters Kluwer (WK) is a global leader in professional information and software solutions. To elevate their design practice, the organization needed to move beyond fragmented efforts and understand how design was truly functioning across its various business units.

01. The Challenge

How might we assess our current design maturity to establish a clear starting point and build a data-driven roadmap for the future?.

The goal was not to fix everything at once, but to create a shared diagnostic that would allow leadership to prioritize actions based on evidence.

02. The Core Problem

Wolters Kluwer lacked a unified understanding of its design capabilities. Without a clear baseline, the organization was "flying blind", investing in design without knowing if the gaps were in Talent, Operations, Culture, or Strategy. This resulted in inconsistent maturity levels across teams and a lack of a clear path toward strategic integration.

03. My Role

Strategic Research Lead

I led the Design Maturity Assessment phase, acting as the primary investigator to uncover the "as-is" state of the organization. I was responsible for:

• Adapting and implementing a standardized Maturity Assessment Framework.

• Auditing the four key pillars: Strategy, Culture, Talent, and Operations.

• Synthesizing data to identify which stage of maturity (from Initial to optimizing) the organization currently occupied.

• Translating the diagnostic findings into a prioritized Action Plan.

04. Impact

The assessment transformed a vague ambition into a concrete organizational strategy:

A clear starting point: Established a validated baseline of maturity across all business units.

Evidence-based prioritization: Identified specific "high-impact" areas where intervention (such as Design Ops or leadership training) was most needed.

Strategic consensus: Provided C-level stakeholders with a shared language to discuss design as a business asset rather than just an aesthetic service.

The roadmap: Delivered a sequenced plan to transition the organization from stage-to-stage growth.

05. Key Takeaways

Diagnosis before treatment: You cannot scale what you cannot measure. The assessment is the most critical step in design leadership.

The power of the baseline: Having a "starting point" reduces organizational anxiety and creates a realistic path for growth.

Design as an organizational competency: Maturity isn't just about better designers; it’s about better systems, culture, and operational alignment.

06. Research & Framing

We structured the diagnostic around a 5-stage maturity model (Initial, Managed, Defined, Quantitatively Managed, and Optimizing). By evaluating the organization against the four pillars, we were able to visualize the "gaps" in the system. This allowed us to see, for example, if the organization had the right Talent but lacked the Operations to make them effective.

07. Key Insights

Uneven maturity: Different teams were operating at different stages, creating a "friction" in the global user experience.

The operational ceiling: In many areas, the talent was high, but the lack of formal operations (tools, processes, and governance) was preventing growth.

Strategic opportunity: By identifying exactly where the maturity was "stuck," we could move from general improvements to specific, high-ROI strategic actions.