Project Overview
August 2021 - December 2024
In my role as Lead UX Design Strategist & Product Manager at ExxonMobil, I applied Agile methodologies (SAFe, Kanban) to drive product roadmaps, backlog prioritization and iterative development cycles. I worked closely with engineering, UX and marketing teams to ensure that user needs and business objectives aligned seamlessly. My role was to guide the team through an iterative, user-centered approach - combining Lean UX, design thinking and backlog management to drive real business outcomes. From discovery workshops to sprint retrospectives, I helped cross-functional teams build better systems, collaborate more effectively and level-up their design capabilities.
TL;DR
- Led product strategy and Agile transformation for ExxonMobil’s Consumer Marketing team
- Facilitated roadmap planning, sprint execution, and backlog prioritization using SAFe and Kanban
- Integrated design thinking and Lean UX to support faster iteration and stakeholder alignment
- Accelerated delivery cycles by ~50%, improving cross-functional efficiency and team velocity
Problem Statement
The ExxonMobil Lubes Consumer Marketing Manager sought my assistance in guiding her team towards adopting a more agile approach to consumer marketing while developing and executing on a product roadmap. Her primary goals were to streamline workflows by eliminating redundant tasks, accelerate time to market and transition to a more personalized UX-driven consumer marketing strategy.
The Customer
We were designing for vehicle owners navigating the complexity of finding the right motor oil for their car. This included everyone from DIY garage tinkerers to dealership service managers - each with varying levels of technical fluency. Our goal was to reduce friction in the decision-making process and support both direct consumers and B2B partners with clear, intuitive digital tools that reflected Mobil 1’s premium brand positioning - all while balancing the needs of the internal stakeholders.
My Contributions
“Product management isn’t just about owning the roadmap - it’s about creating clarity between vision and execution.”
Using a 'learning by doing' approach, I guided the team of 20+ professionals in an end-to-end UX strategy that folded in agile development and product management principles. This 3-day workshop started with strategizing initiatives using insights and market research, breaking initiatives down into features and user stories, performing various impact analyses and developing a product roadmap and prioritized Azure Devops kanban board broken down by sprints and product increments.
- Developed and managed product roadmaps for digital platforms serving global consumer marketing teams
- Led backlog grooming and sprint planning in Azure DevOps & Jira, ensuring alignment with business goals
- Facilitated design thinking workshops to inform product decisions and identify high-impact features
- Implemented Lean UX & Agile best practices, enabling teams to iterate quickly while staying user-centered
- Advocated for user research-driven decisions, leading to increased adoption and stakeholder buy-in
Impact & Reflection
This project was about more than just Agile transformation - it was about changing how teams work together.
By embedding Lean UX, strategic prioritization, and a user-first mindset into the product development lifecycle, we empowered a traditionally siloed organization to move faster and collaborate more effectively. The success of this work also laid the foundation for long-term improvements, including the adoption of a new enterprise design system and broader investment in scalable UX practices.
- Secured executive buy-in by clearly communicating how new solutions and processes integrate into existing workflows and increasing stakeholder alignment
- Improved overall speed, quality, costs, cycle time and lead time by optimizing agile workflows
- Accelerated product delivery cycles, reducing development time by ~50%, moving from an average of 6 months per development cycle to 3 months, depending on complexity
- Thorough planning resulted in the greenlighting of new projects for process improvement, such as developing a new enterprise-level design system in Figma. I became a founding member of the design system governance team responsible for skilling up new teams for adoption of these new processes and ways of working
- Improved cross-functional collaboration, reducing inefficiencies in multi-team projects
