Presenter leading an internal review of a new creative process at Glantz, pointing to slides on a screen while team members listen around a conference table.

Building studio operations that sustained high-volume delivery and enabled capability expansion

Role: Studio Lead & Design Operations

Scope: Founder transition → operational standardization → data-backed planning → sustained retention

Transformed founder-dependent delivery into sustainable operations, enabling expansion from web design to full-service UX while maintaining quality across 125+ annual projects.

Impact at a Glance

  • 90% team retention over 7 years

    Career development frameworks and capability building sustained a 15-person studio through significant growth

  • 80% reduction in client revisions

    A 400-item quality standard gave teams consistent criteria to apply without waiting for oversight

  • 125+ annual projects delivered

    Capacity planning and work routing sustained high-volume delivery without operational breakdown

  • 250% capability expansion

    Expanded studio capabilities from web design to full-service UX without scaling headcount

The Problem

Glantz was winning larger, more complex projects, but had no systems to prevent bottlenecks, manage client expectations, or ensure consistent quality at scale.

What was breaking

  • No visibility into team capacity or utilization

  • Quality inconsistency across 125+ annual projects

  • Client revisions consuming 30%+ of project time

  • Reactive resourcing causing team burnout

What was at risk

  • Revenue ceiling: Couldn't scale beyond existing capacity without operational collapse

  • Talent retention: Team burnout from constant firefighting

  • Quality consistency: No standards meant preventable rework.

Whiteboard covered with grouped sticky notes from a team retrospective, organized under headings such as ‘What We Did Well,’ ‘What We Could Have Done Better,’ and ‘How We Can Improve.’
Wall display of creative exploration work including printed design concepts, illustrations, brand visuals, handwritten notes, and sketches grouped around a theme labeled ‘Path/World of Glantz.’

The Decision That Mattered

Build systems that remove friction, not add process. Standards would be embedded in existing tools, designed to eliminate late-stage rework (not add upfront steps), and opt-in where possible.

What I Built

Request routing that separated exploratory from executional work

The mechanism:
Clients often requested "design" without clarity on scope. Built intake model distinguishing:

  • Strategic projects requiring discovery (IA, UX strategy, brand positioning)

  • Executional projects with clear specs (implementation, production design)

Why it mattered:
Teams could resource appropriately. Exploratory work got thinking time; executional work moved fast.

Adoption proof:
Became default routing model. Studio could estimate timelines accurately within first client conversation.

Decision flowchart asking, ‘Is this work high risk, high visibility, or strategic?’ If yes, it moves to Leadership review and then Team approval. If no, it directs to Optimize within team standards.

Quality standards teams could apply without escalation

The mechanism:
Built 400+ item quality checklist across:

  • Accessibility compliance (WCAG 2.1 AA)

  • Browser/device compatibility

  • Content structure and hierarchy

  • Design system consistency

  • SEO and performance standards

Why it mattered:
Designers caught issues before client review. Reduced late-stage rework and emergency fixes.

Adoption proof:
80% reduction in client revisions. Checklist still in use, now maintained by team.

Accessibility launch checklist at 82 percent complete, showing most structure, interaction, language, and motion compliance items marked done, with multilingual language attributes still pending.

Capacity planning showing real utilization, not guesswork

The mechanism:
Tracked weekly utilization across 15-person team:

  • Billable hours by project

  • Non-billable time (internal systems, training, business development)

  • Capacity availability for new work

  • Weekly operations review reporting utilization and demand trends to studio leadership

Why it mattered:
Eliminated reactive resourcing. Leadership could see bottlenecks forming before they caused delays or burnout.

Adoption proof:
Studio sustained 12-15 person operations through market shifts, adjusting capacity to demand without over- or under-hiring.

Capacity dashboard with utilization heatmap, project budget status, and hiring triggers indicating sustained overcapacity and a resulting Junior Designer opening.

UX practice building that expanded studio capabilities

The mechanism:
Trained existing web designers in UX methodology:

  • Introduced research, prototyping, and IA before visual design

  • Migrated to Figma with shared component libraries

  • Strategically hired senior UX talent to fill capability gaps

  • Established career paths for UX specialization

Why it mattered:
Studio expanded from web design (visual-first) to full-service UX. Teams could solve harder problems and command higher project value.

Adoption proof:
Designers who previously jumped to layouts now led discovery and prototyping. One designer progressed from web design to Creative Director leading Content Design.

Visual comparison of studio shift from visual-first web design to research-driven, full-service UX with shared systems, prototyping, and defined UX career paths.

Developing people, not just delivering projects

Team development framework that built capability, not just filled roles

The mechanism:

  • Defined career progression criteria (IC → Leadership)

  • Created skill development plans tied to project assignments

  • Established quarterly growth conversations separate from performance reviews

Why it mattered:
Team members saw path forward. Studio could promote from within instead of always hiring externally.

Adoption proof:
90% retention rate over 3 years. Team capability compounded rather than reset with turnover.

  • “Jen didn’t just maintain the quality we had; she elevated it. She stepped into one of the hardest roles in the studio and built the structure that allowed the team to grow.”

    Keith Glantz - CCO & Founder, Glantz

  • “The processes Jen built for Glantz are still active, helping us work with clarity and respect the flow.”

    Ricardo Lisboa - Creative Director, Glantz

  • “When Jen joined, everything got sharper. We hired her to run the studio and later promoted her to the Leadership Team."

    Anne Weber - Account & Operations Leader, Glantz

What Changed

  • Decision velocity increased: teams evaluated scope and estimated timelines without leadership bottleneck

  • Quality became predictable: consistent work regardless of which team members were assigned

  • Hiring became strategic: resourcing decisions based on capacity data, not panic

  • Team capability compounded: 90% retention meant institutional knowledge grew instead of resetting

What Scaled Forward

  • Quality checklist: Maintained by team with quarterly updates

  • Capacity planning model: adopted by leadership for all hiring decisions

  • Request routing framework: became default intake process

  • Career frameworks: team leads operated independently making it part of review process 

DESIGN OPERATIONS

Sam’s Club Clubhouse

Scaling Enterprise Innovation

LEARNING ENABLEMENT

SheSays & AIGA Communities

Learning Systems That Scale