Design Systems Team/Design System Governance Model

What is the Design System governance model?
The Design System governance model outlines the high-level paths and processes involved in the creation of components, from strategizing and ideating the component need until its release, deployment, and ownership beyond. It outlines the decisions, steps and collaborative processes involved in the creation, re-usage, modification and deprecation of system components (either core components or project one-offs). It also sets clear collaboration guidelines that will enable teams to actively contribute to the system.

Guiding Principles
The following guiding principles were developed and followed during the creation of the governance model (T287535):


 * Transparency: Task status and progress is clearly shared and made accessible to all stakeholders. Gatekeeping, development, design and product decisions are made in the open.
 * Enablement rather than enforcement: System consumers are considered contributors, and should be empowered by the core team to make decisions and own parts of the system. Product teams have a level of choice and impact on the system (e.g. suggesting components or variants, suggesting fixes or enhancements, or providing feedback for the governance model itself).
 * Knowledge sharing rather than knowledge silo: Contributors should have support and access to resources that allows them to understand and influence the system's workflows, methodologies, standards and infrastructure.