Thinking back, even though lots of good things were done and one portal unification is proceeding, there are few moments of truth in F-Secure B2B and WithSecure UX unification journey, which can now work as important learning for future. Due to the confidentiality, all the details are not able to be included in the story. The main discoveries are kept in high level.

The biggest problem hindering the in the unification success was slowness. It took years and years. If the unified one product experience would have been achieved more effectively, I believe it would have benefit also the business success significantly. There were couple of major miscalculations done in planning, prioritization and ways of working, which impacted basically to re-design and re-implement the product.

The unification had a good start in design, but without dedicated owner and leader for the full UX, it degraded very quickly. But this is just one part of  the problem. In certain types of technology-driven organizations, this kind of initiatives will be easily de-prioritized. In large product development organization, when there is no common commitment, trying to unify the user experience is extremely hard. If there is no common plan or common agreement about the unification goals, it is very slow, painful and takes a lot of effort from design to try push it forward. If everyone is not having the same goals, the end result will be always different.

Unification is not only about unifying old products, but also to unify the new products and features to the same plan. UX unification is too often looked only from that one product or UI perspective, and it is forgotten that if a company has several products and UI's, the experience between them should be also unified. Especially when there are same customers using them.

To remember in unification projects:

• Ensure that the company has a CX strategy, the product organization has UX strategy, and there are CX and UX KPI's defined for the organization.  
  • If these are not in place, and there is still need to try unify the UX,  the scope for the unification need to be narrowed to meet the organization capabilities.  
  • The expectations of the unification outcome and timeline needs to be adjusted to the company and organization capabilities and CX maturity. It is possible to do but just requires realistic plan.
• Discover the customer and user needs about why the UX unification is important. Create empathy map.
  • Understanding the work flows is one thing, but being able to show to whole organization, who and how the user is using and what he/she is experiencing is extremely important. Everyone in the organization should know the user needs and pains. 
• Have a business case for unification
  • The risks and benefits for the business should be clearly evaluated, documented, reviewed and decided.
• Have the unification vision and objectives defined and agreed with the full product organization.
  • Everyone needs to stand behind them and work for the same goals.
  • Agree then the scope and the goals with the product organization and especially with the higher management. The expectations of the out come need to be the same.
• Have a dedicated owner for the UX/CX  unification in the product organization, in high enough position.
  • Owner could be for example Head of design, or Head of CX, but he/she needs to be (at least) in same level in the organization as the Head of product management and Head of RnD to be able to do the job.
  • Even though there would be KPI's and strategy agreed in the full organization, someone needs to plan and drive it. 
  • Especially if there is no UX or CX strategy, KPI's or common agreement, the evangelism and raising the awareness of user and usability requires someone, convincing enough, to do it.
• Have a design system which includes all the guidelines and code and ensure it's usability.
  • Design system is the core for the UI unification.
• Have priority and resources to make and maintain the design system.
  • If this the design system is not in good enough level, does not have all guidelines and components, it will cause either waiting, inconsistent design, customized code and again more work for future.
• Have the design system and unification work in product road map.
  • Otherwise it will not be prioritized and design work falls in cracks and becomes invisible.
• Be ready for changes in product design, especially in organization, processes and ways of working  
  • In quarterly business, changes happen. Design team and objectives needs to be adaptive to changes too, and often the cost effectiveness overrides the usability. 
  • Re-plan, re-scope and agree the goals again. With the whole product creation organization.