Many teams think design system governance is about having a process.

So they make a flowchart.

Or a diagram.

Or a checklist.

And they call that governance.

But governance isn’t a flow.

The teams I’ve seen fail at governance all have something in common: they built a process, but they didn’t build trust.

• They wrote the rules, but they didn’t get buy-in.

• They made a new Figma library, but no one used it.

• They published the flowchart, but no one followed it.

And then they wondered why their system wasn’t getting adopted.

Good governance isn’t documentation.

It’s alignment over time. That only happens through understanding the current culture.

Most governance diagrams overcomplicate the answer that actually matters: who does what, and when?

You discover this by talking to people about what they actually do, not writing down what you wish they’d do.

Once you know this, write it down in a simple list:

WHO:Design system core team​
​WHAT: Approves net-new components
​WHEN: During weekly governance review

WHO:Individual designers​
​WHAT: Propose updates to existing components
​WHEN: Anytime—via design tokens repo

WHO:Engineering leads​
​WHAT: Flag performance concerns with components
​WHEN: Before major releases

WHO:Product managers​
​WHAT: Request new patterns based on user needs
​WHEN: During quarterly planning

WHO:QA / Accessibility team​
​WHAT: Report bugs or accessibility regressions
​WHEN: As part of sprint testing

WHO:Everyone​
​WHAT: Follows the contribution model
​WHEN: Always

You don’t need a giant diagram.

You need clarity on who’s responsible, what they’re responsible for, and when it happens. Without that, even the cleanest process doc is useless.

Don’t start with a diagram. Start with shared understanding.

Talk to your contributors. Define the values behind your decisions. Document the actual behavior of your teams, not the fantasy version. And yes, write it down if you need to. But don’t mistake the artifact for the alignment.

At the end of the day, governance isn’t a flowchart.

It’s the ongoing work of keeping a system alive, trusted, and evolving.