Michael McGillivray
All work

ESB · via Nearform

ESB - Consultation & Training

Design-system consultation and hands-on Figma training for the in-house team at Ireland's national utility.

ESB design system and Figma training case study hero image
  • Figma Training Upskilled the in-house team
  • Design System Consultation & structure

The Brief

Context

ESB, Ireland's national utility company, wanted to level up its in-house design team. I delivered design-system consultation and hands-on Figma training to get them working faster and more consistently.

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Responsibilities

  • Advise on design-system approach and structure.
  • Upskill the in-house team in Figma.
  • Leave them more self-sufficient than I found them.

Consultation work is most valuable when it builds capability, not dependency. My aim with ESB was to share a clear, practical way of working (both the system thinking and the tooling), so the team could carry it forward on their own.

Discovery

Assessing where they were

I started by understanding the team's current ways of working and the state of their design system, so the guidance and training met them where they actually were.

  • Reviewed existing design-system practices.
  • Identified the gaps holding the team back.

Systems

Design system

I provided design-system consultation tailored to ESB's needs: practical guidance on structure, components and the habits that keep a system consistent.

  • Advised on system structure and component strategy.
  • Recommended practices for consistency and scale.

Enablement

Hands-on Figma training

I trained ESB's design team in Figma directly, turning the tool from a hurdle into an advantage and raising the whole team's baseline.

  • Delivered hands-on Figma training to the design team.
  • Focused on practical, repeatable workflows.
  • Built lasting in-house capability.
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Good training sticks when it's grounded in the team's real work rather than abstract exercises. By teaching Figma in the context of ESB's own projects, the skills transferred straight into their day-to-day output.

Impact

Outcome

ESB's design team came away with clearer design-system thinking and the Figma skills to apply it, more capable and more self-sufficient.

  • A more confident, Figma-fluent in-house team.
  • Practical design-system guidance they could own.