Design System Governance

Governance Models

Centralized

• Dedicated design system team owns everything.
• Product teams request components through a queue.
• Pros: consistency, quality. Cons: bottleneck, disconnected from product needs.

Federated

• Product teams contribute components.
• Design system team reviews, approves, and maintains.
• Pros: diverse input, faster. Cons: inconsistent quality without strong review.

Community

• Anyone can contribute.
• RFC process for new components.
• Design system team as curators, not gatekeepers.