The Mature Organization Doesn’t Exist (And Why That’s Good News)
7 min read
What Does a “Mature” Organization Actually Look Like?
We’ve been talking about UX maturity for almost a decade.
The idea is fairly simple: organizations can be classified on a scale from Level 1 to Level 6.
Unrecognized: Nobody really knows what UX is.
Ad hoc: UX is basically “making mockups.”
Considered: A dedicated UX team exists.
Structured: Processes start to emerge.
Integrated: UX becomes part of everyday projects, supported by dedicated management.
Institutionalized: UX is embedded in business strategy.
This framework has its merits. It provides a shared language, reference points, and a useful diagnostic tool.
There’s just one problem.
You can’t measure organizational maturity like calcium levels in a blood test.
Reaching a particular stage never guarantees you won’t move backward.
A “mature” organization isn’t a permanent state.
It’s a fragile balance between people, decisions, intentions, and compromises.
And that balance is constantly shifting.
It progresses, regresses, evolves, reinvents itself.
It depends on someone leaving, someone joining, a business pivot, a roadmap under pressure, or a sudden budget cut.
Things get particularly complicated when these maturity scales start influencing career decisions, job expectations, and professional frustrations.
Without necessarily realizing it, many designers have shifted from wanting to do their jobs well to demanding an environment perfectly suited to how they want to work.
From contributors, they’ve become consumers of maturity.
At Leboncoin, I experienced what a genuinely mature design environment could look like: autonomy, established methods, continuous research, and a clear vision.
I have excellent memories of that experience.
But looking back, what I appreciated most wasn’t the organization’s maturity level.
It was the clarity of expectations and the autonomy I was given.
And those are two very different things.
They have little to do with how mature the market supposedly is.
1. Chasing the Unicorn: A One-Way Ticket to Hell
Let’s face it.
A genuinely “mature” organization — with regular user research, transparent decision-making, strong alignment, and a healthy product culture — is rare.
In 2023, 41% of companies were still focusing almost exclusively on the visible aspects of design.
The pixels.
Since maturity models first appeared, things haven’t fundamentally changed.
And yet, how many designers are still demanding “a seat at the strategic table”?
In a shrinking job market, ruling out half the companies before you’ve even applied is essentially shooting yourself in the foot.
As for the mythical 2–3% of dream companies?
They often recruit through referrals, hidden job markets, or painfully demanding hiring processes.
Meanwhile, plenty of organizations claim to be mature when they’ve barely scratched the surface.
They imitate processes.
They tick boxes.
They adopt impressive-sounding terminology.
Maturity washing.
Often unintentional, but very real.
It reassures executives, makes recruitment easier, and creates the comforting impression that everyone is moving “in the right direction.”
But there’s a nasty side effect.
Designers entering these environments often fall into a familiar trap:
The shinier the surface, the greater the potential disappointment.
They think they’re joining a team that does everything by the book.
Instead, they find themselves buried in production work, far removed from strategic decisions, or playing a leading role in UX theater.
So they evangelize.
They get frustrated.
They burn out.
Misunderstandings between designers, Product Owners, and developers grow.
And with every new attempt at “evangelization,” unspoken resentment builds.
Welcome to the beginning of workplace hell.
For everyone.
Yet much of this suffering stems from two fundamental misunderstandings:
UX maturity is neither stable, permanent, nor necessarily linear.
And maturity guarantees neither a healthy working environment nor a successful project.
2. What Our Obsession With Maturity Says About Us
Let’s be honest.
If maturity fascinates designers so much, it’s not simply because it’s rare.
It’s because it promises something fundamental:
The possibility of doing our jobs without constantly having to fight for it.
For years, conversations in the design community have revolved around the same frustrations:
“They won’t let me do user research.”
“They don’t understand what I do.”
“They don’t value UX.”
“We don’t have proper processes.”
Searching for the perfect environment is often about hoping that the right context will finally allow us to become the best versions of ourselves.
And yes, some workplaces are objectively toxic or exhausting.
These frustrations aren’t imaginary.
But without slipping into corporate gaslighting, there’s also something uncomfortable hiding behind this quest.
Sometimes, looking for a mature organization means looking for a place where we won’t have to take responsibility for our own leadership.
Not managerial leadership.
Not authority-based leadership.
Just the simple act of saying:
“Here’s how I suggest we approach this, and here’s why.”
Because behind our search for maturity, there’s often fear.
Fear of getting things wrong.
Fear of being judged.
Fear of improvising.
Fear of asserting ourselves.
And beyond those fears lies the actual working environment.
The imperfect one.
The one where you’re sometimes alone, facing a problem that doesn’t fit neatly into a framework.
Or surrounded by people whose objectives don’t align.
And here’s something worth saying clearly:
Maturity isn’t permission.
It isn’t protection.
It isn’t a framework designed to hold your hand.
It’s just… another working environment.
Ultimately, our obsession with maturity reveals something else:
We underestimate our own ability to act.
For junior designers, that’s understandable.
When you’re starting out, you need structure, methods, and safeguards.
But as you gain experience, you sometimes realize that what you once interpreted as a lack of organizational maturity was actually a lack of initiative you hadn’t dared to take.
Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Neither was user-centricity.
It’s something we build together, beyond moralizing evangelization.
It emerges when we adopt the mindset of an enabler, working at the intersection of execution and collective reflection.
3. Why Chaos Can Actually Be a Space for Freedom
Organizational immaturity isn’t the sum of our individual failures.
It doesn’t automatically mean disrespect.
Nor does it necessarily mean working in an environment that “doesn’t understand design.”
What we call immaturity often emerges from chaos.
And chaos is just…
Reality.
The actual playing field.
The one where projects move forward despite limitations.
Where decisions are sometimes political.
Where financial, technical, human, and physical constraints are very real.
Where everyone does their best to navigate competing priorities, with varying degrees of success.
And paradoxically, this can be one of the most interesting environments for a designer.
In highly structured organizations:
We follow frameworks.
We comply with established processes.
We complete tickets.
We fill out alignment documents.
We wait for committee approval.
It’s comfortable.
But it can also feel lukewarm.
Predictable.
Sometimes even a little uninspiring.
The risk?
Forgetting that design isn’t only about incremental innovation.
It’s also about disruptive innovation.
In less mature environments, going the extra mile often becomes essential.
Every action needs a compelling justification.
Every initiative needs a perceptible return on investment.
Every meaningful change needs to demonstrate its value.
And sometimes, that means creating visible breakthroughs that make people believe something better is possible.
These environments can also provide fertile ground for developing your own agency.
There are no mandatory rituals.
Nobody hands you a predefined user research process.
Nobody tells you exactly how things should be done.
And suddenly, you have room to act.
Room to:
Introduce lightweight structure.
Run small-scale experiments.
Prototype without waiting for permission.
Create the minimum conditions necessary to move a project forward.
Is it less comfortable?
Absolutely.
But it can also be remarkably open, provided we’re willing to see it that way.
And no, this isn’t about heroism.
Or self-sacrifice.
It’s simply part of the job.
The job when you need to clarify rather than follow a manual.
The job when you need to adapt rather than recite a methodology.
4. A Case for a Different Mindset
Designers aren’t evangelists. Designers are enablers.
For too long, we’ve been asking designers to “educate,” “convert,” and “spread the UX message.”
As if design were some kind of religion.
We’ve forgotten that part of our job is helping people discover their own capabilities, articulate their own thinking, and find their own answers.
The truth is simple:
Design doesn’t need dogma.
It needs collective reflection, listening, and action.
That means:
Introducing simple, useful rituals.
Reducing uncertainty for others.
Clarifying options, their potential impacts, and associated risks.
Bringing intention into decision-making.
Proposing, co-creating, and reframing.
Adapting methods to constraints, rather than forcing constraints to fit the methods.
These are the actions that make us genuinely valuable.
Sometimes even indispensable.
Not just another group of moralizing professionals whose work can easily be reduced to a standardized commodity.
Today, we’re paying the price for our obsession with maturity and some of the attitudes we’ve adopted along the way.
But we still have the power to change things.
Let’s start believing in our own ability to make a difference.
Because behind those buttons with an 8px border radius are brilliant minds, thoughtful perspectives, and people with far more to contribute than they’re sometimes given credit for.
