Case study 02 · Autodesk

Merging two construction platforms after an acquisition

Role: Head of Product Design, Israel
Years: 2018–2020
Team: Grew from 4–5 to ~10 designers
Scope: BIM 360, the PlanGrid merge, Autodesk Construction Cloud

Autodesk construction platform: the Issues settings screen, with a custom-fields table and an edit panel for a punch-list field

01 · The context

Ten products, one head, ten different hands

BIM 360 was really ten products under one name. The design team was strong but small for that scope, and each area had grown its own patterns and ways of working. Then Autodesk acquired PlanGrid, and two platforms, two cultures and two product philosophies had to become one.

02 · The hard problem

People, product and politics, all at once

The merge wasn’t only a UX problem. Teams on both sides had their own processes, loyalties and roadmaps, and every design decision carried organisational weight. Getting to one product meant aligning people before pixels.

03 · How I led it

Three decisions that shaped the outcome

01
Grow the team to match the scope
I hired 5–6 designers, doubling the team, so every product area had real design ownership.
02
The trifecta model
Design, product and engineering became equal partners, each area run like a small business unit with three owners. I built these hubs together with management and the teams themselves.
03
One product language across both platforms
I drove a single design language, patterns and navigation across BIM 360 and PlanGrid, so the merged product felt like one thing.

The Sheets view of the construction platform’s Windows desktop app: a grid of drawing sheets next to the unified navigation (Documents, Issues, Forms, RFIs, Submittals, Cost) — Sheets in the desktop app: drawings first, inside the same navigation as the rest of the platform.

The Issues list for a museum construction project: clash, design, document-review, punch-list and quality issues with status, stamps, due dates, locations and linked sheets — Issues across a project, in the unified platform’s navigation.

The Scheduling module’s activity list: a table of open submittals for several building projects, each with an assignee, company and due date — Scheduling: open submittals with owners and due dates.

04 · Outcome

unified product: Autodesk Construction Cloud, built from the merge: 1unified product: Autodesk Construction Cloud, built from the merge
design team size, from 4–5 to ~10 designers: 2×design team size, from 4–5 to ~10 designers
owners per product hub: design, product and engineering: 3owners per product hub: design, product and engineering

A stronger product than either platform on its own.

05 · What I learned

Big-scale enterprise is a different world: far more complex, but it teaches you to see the product from an executive point of view. That perspective still shapes how I lead today.