Drive Design System Adoption, Don't Just Build It

Treat your design system like an internal product, not a one-off project; its success depends entirely on adoption. To get teams to use it, show quick, measurable wins ("this saved 4 dev hours"), provide tiered, role-specific onboarding, and communicate a clear roadmap. Start with a small pilot project to prove value. The biggest footgun is assuming a great system will be adopted automatically; without a deliberate rollout plan, teams revert to old habits and your system becomes an expensive, unused artifact.