Work Has Changed. Here's What We Might Do About It | Figma Blog

Distributed work has permanently changed how teams collaborate, but many organizations have not yet adapted their processes. Figma’s research finds that product development is strained by three forces: more participants, greater geographic distance, and more simultaneous work. The strongest teams counter this complexity through transparency, shared understanding, and intentional connection.

Distributed Work Is Now Permanent

• In a Figma survey, 75% of designers in Europe and Asia said they work from home more often than before the pandemic.
• U.S. work-from-home days are now five times higher than in 2019.
• Teams meet in person less frequently, making remote collaboration a lasting feature of modern work rather than a temporary adjustment.

Product Development Faces Widespread Barriers

• Forrester Consulting found that 9 in 10 respondents experienced barriers during product development.
• Six in ten reported at least one of the three most significant obstacles:
  • Lack of alignment across teams
  • Difficulty making decisions
  • Lengthy development cycles
• These problems existed before the pandemic but have been intensified by distributed work and faster product-release expectations.

Three Forces Increasing Workplace Complexity

More People Involved

• Product development now includes designers, engineers, data specialists, security, content, marketing, product management, and executives.
• Broader participation brings more expertise and enables global collaboration.
• It also increases the number of perspectives, dependencies, and decisions that teams must coordinate.

More Distributed Work

• Physical distance can create emotional distance and make it harder to build trust.
• Teams lose some of the informal coordination that came from working together in the same office.
• Digital tools provide real-time editing, shared files, and multiplayer collaboration, but can also produce notification overload, fragmented discussions, and confusing comment threads.

More Work in Progress

• Companies are expected to release new versions of websites, applications, and digital products more frequently.
• The growing volume and speed of work can allow high-performing teams to achieve more, while leaving others overwhelmed and frustrated.

What Separates Effective Teams

• Successful collaboration requires more than simply placing everyone in the same digital file.
• High-performing teams distinguish themselves through:
  • Greater transparency
  • A shared understanding of goals and work
  • Intentional efforts to maintain connection and trust
• These behaviors help turn distributed collaboration from a “cooperative mess” into productive teamwork.

Teams should treat distributed work as a permanent operating model and deliberately invest in visibility, alignment, decision-making, and human connection rather than relying on digital tools alone.