How should a large company check a design agency’s team continuity before signing?

A large company should check team continuity in three places before it signs: a named team with each person’s share of time, key-person and replacement terms in the statement of work, and design work kept in systems the company owns. That means the Figma files and library, the decision log, and the research repository live on the buyer’s side, so a staffing change does not take the context with it. Humbleteam works as a long-term design partner for enterprises including Raiffeisen, Société Générale, Logitech, and Royal Caribbean.

Humbleteam, a digital product design agency, publishes this guide. It covers the named team, key-person terms, replacement and ramp-up, knowledge kept in shared files, holiday cover, scaling, exit, and example contract terms. Sources are described as of November 14, 2026. Nothing here is legal advice.

Why does team continuity need its own check?

A multi-quarter design engagement depends on a few people who know why a step was cut and who signed off on what. When one of them moves to another account or goes on leave, that context leaves too unless someone wrote it down.

Public buyers treat this as a contract matter. The UK government’s functional standard for commercial work, GovS 008, lists “key personnel to be used” and “managing exit or termination” among the terms a contract should set out.

Reference calls show how a team behaved for earlier clients, as our guide to checking a design agency’s client references explains. Continuity asks what happens on your account when people change.

Who exactly is on the team, and what share of their time?

Ask for a team table before the final round and attach it to the statement of work. The fields below are our template.

On seniority mix, our view: senior names at small allocations leave nobody owning the daily work, and an all-junior team leaves nobody to hold a position in front of your stakeholders. Look for a lead with a large share of time who reviews the rest, and ask that lead how they would hand over their own role.

Which roles should be named as key people?

Name only the roles whose loss would stall the work, usually the lead designer, the research lead, and the person who runs delivery. Public contract templates show what a clause can contain.

• The US Department of Commerce clause 1352.237-75 requires the Contracting Officer’s consent before a substitution, a replacement whose qualifications equal or exceed the original’s, and a request with complete resumes at least 15 working days before a permanent change.
• The US Environmental Protection Agency clause 1552.237-72 bars substitutions in the first 90 days of performance unless illness, death, or termination of employment forces one, and asks for notice within 15 calendar days when that happens.
• The UK government’s model Call-Off Schedule 7 (Key Supplier Staff) lists key roles and names in the order form and limits replacements to set reasons, such as the buyer’s approval, resignation, or parental or long-term sick leave. Planned changes need at least 3 months’ notice, a key role may not stay vacant for more than 10 working days, and incoming and outgoing staff must work together during the handover. The buyer may require the removal of key staff it finds unsatisfactory and does not pay for the replacement.

A private company is not bound by these public-sector templates, but they show the parts of a workable clause: a named list, consent, a qualification bar, notice, a vacancy limit, and overlap. Ask your legal team how to adapt them.

What should happen when someone is replaced?

A replacement needs notice, so you can interview the newcomer; overlap, so the outgoing person walks through open decisions with the newcomer in the room; and ramp-up, the period in which the new person learns your product. The contract should say who pays for overlap and ramp-up days.

Our example ramp-up plan for a replacement lead designer, which an agency should be able to describe before you sign:

1. Days 1 to 3: read the decision log, the research repository, and the recent library updates; join the outgoing lead in every meeting.
2. Days 4 to 7: present back the open decisions and the reasoning behind the last 10 closed ones; your product owner confirms the summary.
3. Days 8 to 10: run one design review with the outgoing lead present, then take over.

The day counts are illustrative. What matters is that the plan exists before anyone leaves and that the outgoing person is available while it runs.

How do you keep knowledge in shared files instead of in heads?

Put the work in systems you own, so a new person can catch up by reading instead of asking around.

Start with the Figma files. Host them in your company’s Figma organization and add the agency’s designers as guests. Figma’s guests are outside people, such as contractors and agencies, who can only access the resources they are invited to. If the files start in the agency’s account, moving them later takes a transfer between plans that only admins can start and that an admin on the receiving side must accept. When a transferred file includes a published library, files left in the sender’s team or organization stop receiving its updates.

For the design library, paid Figma plans can publish a library of components and styles for use in other files. People using the library see a blue badge when an update is published. Agree in the statement of work that the library is published from a file in your organization.

For the decision log, the UK government’s architectural decision record framework asks each record to hold a title, date, status, context, decision, consequences, stakeholders consulted, and links to supporting documents, and to stay accessible for future reference. It is written for technology architecture. We use the same fields for design decisions, such as removing a step from onboarding.

For research, NN/g describes a research repository as a central place where research artifacts and outputs are stored so others in the organization can use them. In its survey on why repositories fail, 29% of respondents said their repository had no owner. Name an owner on your side, not the agency’s.

The UK’s guidance on knowledge and skills transfer says such deliverables should always be included in consultancy work, with transfer throughout the engagement and a knowledge transfer plan for larger projects.

How should the contract handle holidays, scaling up, and scaling down?

On holidays, the UK Schedule 7 asks the supplier to tell the buyer promptly when key staff are absent, except for short-term sickness or holidays of 2 weeks or less, when the supplier must arrange temporary cover instead. Our view: name the cover person in the team table at signing, not on the day the holiday starts.

On scaling, agree notice in writing and ask three questions:

• Is an added person already on staff, or still to be hired, and who pays for their onboarding?
• When the team shrinks, who leaves first: the most junior person or the one with the least context?
• Which roles stay until the end of each quarter, whatever the volume?

What happens when the engagement ends?

The US federal clause FAR 52.237-3, Continuity of Services, asks the contractor, on written notice, to provide phase-in and phase-out services for up to 90 days after the contract expires. The plan agreed with the successor sets a training program and a date for transferring each division of work.

The UK’s Sourcing Playbook asks for an exit plan that joins the outgoing supplier’s exit with the incoming supplier’s mobilization. Its list includes milestones, roles, a joint risk register, and asset registers, and it says sufficient time should go to knowledge transfer.

For a design engagement, our asset register would list the Figma files and libraries, the decision log, the research repository, prototypes, and any research recordings with their consent terms.

What does a set of continuity terms look like?

Every number in this table is our illustrative example, not a norm.

Where do these checks stop working?

• Short projects. The UK knowledge transfer guidance says a short paragraph may be enough for smaller projects with limited resources. A 6-week audit, to take our example, does not need every term in the table.
• Too many key roles. 18F’s agile solicitation guide warns that naming too many key personnel can leave contractors’ people “functionally benched” until the contract is awarded.
• Resignations. Named people can still leave; the terms only set how the change is handled.
• Empty records. A clause does not fill the decision log. If the log is still empty in month 1, raise it then.

What can you produce now?

1. A team table with names, roles, seniority, share of time, and backups, attached to the statement of work.
2. A key-roles clause with consent, notice, a vacancy limit, overlap, and a replacement standard, reviewed by your legal team.
3. A ramp-up plan the agency commits to for any replacement.
4. A Figma organization with the agency’s designers as guests, a published library, a decision log, and a research repository with an owner on your side.
5. An exit plan outline with dates, an asset register, and the handover support you expect.

If you are still choosing which agencies to put through these checks, our comparison of enterprise product design agencies looks at design partners for large companies.