How we work
Design consultants or agencies are usually brought in to tackle challenging problems from an outsider's perspective and jump-start the process of developing new solutions. But often, things get lost once that perspective and skill set move on to the next client. And when (not if) customer needs and the market changes, you may need to hire them back to help you pivot.
We don’t want to do the work for you. And we don’t want to gatekeep skills and knowledge, making your team reliant on outsiders for heavy lifting. We want to enable you and your team to do the work yourselves. We will provide training and work shoulder-to-shoulder with you as we coach you through doing the work hands-on. We offer three types of engagements:
Training Camp
A rapid deep-dive for teams new to design thinking who want to gain some skills and understand how it can help them succeed.
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This engagement starts with a two-hour, hands-on deep dive for you and your team, where Level-Up will introduce you to essential design thinking methods and human-centered design principles. This is followed by 2-4 hours with your team leaders to develop a game plan for your first design iteration and enhance their skills in facilitating collaboration workshops with your team and stakeholders. For an additional fee, we can provide follow-up debriefs and coaching sessions to help fine-tune your approach in subsequent iterations.
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6-8 hours, including 1-4 hrs of workshop prep, with the option of additional 1/2 hour coaching sessions with team lead(s).
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This is for teams that are aware of design thinking but want improve basic skills and develop a better understanding how it works.
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A better understanding of design thinking and basic methods for your team
Essential facilitation skills for team leads to prepare them to guide collaboration workshops with the team and stakeholders
A learning agenda and workshop plan for your first design iteration
First Game
For teams who already have some understanding of their customers but need help making their insights actionable.
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Level-Up will start with a 2-hour session with your core team leaders to align on objectives and craft assumptive personas to capture users' needs. We will then assign preparation tasks and facilitation roles and prepare for a 2-day design thinking workshop with the broader team and stakeholders in week 2. At the end of the workshop, we will have several candidate concepts for the team to pursue in higher-fidelity prototypes. We will then work with the core team to sketch out an approach for prototyping and testing. For an additional fee, we can coach the team through creating a testing plan and testing and analyzing results to inform subsequent iterations.
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2-3 weeks with the option of additional ½ hour coaching sessions with team lead(s).
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For teams with some experience with design thinking and have already started to build some understanding of their customers’ needs but need help making their insights actionable.
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Assumptive personas based on current understanding of user needs
Candidate design concepts for testing based on collaboration workshop activities
A plan for prototyping and testing
Optional: prototype and testing coaching for team lead(s)
First Season
For teams who need to understand their customers and guidance through developing and validating potential solutions.
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Level-Up will work shoulder to shoulder with your team through their first design iteration, coaching them through empathy building, problem definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing. We start with the same assumptive persona and objectives session as in the First Game. However, we will follow that with a two-week empathy-building phase, during which we will conduct research with the target audience and prepare for a 2-day design thinking workshop. After the workshop, I will coach the team through their first two weeks of prototyping and testing. I will help them develop a presentation for leaders and stakeholders that captures the outcomes and proposes a new way forward.
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4-6 weeks with optional additional 1/2 hour coaching sessions with team lead(s).
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For teams who need training in design thinking, help to understand customer needs, and guidance through developing and validating potential solutions.
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A presentation built by your team to help get buy-in from stakeholders. The presentation will include some combination of the following:
A summary of activities completed
Audience research findings and insights
High-level design concepts
Validation findings from prototype testing
A proposed plan for subsequent iterations and next steps
Do you need to
level-up?
We might be a good fit for you and your team if:
You have a team with diverse skills and talents tasked with solving a tough challenge for the humans they serve.
You believe great products or services should continuously evolve and improve to meet changing human needs.
You and your team know there’s a better way, but you’re too busy with day-to-day work and maintenance to change things up for yourselves. And you and your team are open to the idea of change.
You and your team are game to try, fail, learn, and attempt a new approach, with some training and coaching to help you along the way.
FAQs
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Design thinking is a framework for teaching and practicing human-centered design that can adapted by anyone, regardless of background or training. It employs methods developed by designers and engineers over decades in a way that enables multidisciplinary teams to collaboratively empathize with the people they serve and create experiences to meet their needs.
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Online courses are great for learning the basics of design thinking principles and methodology. But to really learn human-centered design, you need to do it hands-on. Level-up will customize training to the needs and objectives of your team and work shoulder-to-shoulder with you as we coach you through doing the work hands-on.
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Since our training is tailored to the needs of each team, we provide a proposal the outlines the approach cost. We offer three basic formats for training: Training Camp (2-3 days), First Game (2-3 weeks), and First Season (4-6 weeks). But we can modify approach and timing based on your needs.
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We prefer to work with your team in your space so you can learn how best to use it for collaboration. If you don’t have a space or if your team is remote, we can help you find a training space. We prefer in-person collaboration, but if your team is geographically dispersed, we can work entirely online.
