Moving strategy from abstract concepts to a concrete set of shared tools
Strengthening our design strategy
We are known for our collaborative approach and our expertise in high-quality, accessible design.
Impact measured against UN Sustainable Development Goals
As our team has grown, we recognised an opportunity to strengthen this process even further. We found that our approach to design strategy - the “why” behind our design decisions - was not always as consistent or as shared across the team as it could be.
At times, design decisions could feel “implicit”, and the handovers between our research and design phases were sometimes “too detailed” rather than synthesised. This could make it challenging to collaborate effectively across our different disciplines, such as design, UX, and product.
Our goal was to formalise our design strategy, moving it from an abstract concept to a concrete set of shared tools. We wanted to create a process that makes our strategic thinking more accessible and collaborative for our clients and empowers our team to make more confident, strategic design decisions together.
Results
We partnered with a design strategy specialist, Jenny Winfield, to conduct an initial review of our current processes. This involved:
1:1 interviews with our design, content and UX team.
Mapping workshops to explore the factors that made past projects feel “smooth” or “tough”.
A full review of our project documentation and proposals.
This process helped us identify the key factors that lead to successful design projects, such as well-defined briefs, empowered clients who can contribute meaningfully and dedicated team time to align and reflect.
Based on these findings, we have begun to roll out a more structured, shared approach. Key results from this first phase include:
Identifying five crucial shifts: We’ve focused our efforts on five shifts to improve our process, including moving from “abstract to concrete” concepts, “individual to shared” tools and “implicit to explicit” decision-making.
Developing new strategy tools: We are now testing simple, powerful tools to use on live projects. This includes a “problem framing (north star)” exercise to collaboratively define the core project challenge with our clients in a single sentence.
Refreshing our design principles: We have drafted a “first pass” to refresh our core agency design principles, focusing on Inclusion , Equity and Flexibility. This work aims to make our principles more consistent and, crucially, measurable on every project.
What’s next?
This is an ongoing journey and Phase 2 of this work is already being planned. Our next steps are to:
Actively test and adjust these new tools and frameworks on live client projects.
Run workshops with our product managers and the wider team to co-design and embed a collaborative process for developing project-specific design principles.
Finalise and publish our refreshed agency-wide design principles (Inclusion, Equity, Flexibility) as a shared, public guide for our work.
Share a team-wide case study on how this new, clearer design strategy process influenced a project from start to finish.