Design Thinking Sprint

If you've solved the same problem three times and it keeps coming back.

Find the real problem before you design the solution. Empathy research with the people who actually have the problem, rapid prototyping to test ideas, and user validation before you commit resources.

You get a research synthesis, an insight map that redefines the problem, testable prototypes, a validation report, and an implementation guide. Two to four weeks depending on depth.

One senior consultant. Direct access. No handoff.

Built For

Product leaders building features nobody asked for because nobody asked the users. The roadmap is full. Adoption is flat.

Operations teams patching the same failure every quarter. The fix works. The problem returns. Something upstream was never understood.

Founders and CEOs watching development budgets disappear into solutions that looked right on the whiteboard and wrong in the market.

Service designers redesigning experiences based on internal assumptions. The journey map looks elegant. Customers still leave.

What You Get

Deep empathy research distilled into a single document. Observation notes, interview findings, behavioural patterns. Not what users said they wanted. What they actually did, struggled with, and worked around. The gap between the organisation’s view and the user’s reality is where the real problem lives.

Because most problem definitions are written by people who don’t have the problem. This document corrects that.

Key insights plotted against their impact on the original problem statement. Shows where assumptions were wrong, where needs were invisible, and where the real opportunity sits. The map makes explicit what the research made obvious.

Because understanding a problem differently is the only way to solve it differently.

Solution concepts built to the minimum fidelity needed for honest user feedback. Not polished. Not production-ready. Real enough to provoke genuine reactions. Multiple iterations, each one informed by what the previous test revealed.

Because a prototype that fails in testing saves you a product that fails in market.

Every prototype tested against real users in realistic contexts. The report documents what people did, not what they said. Which solutions solved the problem. Which created new ones. Which elements users gravitated towards and which they ignored entirely.

Because opinions are not validation. Observed behaviour is.

The validated concept translated into buildable specifications. Technical considerations, sequencing recommendations, and the constraints that matter. Built so your development team can execute without reinterpreting. Nothing left to guess at.

Because validated concepts that never get built are expensive lessons in futility.

How It Works

Scoping Conversation

The problem space, the stakeholders, and the constraints. Who experiences the problem. How long it has persisted. What has been tried. This conversation determines the sprint type and makes sure we investigate what matters, not what is convenient.

Empathy Research

The first phase is admitting the problem is not yet understood. Observation, interviews, journey mapping. The goal is to see the problem from the perspective of the people who live with it. That view is almost always different from the organisation's view. The gap between those two views is where the real problem definition lives.

Problem Definition

Synthesise the research into a sharp problem statement. Not the problem the organisation thinks it has. The problem the evidence reveals. This is the step most teams skip, and it is the step that determines whether everything downstream solves the right thing. A well-defined problem constrains ideation in the right direction.

Ideation

Structured divergent thinking, constrained by the problem definition. Multiple solution directions, not one favourite. We generate breadth before selecting depth. The ideas that survive are the ones that address the defined problem, respect the constraints surfaced in research, and can be prototyped fast enough to test within the sprint.

Rapid Prototyping

Ideas are cheap. Prototypes are expensive enough to be worth testing. We build solution concepts at the minimum fidelity needed for honest feedback. Each prototype is a hypothesis. Each test either confirms or kills it. Multiple concepts in days, not months.

User Validation

Validation is not asking people what they think. It is watching what they do. We test prototypes with real users in realistic contexts. Does the solution actually solve the problem? Does it create new ones? Only solutions that survive contact with real behaviour move forward.

Iterate

Solutions that fail validation go back to prototyping or problem definition. This is not a setback. It is the methodology working. The loop continues until the evidence supports the recommendation. Design thinking without iteration is just brainstorming with Post-its.

Present, Handoff, and Implementation Guide

We walk your team through every finding, every prototype iteration, and the evidence behind each recommendation. Questions answered live. Then full handoff: the research synthesis, insight map, validated prototypes, validation report, and implementation roadmap. Everything you need to build. Nothing you need us for.

Pricing

Discovery Sprint

£6,000

2 weeks

Start this week, deliverables by 19 March

Start here if you need to understand before you solve.

2 weeks
Directional
Deep understanding of the real problem and where to focus.

Start discovery

Solution Sprint

£12,000

2 weeks

Start this week, deliverables by 19 March

Run this after Discovery to test solutions rapidly.

2 weeks
Actionable
Validated solution concept ready for development.
Includes Multiple prototype iterations, user testing sessions, validation report

Sprint the solution

Full Design Sprint

£22,000

4 weeks

Start this week, deliverables by 2 April

This one’s for going from confusion to clarity in one engagement.

4 weeks
Bankable
From problem understanding to validated solution in one sprint.
Includes Research synthesis, multiple prototypes, validation, implementation recommendations

Run the full sprint

Right Sprint. Wrong Problem?

Your problem is not standard. Neither is the sprint. A 30-minute conversation tells us which research methods to deploy, which users to speak with, and where the real misunderstanding lives before we scope a single deliverable.

Same price. Same timeline. Every hour pointed at the problem your team actually needs to solve.

Scope it together

No obligation. No pitch. Just specifics.