My Approach

Rethinking innovation - I help organizations shift from asking “how do we improve our current product portfolio?” to “what will people need as the world changes, and what should our role be in providing them value?”

Methodologies Mashup - My research teams blend social scientific and UX methods to drive actionable insights. We tailor the research approach to meet project objectives, and may combine methods such as: in-person and remote ethnographies, user surveys, trend forecasting, expert interviews, cultural analysis, diary studies, and concept testing. 

Combine Design Thinking with Change Management Principles - Breakthrough innovation requires both “structured creativity” and “organizational effectiveness”. The design thinking approach - of empathizing with people, creating human-centered solutions, and de-risking failure via prototype - leads to structured innovation. Change management principles - such as, building on existing strengths and frameworks, developing further collaborative culture and processes, and mobilizing support through persuasive storytelling - ensures that an organization can effectively develop and deploy new solutions..

Stakeholder Collaboration - I facilitate collective innovation and decision making by designing workshops that immerse stakeholders into users’ perspective, allowing them to build on their expertise in new ways. As part of this immersion, my teams turn research into storytelling experiences. I’ve found that innovation isn’t ignited by passive cognitive understanding but rather emotional interaction inside the user’s context.

Translate problem to outcome - I translate product issues into research questions and create a useful set of workstreams to explore them that produce valuable deliverables and business outcomes.