Building Cohesive, High-Performance Teams and Systems - Organized and Optimized Around Your Brand Promise to Stakeholders.
The Design Studio is a transformative service embedding principles from the Agile Action Strategy Process (AASP) to help organizations fully deliver on their brand promise. Through a structured, facilitated process, we align teams, systems and processes to optimize performance. Leveraging design thinking, we work closely with your teams to build scalable frameworks that integrate seamlessly across functions and technology. Ideal for organizations facing mergers, scaling initiatives or performance challenges, the Design Studio equips leaders with agile structures that adapt to market demands and meet stakeholder expectations. By refining core operations and optimizing every layer, our approach helps leaders create resilient, high-performance environments that drive sustainable growth and realize strategic visions.
Overview and Process
The Design Studio service is structured to support the Agile Action Strategy Process (AASP) by creating a dynamic, adaptable environment that fosters continuous improvement, accountability and alignment with organizational goals and societal impact. This service emphasizes the alignment of purpose and intention among individuals, calibrating teams to the standards of world-class top performers through a combination of non-negotiable design elements, adaptable practices and responsiveness to external changes.
Design Studio Process:
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Alignment of Purpose and Intention: The process begins with aligning individuals’ purposes and intentions to form cohesive teams with shared goals and values.
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Calibration to Top Performers: Design Studio benchmarks against world-class standards to establish a framework that teams can aspire to, ensuring alignment with high-performance models and best practices.
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Core Components - Healthy Culture & Execution-Based Accountability: Central to Design Studio is building a culture of health and accountability. The framework encompasses:
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Design Elements: Timeless, foundational components that are essential for long-term success. These elements provide stability in the face of change.
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Evolving Practices and Tools: Routine practices and tools that are continuously refined, allowing teams to adapt and improve iteratively.
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Environment, Regulation and Standards: The structure is responsive to external regulations, standards and environmental changes, ensuring compliance and adaptability.
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Action-Based Agreements: Teams establish clear, actionable commitments that drive execution. This focus on specific actions rather than rigid outcomes aligns with AASP’s execution-based accountability model, allowing for flexibility while ensuring progress.
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Outcomes and Impact: The framework enables teams to produce meaningful outcomes that connect to a broader societal impact. By linking team actions to this “Promise to Society & Impact,” the Design Studio reinforces purpose-driven work aligned with AASP’s emphasis on resilience, sustainability, and long-term focus.
Alignment with AASP
The Design Studio supports AASP by embedding agile principles into team processes, fostering intrinsic motivation and driving adaptability. By focusing on action-based accountability, continuous improvement and alignment with societal impact, Design Studio enables organizations to build resilient, high-performance cultures that are responsive to change. This alignment with AASP ensures that Design Studio participants are equipped to adapt to evolving demands while maintaining a commitment to excellence and organizational purpose.
Scope of Services
Starting Point: Team Formation and Calibration
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Team Formation: Assemble cross-functional teams of up to 15 members, forming cohesive units ready to collaborate.
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Team Calibration: Align teams with world-class top performers, setting high standards and shared understanding.
Iterative Design Sprints
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Five Time-Boxed Sessions: Conduct five iterative sessions, each lasting 4-6 hours, spaced 3-4 weeks apart. These sessions function like sprints in the AASP methodology, focusing on specific objectives within each iteration.
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Backlog Prioritization: Identify and prioritize design elements in a backlog, ensuring that the most critical practices are addressed first.
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Iteration Planning: At the start of each session, plan the goals and outcomes, aligning them with organizational objectives.
Focus on Core Elements Using AASP Methodology
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Design Elements: Identify timeless, non-negotiable practices essential for long-term success, akin to defining user stories that drive value.
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Adaptive Practices and Tools: Develop adaptable practices and tools that respond to changing environments, similar to refining the product backlog in agile processes.
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Environment, Regulation and Standards: Ensure responsiveness to external changes, aligning practices with current industry standards and compliance requirements.
Embedding Execution-Based Accountability
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Daily Stand-Ups and Check-Ins: Implement regular check-ins to maintain momentum and address impediments promptly, fostering transparency and accountability.
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Continuous Feedback Loops: Encourage open communication and feedback, essential for iterative improvement and alignment with AASP principles.
Ongoing Coaching and Retrospectives
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Coaching Support: Provide continuous coaching to support teams in applying and refining design elements, ensuring sustainable improvement.
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Retrospectives: At the end of each session, conduct retrospectives to reflect on what went well, what could be improved, and how to adapt moving forward.
Deliverables
Articulated Design Elements
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Starting Point for Continuous Iteration: Teams identify and document initial key design elements - timeless, non-negotiable practices that drive success. This process serves as a foundation, building the team's capacity to continue iterating and identifying additional elements over time. We initiate this journey, empowering teams to sustain and evolve these practices independently.
Codification Framework
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Develop a structured guide that simplifies the understanding and communication of design elements across the organization, much like creating a shared definition of done in agile teams.
Embedded Iterative Process -
Establish continuous improvement feedback loops, embedding an iterative approach into daily operations for ongoing refinement, mirroring the agile cycle of plan-do-check-act.
Action-Based Agreements
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Create actionable strategies derived from core elements, leading to specific outcomes aligned with the organization's mission. These are akin to sprint goals that keep the team focused on delivering value.
Learning and Reflection Documentation -
Compile insights, best practices, and lessons learned to serve as a resource for continuous refinement and alignment, similar to maintaining a knowledge base or wiki for agile teams.
Benefits
Real Estate
Education Institutions
Operational Consistency and Enhanced Client Experience
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Standardized Client Service: The Design Studio enables real estate firms to establish core, non-negotiable practices for client interactions, ensuring high-quality service across all agents and locations.
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Adaptability to Market Shifts: With built-in agility, teams can respond quickly to market changes, allowing them to adjust strategies and offerings based on real-time market demands.
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Operational Streamlining: By refining internal workflows, firms reduce transaction times, improve communication and enhance overall process efficiency.
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Unified Brand Culture Across Locations: Multi-branch firms benefit from a cohesive brand identity and operational standards, enhancing client trust and team alignment across offices.
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Innovation in Property Development: Teams are equipped to collaborate on innovative design approaches, creating properties that align with evolving client expectations and environmental standards.
Empowering Educational Institutions for Sustainable Impact
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Innovative Teaching and Learning: Educators and administrators collaborate to define and embed timeless teaching practices that drive engagement and improve learning outcomes.
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Cohesive and Inclusive School Culture: Core values and practices unify staff and students, fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for all.
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Empowered Leadership: School leaders gain the tools and frameworks needed to adapt to evolving educational standards and student needs while driving meaningful, ongoing improvements.
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Streamlined Operations for Student Success: Administrative workflows are optimized to reduce bureaucracy, making it easier for educators to focus on student needs.
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Community and Parent Engagement: Schools build practices for meaningful community engagement, fostering support from parents and the broader community.
Financial Services
Entertainment & Media
Enhanced Decision-Making and Comprehensive Risk & Opportunity Assessment
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Clarity in Decision-Making: The Design Studio helps teams develop practices that ensure clear, data-driven decision-making processes, reducing ambiguity and promoting accountability at all levels.
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360-Degree View of Risk and Opportunity: By embedding holistic assessment practices, financial services firms gain a comprehensive perspective on risks and opportunities, enabling proactive management and strategic growth.
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Agile Product Innovation: With iterative development practices, teams can swiftly adapt and innovate their offerings, staying competitive and responsive to market changes.
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Cross-Functional Coordination: The Design Studio fosters collaboration across departments (finance, risk, IT, client service), reducing silos and enhancing operational efficiency.
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Strengthening Client Trust: Teams establish foundational principles that prioritize transparency and long-term relationships, building trust with clients and stakeholders.
Improving Collaboration and Broadening Strategic Perspectives in a Rapidly Evolving Industry
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Cross-Functional Collaboration: The Design Studio enhances collaboration across creative, production, marketing and distribution teams, enabling a unified response to changes in audience behavior, new media channels and digital consumption trends.
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Reducing Unhealthy Biases in Decision-Making: The Design Studio cultivates balanced, inclusive decision-making practices that mitigate entrenched biases, ensuring objective, adaptive strategies as media becomes more personalized and audience-driven.
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Building an Agile Team Culture: Teams establish core values around adaptability and openness to change, which are critical in navigating emerging technologies, data-driven insights, and shifts toward decentralized content creation.
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Unified Brand Vision Across Evolving Platforms: As entertainment organizations expand to new platforms and digital channels, the Design Studio aligns teams around a cohesive brand vision, helping maintain consistency across diverse media landscapes.
Participant Feedback
These participant quotes showcase the challenges faced before the Design Studio process and the transformative, positive changes observed afterward.
Before the Design Studio Process
"We’re facing a lack of improvement and increased burnout among staff."
After the Design Studio Process
"We’ve witnessed transformative experiences; there’s renewed energy and positive changes."
"Leadership struggles with alignment and a clear path forward."
"We now have enhanced clarity, focus and a cohesive vision across staff and leadership."
"High turnover and a disconnected team culture are impacting our performance."
"We’ve shifted to a positive, engaged and connected culture with stronger team bonds."
"There’s frustration among teams; our current methods aren’t delivering results."
"We’ve seen marked improvements in collaboration, engagement and team morale."
"Our team members lack motivation and struggle with low productivity."
"We’ve noticed increased motivation, better attendance and improved productivity."
"Despite various initiatives, progress has been stagnant."
"We’re experiencing significant positive shifts in our culture, effectiveness, and outcomes."