As designers, we often intuitively use a process that has been honed and personalised to us over time, through practice. While this process is known, trusted and delivers, we don’t always have time to reflect and practice alternative, newer design tools and approaches.

Over one and a half days, Trevor Vaugh and Martin Ryan from actionable will take participants through a full cycle of their approach to design-led innovation.

Drawing from the methods of Design, Design Thinking, Anthropology and Strategy, participants of this workshop, through a real project, will get to practice relevant tools in each phase – from identifying a strategic direction, through to constructing insights and validating concept assumptions. Working in teams, participants will be set a relevant social or organisational challenge, and be guided through every stage from problem to proposition.

DAY ONE 0900-1700

An Introduction to Design led innovation and people-centred research
Learn how to strategically prioritise opportunities for innovation and conduct user-centered research.

Setting Strategic Priorities
Before you start an innovation project you must first establish a broad direction with a big opportunity. You will be introduced to a number of simple but very effective ways to inform the strategic direction

Identifying users and their needs
Ask the right questions of the right people and understand who to prioritise. Learn how to observe and capture user and customer behaviours.
Learn how to extract patterns and construct actionable insights from your research findings.
Preparing for ideation
Extract and decode insights that align with your strategy. Craft a document that promotes creative idea generation.
Brainstorming
An introduction to best practice methodologies.

DAY TWO 0900-1300

Refining Concepts
Construct a complete solution and wrap in a business model
Troubleshooting your concepts
Every solution has implicit assumptions. Establish risks and test against market realities to predict the likely success or failure of the innovation.
Field testing your concepts
Here we share methodologies of simple prototyping and experiments to assess the core value proposition. You’ll learn how to create experiments for different categories of innovation, product, (digital & physical), process, service or business model.

About The Trainers

actionable are an insight-led innovation, strategy & change consultancy. They help leaders overcome barriers to growth, create new value, develop innovation talent and build ambitious but realistic visions. Their clients come from Corporations to Governments, SME’e, Educational institutions and Startups.

Trevor Vaugh

As well as a partner at actionable, Trevor is a member of design faculty at Maynooth University and the programme director of the award-winning MSc in Design Innovation. Over his 15 year design and innovation career, Trevor has helped develop strategy, products, and concepts for international clients like ASC, Olympus, J&J, Heineken, Covidien, and Crate&Barrel. He has accumulated a portfolio of over 50 patents, invented new product categories and has helped disrupt markets. His work on single site surgery saw it named in the Cleveland clinic’s top 10 innovations of 2009.

Martin Ryan

He is also a founding partner at actionable, and is a multi-award winning designer and entrepreneur. He is a member of faculty at the Department of Design Innovation at Maynooth University and programme director for the BSc. in Product Design. In 2012 Martin founded BUA saddles – A revolutionary Equestrian saddle which he conceived and developed to improve performance and comfort for horse and rider. Bua saddles launched its first product to market in 2015, quickly establishing a loyal customer base in 15 countries. Martin has held a number of design consultant roles across various industries including homeware, industrial and consumer electronics.