1.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
Strategic Design Methods
for Business Impact
Dec 2021
Angel Brown
GROUP DIRECTOR EXPERIENCE STRATEGY
DIGITAS HEALTH
@angelbrownuk
Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash.com

2.
HELLO
A few words about me and my
journey from pure UX into
Experience Strategy and the work I
do at Digitas Health

3.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
How to maximise the power of our skillset by
championing design methods in a way that will make
business people hear you, believe you…
WHAT THIS TALK IS ABOUT

4.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
How to maximise the power of our skillset by
championing design methods in a way that will make
business people hear you, believe you…
And most importantly, get excited about what
you have to say
WHAT THIS TALK IS ABOUT

5.
LET’S CONSIDER THE C-SUITE

6.
THE BOARD
Mike Roberts Sarah Bell-Thompson Paul Reynauld
Drew Cummings
Paul Braverley
Tom Chester
Robert Jones
Alec Hadley
Anthony Brice

7.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
THE BOARD BRAIN DOESN’T SEE THE
COMPLEXITY WE DO
DESIGN THINKING BUSINESS THINKING
Abductive
thinking
UNDERSTAND PROBLEM SOLUTION UNDERSTAND SOLUTION
https://www.toptal.com/designers/product-design/design-thinking-business-value

8.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
THE BOARD BRAIN DOESN’T SEE THE
COMPLEXITY WE DO
BUSINESS THINKING
UNDERSTAND SOLUTION
DESIGN THINKING
Abductive
thinking
UNDERSTAND PROBLEM SOLUTION
https://www.toptal.com/designers/product-design/design-thinking-business-value

9.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
WE USE A SPECIAL TYPE OF REASONING
Deductive reasoning, or deduction, is making an inference based on widely
accepted facts or premises. If a beverage is defined as "drinkable through a
straw," one could use deduction to determine soup to be a beverage.
Inductive reasoning, or induction, is making an inference based on an
observation, often of a sample. You can induce that the soup is tasty if you
observe all of your friends consuming it.
Abductive reasoning, or abduction, is making a probable conclusion from
what you know. If you see an abandoned bowl of hot soup on the table, you
can use abduction to conclude the owner of the soup is likely to return soon.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deduction

10.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
USER/HUMAN CENTRED
DESIGN
CO-DESIGN
DESIGN THINKING
INNOVATION
DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
DESIGN THINKING
OUR WORDS THEIR WORDS

11.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
INNOVATION
DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
DESIGN THINKING
OUR WORDS THEIR WORDS
USER/HUMAN CENTRED
DESIGN
CO-DESIGN
DESIGN THINKING

12.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
HOW DO YOU PLAY IT?
Secret knowledge of the design
thinker priesthood Size them up and meet them half way
Photo by Nick Karvounis on Unsplash.com Photo by Bundo Kim on Unsplash.com

13.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
FIRST PRINCIPLES – OUR DOMAIN
Design Research
Synthesis
Ideating +
Prototyping
Feedback
Piloting
Evaluation
https://globalwa.org/2018/04/how-ideos-design-thinking-methodology-supports-innovative-solutions-to-global-challenges/

14.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
FIRST PRINCIPLES – OUR DOMAIN
Design Research
Synthesis
Ideating +
Prototyping
Feedback
Piloting
Evaluation
https://globalwa.org/2018/04/how-ideos-design-thinking-methodology-supports-innovative-solutions-to-global-challenges/
Visioning

15.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
DESIGN THINKING
VISIONING

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2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
PROBLEM FRAMING
IDEATION
VISION
MISSION
OUR WORDS THEIR WORDS
HOW WE WE BUILD A SHARED SENSE OF
PURPOSE?

17.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
A COUPLE OF USEFUL METHODS
Predict next year’s headlines
Gamestorming: Cover story
ACTIVITY 1
ACTIVITY 1
ACTIVITY 1
ACTIVITY 1

18.
DESIGN RESEARCH

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2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
CUSTOMER-CENTRIC
CO-DESIGN
AFFINITY
DIAGRAMMING
EMPATHY MAPS ETC
CUSTOMER-CENTRIC
MARKET NEED
UNMET NEED
OPPORTUNITY
OUR WORDS THEIR WORDS
HOW DO WE WE BUILD DESIRE FOR A RESEARCH-
LED APPROACH?

20.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
CUSTOMER-CENTRIC
CO-DESIGN
AFFINITY
DIAGRAMMING
EMPATHY MAPS ETC
CUSTOMER-CENTRIC
MARKET NEED
UNMET NEED
OPPORTUNITY
OUR WORDS THEIR WORDS
HOW DO WE WE BUILD DESIRE FOR A RESEARCH-
LED APPROACH?

21.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
BEHAVIOURAL
INSIGHTS
DECLARATIVE
INSIGHTS
Secondary research
(GWI)
Qual, IDIs, Focus
groups, surveys etc
Real World Data
Social media (Instagram,
Twitter, TikTok, Facebook,
YouTube…)
Search
Site (client owned websites)
CRM (client owned email effort)
DATA SOURCES
DATA SOURCES
DECLARATIVE INSIGHTS CAN ONLY GET YOU SO FAR
We leverage the insights that describe real behaviours,
not just what our audiences say they do

22.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
NEW METHODS GRAB ATTENTION

23.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
DESIGN THINKING
SYNTHESIS

24.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
DESIREABILITY, FEASIBILITY,
VIABILITY
PRODUCT CANVAS
SERVICE BLUEPRINT
STRATEGY
STRATEGIC
IMPERATIVES
OUR WORDS THEIR WORDS
HOW DO WE TALK ABOUT WHAT WE ARE GOING
TO DO?

25.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
PERSONAS ARE LIKE MARMITE
Still a controversial topic
“Old fashioned”
Don’t realise the unique
role they have
“DESIGN PERSONA”
Use up front and then
throw in the drawer
Use archetype/profile
instead (when
challenged)
Ophthalmologist
PERSONA: SPECIALIST

26.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
QUANT GIVES US DATA POINTS TO SHIFT
Quantitative insights
Provide us with the hard data
points that we can use to track a
shift in the needle
• Prescribes a low percentage of
latest intraocular lenses
• Only uses them for cases where
patient has failed on the
standard
• Does not use a digital scanner
to scan the eye
• Engages on digital comms
occasionally
• Attends educational days
sporadically
Ophthalmologist
PERSONA: SPECIALIST

27.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
QUAL HELPS US WITH HOW
Qualitative insights
Provide us with deep insights to
enable us to design compelling
experiences
+
• Has trouble getting patients to
go for the more expensive
option
• Doesn’t see the value beyond
the standard
• The digital scanner doesn’t work
with the rest of her workflow
• Works with the competitor
normally but sometimes sees
something interesting from the
company across digital and
events
Quantitative insights
Provide us with the hard data
points that we can use to track a
shift in the needle
• Prescribes a low percentage of
latest intraocular lenses
• Only uses them for cases where
patient has failed on the
standard
• Does not use a digital scanner
to scan the eye
• Engages on digital comms
occasionally
• Attends educational days
sporadically
Ophthalmologist
PERSONA: SPECIALIST

28.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
THE STRATEGIC NARRATIVE
Example 1:
A BETTER EPIPEN
Example 2:
HYBRID SERVICES
Strategic narratives are a form of storytelling, and
like all good stories, they need a compelling plot,
characters, a climax, and a conclusion.
Photo by Marcel Smits on Unsplash.com

29.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
HERO’S JOURNEY
- Joseph Campbell 1949 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Photo by Dino Reichmuth on Unsplash.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey#/media/File:Heroesjourney.svg

30.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
THE EPIPEN STRATEGIC NARRATIVE
The EpiPen has been around for decades, but it’s terrible. The product is huge to
carry around, it goes out of date every year, the design is so bad that many users
inject their thumbs rather than their thighs. And it’s recently become very expensive.
10 million people globally are prescribed EpiPens.
They are so expensive and bulky that deaths occur, many of them children. Lots of
defects.
Our new product X with its slim and intuitive design and longer shelf life meets the
needs for an affordable but portable and easy to use product. Two other products are
also in the works but ours will better meet the needs.
Our estimates show that if we can be first to market and corner just 25% of the
market in the UK for an early launch, we can disrupt a stagnant category and take a
significant share.
What is the problem?
What can we do to
change it?
Who does it affect and how
many of them are there?
Why should we care? (go for
empathy and create drama)
How can it lead to growth?

31.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
POSITIONING STATEMENT
Contribution to
medicine
Pathway
transformational
benefit
Emotional benefit
Patient profile
Differentiating
attributes
The better
EpiPen is…
For
what
to
and
because
so that Overall outcome
All patients who are at risk from an
anaphylactic reaction due to allergies
An auto-injectable device that
delivers the drug epinephrine.
Provide a life-saving medication when
experiencing a severe allergic
reaction/anaphylaxis
Give patients peace of mind wherever
they are
The slim design and storage benefits are
easy to carry around
Patients have a lower risk of
hospitalization and death

32.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
4
INTEGRATED
VISUALISE THE TRANSFORMATION AS A ROADMAP
Transactional Meaningful
3
BEHAVIOURAL
2
EXPLICIT
1
MANUAL
5
AI DRIVEN
Focus
Level
Anticipatory Integrated and Orchestrated
Offline
Emerging
State
Future
State
Rep makes manual
choices
Little data captured
User-driven
User selects preferences
Basic segmentation
No digital infrastructure Discrete personalisation
mechanisms
Platform-specific/third-
party reporting
Centralised customer graph
External data sources
Journey orchestration
Data lake/warehouse
Technology
& data
Customer feels the system responds and
predicts their every need
User experience driven
by past or lookalike
behaviours
Strategy &
content
effort
Limited algorithms/data
driven segmentation
Single experience focus
Increasing levels of data
Analytics
Current
State

33.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
OUR TOOLS THEIR TOOLS
WE CAN’T USE COMPLEX DELIVERABLES

34.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
AIM TO SIMPLIFY AND BE MORE CONCEPTUAL
Searching for
symptoms
Searching for
disease/condition
related information
Requests
rep visit
Searching for
treatment options
F2F, telephone
(given telephone number etc.)
Digital
(e.g. search or content-triggered)
KEY
Dermatologist
Low awareness of OTC
CONSIDERATION
Tests
MONITOR
TREAT
ADVOCACY
AWARENESS
Searching for info on
side effects
Maintenance visits

35.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
DESIGN THINKING
PROTOTYPING

36.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
ITERATIVE DESIGN
PROTOTYPE
ORGANISATIONAL
AGILITY
FAIL FAST
OUR WORDS THEIR WORDS
TRANSLATION BETWEEN TWO LANGUAGES

37.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
What do we want to know
about our patient
population?
What actions do we want to
take with that information?
What do we want to affect
with those actions?
If I only knew ______________
(data/insight)
then I would _______________
(activation)
so I could affect ____________
(measurement)
“
Exercise: 10 Minutes
ONE SIMPLE STATEMENT

38.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
PRIORITISE HIGH-VALUE KNOW/DOS AS KEY
BUSINESS QUESTIONS
https://hbr.org/2020/02/use-data-to-answer-your-key-business-questions
PIPE DREAMS
Highly ambitious but difficult
HIGH VALUE
Need to haves from a strategic
perspective
INCREMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS
Easy wins
CURIOSITIES
Interesting but of
questionable value

39.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
FROM MARKET ENGAGEMENT HYPOTHESIS TO
PRETOTYPE
Alberto Savoia – ‘The Right It’ (2019)
https://www.albertosavoia.com/
Pretotype canvas
https://www.albertosavoia.com/uploads/1/4/0/9/14099067/pretotyping_planning_canvas_by_chris_callaghan.pdf

40.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
DESIGN THINKING
PILOTING AND EVALUATION
EXPERIMENT

41.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
TYPES OF EXPERIMENTS
Pinocchio
Create a non-operational version of
your product and use your
imagination to pretend that it
actually works to see if and how
you would use it.
Offer a prototype version of your
product or service on a very limited
basis to see if there is any interest
before making any long-term
commitments
One-night stand

42.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
THE PILOT AND THE EVALUATION IS THE EXPERIMENT
Design
personalised
creative
sequence
1

43.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
THE PILOT AND THE EVALUATION IS THE EXPERIMENT
Design
personalised
creative
sequence
Media team say
the “AI will
manage it all”
1 2

44.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
THE PILOT AND THE EVALUATION IS THE EXPERIMENT
Design
personalised
creative
sequence
Certain
creatives ‘win’
– not the ones
you expected
1 2 3
Media team say
the “AI will
manage it all”

45.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
THE PILOT AND THE EVALUATION IS THE EXPERIMENT
Design
personalised
creative
sequence
What kind of
creative do
you do next?
1 2 3 ?
Certain
creatives ‘win’
– not the ones
you expected
Media team say
the “AI will
manage it all”

46.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
RESEARCH
YOU ARE PART OF THE EXPERIENCE

47.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
DON’T UNDERESTIMATE CHEMISTRY
No matter how clever your
models, no matter how intriguing
your buzzwords, to gain influence
you must appear to be someone
who the C-suite thinks is worth
telling their needs.

48.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
SUMMARY
Treat business people like
users and use your methods
to understand their needs

49.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
SUMMARY
Ensure you align on the
vision up front before you
dive into research

50.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
SUMMARY
Combine declarative insights
with behavioural insights that
will define what you will
measure over time

51.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
SUMMARY
Instead of complex
deliverables, use a strategic
narrative and simple tools
(support with key data
points)

52.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
SUMMARY
Combine the ideas of
prototyping, piloting and
evaluation into hypotheses
and design experiments

53.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
SUMMARY
Test in the wild and be
ready to pivot and flex your
abductive powers

54.
2021 Digitas Health - Confidential
SUMMARY
Remember, our job is to find
the simple in the complex.
Simplicity is complexity resolved.
- Constantin Brancusi

55.
THANK YOU