Your client may not have the needed design maturity to understand what you are doing so the work you do can be used well. Your time with them may be limited, and they need skills transferred to their people so the project can continue in your absence. Maybe the engagement is to actually build design capability into the client. Offering development of a level of design capability as a part of your pitch can be a game-changer. It also makes you a better designer when you get to do it. For Stephen Collins and his studio, acidlabs, most engagements include building design capability as part of the gig. Come and let's discuss what that's like.

1. Building design capability
in every client
Stephen Collins
Founder - acidlabs
@trib
Photo by Austin Ban on Unsplash
Managing Design 2018

2. Photo by Bing Han on Unsplash
“Hi, I’m Stephen.
My job is being curious
about the world.”

3. Photo by Manoj Karingamadathil on Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
“I solve difficult problems
for a living.”

4. Design?

5. Design!

6. Most of our engagements are one or two
designers embedded with a client team for
4-12 weeks
Photo by Pierre Châtel-Innocenti on Unsplash

7. For many of our clients,
design is very new
Photo by Christian Joudrey on Unsplash

8. They often work with well-defined project methodologies… that
they are very unfamiliar with

9. They are often
hungry to learn

10. Design is a
team sport
Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

11. How might we
go about doing this?
Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash

12. There’s a lot of just designing

13. Plenty of show-and-tell
This is Nat, one of our designers

14. There’s a lot of
getting them to try things

15. Of walking people through things
Here’s Nat again

16. Of building tools for them

17. Doing this breaks momentum,
but embeds learning
and rewards curiosity
Photo by Andreas Fidler on Unsplash

18. Coach for the long game
Image courtesy NBC

19. Do you want to see
what it looks like IRL?
Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

20. Week 1
You’ve got to run before you can walk
Photo by Joseph Rosales on Unsplash

21. Week 2
The calm before the storm
Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash

22. Week 3 and 4
Road trip!

23. Week 5
So. Many. Post-its…
Photo by Ferenc Horvath on Unsplash

24. Week 6
Moments of clarity
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

25. Week 7
Forest, meet trees
Photo by Stefan Steinbauer on Unsplash

26. Week 8
What else?
Photo by Sam Mgrdichian on Unsplash

27. Today?
Photo by Curtis MacNewton on Unsplash

28. Why would you do this?
Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash

29. Thank you.
This is me
trib@acidlabs.design
@trib
This is us
hello@acidlabs.design
@acidlabs
https://acidlabs.design/