Approaching the uncertainty of the foreseeable future, a design-led approach enables targeted exploration that surfaces value creation opportunities in a novel context and establishes early alignment, buy-in, and collaboration. It can help you place informed bets on where to focus as the near-term future comes into view—enabling you to adapt as you learn more each day. And by illuminating opportunity amid uncertainty, it positions you to adopt a positive, proactive posture in approaching what might otherwise feel like a foreboding future. In this e-book, we explore how design thinking can help you understand the impact of anticipatory trends in your organization’s unique context. Powered by the principles of design thinking, our Rapid Innovation approach can help you pinpoint near-term future opportunities in the context of your organization’s strategic aspirations.
Rapid Innovation: Crafting a Design-Led Strategy

Nick Varney
Nick is a Master Practitioner in North Highland’s Experience Design capability. He has over 12 years of experience leading customer experience transformation, service design, and marketing initiatives for clients across industries including retail and healthcare.

Heather Balkema
Heather is a Master Practitioner in North Highland’s Experience Design capability. She is a dynamic leader with the ability to motivate and inspire teams to deliver customer-centric programs that drive brand equity and sales. Heather has over 20 years of experience in marketing strategy, advertising, and experience design across a variety of leading consumer and B2B brands.

John Cornwell
John is a Principal in North Highland’s Strategy practice. He has 20 years of experience designing and operationalizing growth strategies. Specific areas of his expertise include strategic planning, advising and coaching executive teams, product and market diversification, go-to-market planning, partnering strategies, new business models, service and technology licensing, and mobile initiatives.

Andy Trebilcock
Andy has over nine years of experience leading employee engagement, communications, and leadership alignment projects. He is an expert in mobilizing transformation programs and helping organizations clarify direction and vision. In the last few years of his career, Andy has focused on telecommunications, working across UK and US businesses.