Strategic Design

At mendesaltaren, we understand strategic design as the synergy between innovation, strategy, and systemic thinking. Our goal is to understand the “why” of companies in order to create the “how” that allows them to achieve their objectives, without being constrained by static frameworks or requests of clients.

We believe that the role of designers is to connect organizations and users through a people-centered approach that takes context into account. This goes beyond just creating products; it extends to the entire work process. By applying a holistic vision, it’s possible to discover new opportunities to integrate design, which can be leveraged to improve product ecosystems and create new initiatives. In other words, we transform the process into a space for continuous learning, where we iteratively refine both methods and objectives.

As designers, we strive to shape and adapt strategies while solving problems. At the studio, we approach this holistically, combining various perspectives—from system thinking and future-thinking approaches, research, facilitation, and collaboration, to synthetic and visual thinking, design for structural change, and an experimental attitude that drives innovation.

1. Kickoff with the Client

Just like in the project preparation phase, it's essential to hold an initial project kickoff meeting with the client. This meeting is key to laying a strong foundation for the process. During this meeting, we explain to the client the approach we will take for the project, define the roles of the various stakeholders, set overall expectations for the project, and establish the methodology and communication framework. A well-structured kickoff meeting sets the stage for a smooth and effective collaboration.

A typical kickoff agenda might follow this structure:

1. Introduction of the teams involved
2. Client presentation of the challenge; to guide the conversation, we can use questions such as: What are the organization's most crucial objectives? Why? How will those objectives be measured? What obstacles might arise? What resources are at our disposal?
3. Presentation of the project's scope and timeline
4. Definition of communication tools and methodologies to be used
5. Request for necessary resources to begin
6. Discussion of potential setbacks and identification of decision-makers for those issues
   

2.Research & Problem Understanding

The understanding phase is arguably the most important part of the process, whether it’s for product design, branding, or other services. Gaining a deep understanding of the business, its current situation, and its ideal state is what allows us to clearly and accurately define the problem that needs to be solved.

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Internal Research

To define the company’s current situation, we need to gather essential data about the business and analyze the areas that directly impact the development of its digital ecosystem:

• Company history and current status
• Organizational structure and culture
• Current analysis and resources of their product or service
• Goals and expected outcomes
• Industry analysis
• Problems, challenges, and limitations
• Partners and decision-makers

In doing so, we will focus on the following aspects of the organization:

Capabilities: What is their internal potential? What technological and human resources do they have to design and develop digital ecosystems? Evaluating these capabilities will allow us to understand the limitations and advantages that will influence strategic decision-making.

Skills: The knowledge and competencies of the internal teams are key for assigning tasks appropriately. By understanding the specific skills of each team member, we can allocate tasks efficiently and ensure the best possible outcome.

Competencies: Identifying where the company’s expertise lies is crucial to standing out in the market and analyzing the value proposition. We assess whether they specialize in a particular area and how this aligns with the users' needs.

Strengths and Weaknesses: An honest analysis of the company will help us understand the areas where it excels and those that need improvement. This will allow us to create competitive advantages and turn areas of improvement into opportunities.

Resources: In addition to human and technological resources, we need to understand the financial and logistical resources to ensure the design team has what it needs to meet the established objectives.

Stakeholders: Identifying and understanding stakeholders is key to gaining a comprehensive view of the company’s operating environment. This includes clients, employees, investors, business partners, and other relevant actors.

To support this, we use the following tools:

1. Brand, service, product, and/or data audits: Through this tool, our goal is to analyze the current state of the company and its service/product in detail to evaluate and create a precise diagnosis. With this, we aim to:
   • Gain knowledge and an assessment of the current state
   • Identify what is working and what isn’t
   • Understand friction points and conduct a risk analysis
2. Stakeholder interviews: Based on the information previously collected, we begin interviewing teams from different departments. We create a tailored script for each stakeholder, with a common foundation but aimed at the specific needs of each department. In these conversations, we seek to align and gather insights from each person, focusing on business-oriented questions as well as departmental particularities. These interviews help us assess the alignment of each team.
3. Alignment workshops: In these sessions, we use various tools adapted to the needs, such as the Product/Business Canvas, which helps us identify users' unmet needs and turn them into a value proposition, or PIPI (Position, Identity, Perception, and Intention), where we analyze brand identity through the organization's self-perception—who we are, where we are, and where we want to go.

External Research

Once we’ve formed a hypothesis about the current state, we move on to investigating the environment, the industry, and the company’s perception to gather market best practices, find new connections, and explore different narratives. We approach this from two perspectives:

Desk Analysis: This approach allows us to gather information from resources such as studies, research, or published materials. On one hand, we conduct competitive and sector benchmarks to identify trends and opportunities. On the other hand, we research the market and perform trend or futures analysis using observation, previous studies, or trend reports.

Immersive Analysis: While data can provide valuable insights, it’s crucial to always interpret it within its context. Having data analysis departments can enrich our perspective, but raw quantitative and qualitative data alone won't give us the full picture. It's essential to combine data with the observation of behaviors and other key factors to achieve a more complete and in-depth understanding of each project.

• Surveys: We use these in phases of gathering, research, or evaluation to collect both quantitative and qualitative information, depending on how they are designed and our objectives.
• Interviews: These help us gather qualitative information. Since they rely on direct communication with the participant, in-depth interviews allow us to collect a wide range of information about past behaviors, attitudes, and insights.
• Shadowing: Observing users as they interact with the product enables us to extract highly valuable information with fewer biases.

Clustering and Synthesis

In the clustering phase, we group the data and insights about users, the business, and the products collected during the internal and external research phases to visualize connections and common themes. This helps us better understand user needs and problems. From there, we synthesize actionable insights for the design process, transforming a large volume of data into manageable, practical information.

Some of the artifacts for this phase are:

• User Personas or Archetypes: These help us understand and represent the target users.
• User Journey Map: To better comprehend users' needs, expectations, and behaviors throughout their interaction.
• Blueprints: Detailed diagrams that show the relationship between different components of a service or product.
• Empathy Maps: Used to visualize and analyze users' experiences and emotions.
• Trends: Analysis and prediction of patterns from desk research that may influence product design and strategy.
• Scenario Creation: Future narratives that help us understand how users, the market, and technology might evolve.
• Findings Report: A summary document of key insights, takeaways, and recommendations derived from the clustering and synthesis process.

Problem Definition

Based on the data and insights gathered about users and their needs, we propose a problem hypothesis that defines its scope and acts as a guide for the rest of the process. The proposed solutions should help validate, investigate, and deepen the understanding of users' needs, behaviors, and motivations.

This definition should include who experiences the problem, what the problem is and in what context it occurs, why solving it is important, and what the desired outcomes are. The formulation should be broad enough to avoid limiting ideation, yet specific enough to set the right direction, and written in clear language that anyone can understand.

A precisely articulated problem definition enables the identification of obstacles, the discovery of opportunities, and the alignment of stakeholders toward solving a common problem.

3. Solution Ideation & Definition

Once the problem is understood, we begin defining product features that address the user’s needs. In this phase, we prioritize quantity over quality, allowing us to explore ideas beyond the “obvious solution.”

1. Ideation

Building on the insights from the understanding phase, this stage involves generating ideas to solve the identified problems while aligning with the organization's strategic objectives.

To do this, we use tools that help us analyze and prioritize opportunities:

• ‍Co-creation Workshops: Through collaborative methodologies and in an open environment, these creative sessions involve the team members and stakeholders to explore ideas that respond to user needs.

• SCAMPER Sessions: SCAMPER stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, and Rearrange. In these sessions, we guide participants to explore new variations of an initial idea. It’s particularly useful for overcoming creative blocks and for refining and expanding on ideas in development.
• Prioritization Sessions: Methods like prioritization matrices or impact vs. effort analysis help us classify ideas based on their relevance, feasibility, impact, and alignment with objectives, focusing resources on ideas with the most potential.

2. Definition

Based on user experiences and business input, in this phase we define the product’s architecture, structure, and functionalities.
The phases we use are:

• Information Architecture: Describes how information is grouped, navigated, and labeled, particularly for digital products. It’s useful both in auditing an existing product and when creating a new version. The goal is to understand the current foundation, diagnose key content, and ensure that secondary aspects like FAQs and cookies don’t get overlooked.
• Flow Diagrams: These are used to represent processes and logic in projects with complex functionalities, where we need to detail the process before diving into specifics. Flow diagrams help break down the problem into manageable parts, providing a holistic view of the process for client validation.
• Wireframes: Schematics representing the structure of a product or its components. The goal is to define navigation, content blocks, and the positioning and functionality of components, without yet considering aesthetics. We differentiate between two types:
  • Lo-fi: Simple starting points for designers to translate the value proposition into design. These are minimalist block representations that validate section modules and their relationships quickly.
  • Hi-fi: An evolution of the lo-fi version, where we start to see how each module and component functions. We aim to validate product functionality before focusing on visual aspects.
• User Stories: These are brief, clear descriptions of what the user wants to achieve with a functionality, oriented around user needs and experiences. A typical user story follows this structure: “As a [user type], I want [action or feature] to [achieve some benefit or outcome].” This format helps clearly define who the user is, what they need, and why.

3. Production

The creation phase is where all the research and ideation work around the product or service becomes tangible. From product definition to design, and even to the definition of a launch strategy outlined in a Go To Market plan. We will go into more detail about this part of the process later.

4. Go to Market: Launch Strategy

The final phase is the Go To Market (GTM) strategy, which outlines how to launch, promote, and distribute the digital product. While the goal of a new product is usually to drive conversions—whether in downloads, sign-ups, or purchases—achieving this first requires generating visibility, or awareness. Therefore, most actions will be oriented toward this goal.

Although a GTM strategy is typically developed by the marketing team, it's recommended that the product team, who knows the problem best, be involved. Sometimes it’s even better to have the marketing person integrated into the product team to gain a deeper understanding from the start.

GTM is an exercise in experimentation to discover which actions work best. Alongside leveraging our previous experience and industry knowledge, we always recommend testing new channels and thinking outside the box.

1. Go to Market Considerations

The specific characteristics of a product can greatly influence the GTM approach:

• Product Type: The user approach will vary significantly if the product solves a problem versus merely seizing an opportunity.
• Maturity: The intensity and channels will change depending on whether the product is in an embryonic or mature phase.
• Business Appetite: Depending on the importance of the problem and confidence in the solution, we will invest varying amounts of money and resources.
• Timeline: Deadlines, whether imposed by legal requirements or technical constraints, will dictate the intensity and scale of the GTM.

2. Go to Market Composition

Some aspects of the GTM, like user personas or market studies, will have already been defined in earlier phases, while others will be explored for the first time.

• ‍User and Target Market Selection: Based on the needs and characteristics of potential customers, we must identify the most appropriate market segments for our product and define indicators such as Total Addressable Market (TAM), Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM), and Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM). These are dynamic markers that can be adjusted as we learn more during the process.

• Value Proposition Definition: To communicate the benefits and advantages of our product clearly, it's essential to understand the problems it solves and how it adds value. This aspect will already be defined from the ideation phase, but we can update it as we learn from user interactions.
• Distribution or Sales Channels: While this may seem obvious, we should optimize how users access the product. If our product is an app downloadable from the App Store, can we facilitate access through other channels? Does it link to the download from our website? Can we establish agreements with third-party platforms to enhance accessibility?
• Pricing: To establish the appropriate price for our product, we can consider the following questions:

• Promotion and Marketing Strategy: Actions to raise awareness of the product can range from brand creation to planning marketing initiatives and selecting communication strategies. This may include advertising in media outlets, hosting events, investing in SEO and SEM, content creation, and sponsorships.
• Product Development and Launch Roadmap: To maximize the effectiveness of each action and investment in the GTM, we must ensure that production, launch, and promotion are coordinated. Although the GTM is generally created for a finished product, under our product mindset, it is worthwhile to develop a minimal version of the GTM when we have a trusted MVP that needs validation.