Outcome-driven veteran facilitator
I’m a design method magician who wears a bat belt of dozens of collaborative, goal-driven activities. I plan, lead, and document design-led sessions with the ease borne of thousands of hours of experience. I help teams get better results from their time together, whether that’s for a sensemaking workshop, a Design Sprint, a standup, or a brainstorming confab. Long experience as an actor let me think on my feet, smoothly pivoting when necessary, and creating collaborative, playful arenas where participants do their best work. I help others to be more empathetic, more questioning, more collaborative, more imaginative, and more iterative. And in doing so, I facilitate the transformation of participants to collaborators, of skeptics to believers, of stakeholders into co-creators and champions.
Case studies
City of Tianjin, China
Melbourne, Australia
In 2016 in Melbourne, Australia, I designed and delivered a five-day Design Sprint with the Tianjin Mayor, members of his office, and select other top-level Tianjin government and policy leaders. Our aim: to help establish effective, equitable and innovative new policies and institutional mechanisms for that rapidly growing port city. This involved bringing public administrators outside their office, confronting them with real-life situations; and helping them directly grasp users’ challenges and expectations.
Portland General Electric
Portland, OR
In 2019 I led the creation of PGE’s new overarching mission and vision statements by designing and leading a day-long co-creative workshop for 40 senior leaders from across every major business unit.
Shepparton Municipal Court
Shepparton, Australia
Co-led a two-day workshop in Victoria, Australia, with members of the State Supreme Court and County and Magistrates Courts. Our objective: to examine court-related service touchpoints in the current Shepparton Municipal Court bulding in preparation for the construction of a new multimillion-dollar courthouse facility — and to explore what a judicial system that prioritised users over processes might look like.
Masa
Portland, OR
Designed and led a five-day GV-style Design Sprint for Masa, a Portland-based food startup aimed at connecting local farmers and boutique vendors directly with customers via a b2c marketplace around regenerative and sustainable farming. Our aim: to determine a final value proposition and business model. Masa now has over 1,000 customers and nearly 100 vendors using its platform across metro Portland. In 2020, Masa advanced to the final round of the Bend Venture Conference and won the Early Stage Audience Award. In early 2021 they cleared their first $100K in net revenue and notched a $25K investment from the Beaverton Startup Challenge group.