The Design Gym is a small but mighty innovation consultancy that promotes human-centered design through public workshops and client collaborations running anywhere from two days to two years. Founded in 2012 and based out of New York City, The Design Gym’s mission is to bring humanity back to the workplace. Starting as a side project for the co-founders, it eventually evolved into a multi-layered business that attracts fortune 500 companies such as MetLife, Facebook, Pfizer, Cisco, Capital One, and New York Life Insurance.

My primary role at The Design Gym was to organize, craft, and facilitate all public-facing open-enrollment programs. However, I frequently supported corporate consulting projects by facilitating trainings at the companies previously mentioned. I also spearheaded consumer ethnography to better understand our customer’s work lives and inform the company’s future strategies.

At the onset of my two years at the organization, I was tasked with having to “reinvent” the public-facing segment of the business. I kicked-off this initiative by partnering with Jane Garcia-Buhks of the marketing team to conduct in-depth qualitative and quantitative research that would help the organization better understand its customer base and identify the most significant opportunities for change. We went about the rigorous process of developing discussion guides, interviewing mid- to executive-level professionals in context, recording these sessions, and having them transcribed before moving into synthesizing the qualitative data. 

Our job was to understand the perspective of our customers and clients, and then disseminate what we’ve learned across the organization. In this scenario, we chose to create user personas to express and summarize who we are designing for (see this blog post I wrote for more on user personas). To produce these user personas, we first had to reflect on the interviews and carefully read the transcriptions to find interesting quotes and stories that were worth further discussion. Using post-its and digital whiteboards, we then sorted the data points looking for patterns and tensions. Our last step before assembling the personas was formulating useful insights by asking ourselves what allows these professionals to thrive at work, and what makes them different?

From this primary research, we arrived at three unique user personas that gave insight into our customer base: Stevie, the stealthy unicorn; Luis, the relationship builder; and Olivia, the get-shit-done visionary. We used the umbrella term “rebels with a cause” for representing these personalities. This ethnographic research was presented to the organization at large and are frequently referred to by employees when developing new service offerings.

Project Stats

Project Results

Workshop Design & Facilitation

The professional development programs and learning experiences I ran at The Design Gym helped working professionals build capacity for solving problems creatively, leading with intention, and shifting their organization’s culture over the long term. Having identified business leaders who are rebellious in nature as our target audience, I worked closely with Reilly Carpenter, former director of strategy and culture change, to build upon the company’s existing programs and add new ones that would extend business leader’s learning journey with us. New offerings vary in time commitment, pricing, and subject matter. However, all were designed with the overarching goal of helping individuals innovate their business in such a way that considered all constituents, and not just their shareholders or end-users.  

 2018-2020 Programming Statistics

In-Person Programs

Design Thinking Bootcamp

One-day workshops designed for individuals and small teams wanting to generate world-improving ideas that are original and inspired by the needs of the people they’re designing for. Attendees are exposed to 12 different tools for empathizing with real end-users, defining their needs, and rapidly creating solutions.

Facilitation Fundamentals

One-day courses that provides individuals with the skills and confidence to facilitate meetings, uncomfortable conversations, workshops, and events with ease. Workshop attendees leave with methodologies for creating focused conversations, techniques for addressing difficult behaviors, practice opportunities, and peer feedback.

Understanding Customer Behavior

Intermediate level courses that takes participants through a real design challenge provided by a partnering organization. With a focus on deepening participant’s ability to conduct user research, individuals work in teams to look beyond what customers are doing and discover why they make the decisions they make through two-days of hands-on activities.

Reimagine Your Work Life

Evening course for adults wanting to work through the underlying challenges that might be holding them back from leading a healthy and productive work life.

 Virtual Workshops

Leading Remote Brainstorms

This two-hour, virtual workshop focused on building participants' capacity to facilitate high-energy, remote brainstorms that lead to new ideas for addressing every day, and business-critical challenges. Unlike a webinar, this online learning experience required participants to be active learners in running team ideation activities. Key takeaways included:

• Energizers and team stokes specifically designed to boost your team's engagement and collaborative intelligence

• Practice opportunities using various applications to capture your team's ideation process visually

• Unique tools and techniques to prompt divergent thinking such as Creative Constraints, Lateral Inspiration, Open-Explore-Close, and Power in Opposites

• Insider facilitation tips for democratizing group brainstorming and including all voices

• Best practices for prioritizing ideas and the moving forward the team after the session

Tools for Remote Decision Making

Especially in turbulent times, being the decision-maker or the one tasked with creating consensus across a divided team can be the hardest part of what you do. Having observed this, we created this online learning experience to support individuals who manage distributed teams. Key takeaways included:

• Creating and communicating a process for making and executing decisions

• Leading team check-ins to identify blockers and concerns

• Four techniques for eliminating back and forth and streamlining team alignment

• Practice facilitating specific alignment challenges common in the workplace through scenario-based learning

• Various methodologies for structuring focused conversations and pre-mortems

• Learning when and when not to rely on technical tools and platforms to support your workflow

“I had the pleasure of working with Tim during his time at The Design Gym to develop a workshop aimed at training business leaders to facilitate constructive design conversations while helping Shinola to better understand consumer behavior in relation to lifestyle accessories. Throughout the process, Tim continually demonstrated his passion for collaboration while simultaneously exhibiting his knack for connecting people to the “why” behind the “what”. The workshop empowered me and other participants to lead thoughtful discussions to encourage more effective decision-making within our respective industries.”

— Korin Prince, Director of Product Development at Shinola Detroit

“Timothy is a top-notch instructor and facilitator, leading groups through workshops with a balance of confidence, humility and humor. He practices what he preaches and creates inviting and engaging group experiences that promote experiential learning, creativity, and a good time.”

— Andrew Eickmann, Chief of Staff at NYC Mayor’s Office of Resiliency

“I had the pleasure of participating in several workshops Tim led at The Design Gym. Through each interaction, it was clear that Tim is enthusiastic and passionate about human-centered design and his workshops. Tim is an experienced and skilled facilitator who constructively leads and develops his clients. He is truly an exceptional leader; under Tim’s guidance, I sharpened my skillsets in innovation and facilitation. He enabled me and gave me greater confidence in my ability to facilitate teams handling tough challenges”

— Mark Graham, Manager of Finance Transformation at National Grid