This repository is a collection of documents intended to guide the design process at Axis Group. It contains guidelines that should not be followed exactly. Each design process should be tailored to the individual project or design engagement. This document intends to provide a walkthrough of each step in our design process and approaches to create artifacts in each phase.

• Pre-Engagement Phase
• Understand Phase
• Define Phase
• Diverge Phase
• Converge Phase
• Prototype Phase
• Validate Phase
• Design Implementation Support Phase

A design engagement is a technique to quickly solve design problems and test the viability of a solution. It allows to better understand the problem at hand, create prototypes and choose a viable solution to the problem at hand.

A design engaement orients the team and aims our efforts towards a mutual goal. Design thinking and visual analytics design engagements keep us on target and invest our time and money wisely. Design engagements are useful when kicking off a new business, product, feature, or workflow. Design engagements can also be used to solve problems with an existing products, features, or workflows and help make them better and efficient.

At the end of the design emgagement, the team will understand the problem and will have validated whether we have a viable solution to begin building or whether we need to keep searching for a solution. Design engagement helps channel efforts towards building a solution that engances usability and user experience of interacting with the solution, while achieving the business goal.

The Design process at Axis Group is divided into six phases, Understand, Define, Diverge, Decide, Prototype, and Validate. Each phase typically lasts for a day or two, depending on the scope of the engagement.

Typically, this phase would require performing research on the client and their industry. This phase is non-billable. The pre-engagement phase should be mainly utilized to formulate a common ground of the ‘job to be done.’ The problem could evolve over further discussions, but it should be agreed upon by the entire team. This should serve as a starting point for discussions with the client.

The Understand phase develops a common understanding of the context within which we are working and all the elements in that context: the customer, their job to be done, and the business our client hopes to support by servicing the job to be done. We want to expose risky knowledge gaps and assumptions so we can make plans to reduce those risks and move forward with confidence.

The Define phase focusses on formulating a ‘mission statement’ for the application or problem at hand. This problem definition should be agreed upon by all team members, including clients, and should serve as a reference point for further discussions. The problem statement should encompass a clear scope of the ‘job to be done’ and should serve as a baseline.

The Diverge phase generates insights and concepts for solutions. Our goal is to explore as many possibilities as possible, regardless of how feasible or viable. Insights are born from this explosion of possibilities by considering the implications of radically different approaches to solving a problem. These insights can become valuable differentiating forces and the source of inspiration for unique solutions.

The Converge phase takes all the possibilities generated over the past two phases and homes in on a single version to prototype and test with existing or potential customers. By exploring and eliminating so many options, we have reason to be more confident in our choices.

The Prototype phase develops a prototype that fills our riskiest knowledge gaps and assumptions. Pan and Paper sketches, Sketch + Envision, and QlikSense are all valid mediums. The medium should be determined by our time constraints and learning goals.

The Validate phase tests our prototype with existing or potential customers. By the end of this phase, we should have validated or invalidated our riskiest knowledge gaps and assumptions and have confidence in our next steps.

The Design Implementation Support phase encompasses all efforts towards supporting development once the design prototype is approved by the client. This might entail continued oversight on development and ensuring that the development is as per specifications. In addition to availability to support and answer any questions or converns faced during development, any documentation required to turn over development responsibilities to internal teams shall be created in this phase.