A group of people making and crafting with recyclables during a workshop.

Workshops

WHAT

Ever been in meetings where the confident voices do all the talking and decision making or the discussion gets skewed to one side and no one knows what the next steps are by the end of it? Workshops are a supercharged alternative to unproductive meetings. They’re designed to be hands-on and outcome driven.

OUTCOME

Inclusive space for collaboration, where activities are designed to get all voices heard, figuratively speaking.
Decisions are made with clarity across the group on the topic of discussion.
Direction on project determined collectively based on the right priorities.

HOW

Discovery - I understand about your organisation and team, your processes and what might be affecting your progress.
Design - I will then collaboratively design a workshop or a program consisting of several workshops with you (team leader) that’s tailored to your team’s situation and requirements to achieve the desired outcome.
Facilitation - I then deliver the designed workshop to achieve the outcome like team alignment, brainstorming and ideating, and prioritised ideas or way forward.

A team looking at a wall of sticky notes.

Service Design

WHAT

Service design is the process of business and organisation transformation done using design thinking
- to unlock profit and value to clients or customers if you’re a business
- to have social impact by delivering valuable services to people or through social innovation.

OUTCOME

Optimised processes and efficient workflows
Fewer siloes and more collaboration
Shared understanding of what customers or people value
Direction in adapting business to deliver that value
Unlocking profit while staying positive to people and planet

HOW

Discovery - I first learn about your organisation, your staff and the people the organisation serves by conducting research.
Analysis - Synthesising the outcome of the discovery work, I work with the service delivery team to identify opportunities for change.
Co-design - I facilitate a session for the team and customers to collaboratively pave the way forward that makes business sense, while fostering a sense of shared ownership from staff. Depending on how long the program is, I may help with prototyping the ideas and testing them with people.

A group of people sat by table having a discussion.

Design Training

WHAT

User-centered design and design thinking are collaborative and iterative ways of working on challenges in business, product and services. If you’ve released a product or service and wondered how to make it better and drive profit without designers or design thinking process in place, then you probably need some awareness sessions to empower you with the right decisions. It’s also suitable for organisations that have made their first design hires or considering it but don’t know how best to use the skills or set them up for success.

OUTCOME

Improved design awareness in the organisation or team.
Empowered team members and leaders who can start using some design processes straight away in their everyday work and decision making processes.
Happier designers with more buy-in for their skills across the organisation setting them up for better success, thereby contributing positively to the business.

HOW

Discovery - I practice what I preach and all work begins with understanding the organisation’s requirements.
Plan - I will plan a training session or program including learning materials with the relevant team members to suit the budget, timelines and constraints towards the achievable goal that we agree upon.
Training - The training may include talks, hands-on workshops and designing ways of working as design isn’t just about knowing how to use a set of methods, but a way of thinking and working together too. Please note, it’s not about training team members to use apps like Figma or XD.

What clients and colleagues say

At Microsoft Research in Cambridge in 2018, Anusha led a fantastic design workshop that brought together the local research team with members of the Excel team based in other parts of the world. Anusha devised a format to allow us to consider problems faced by the Excel product, one of the most complex software applications in the whole industry, to consider a range of feature ideas, and to discuss and prioritise work. The workshop was a happy occasion and sowed the seeds for some successful collaborations between geographically separate teams. I would love to work with Anusha again to get effective results between separate groups.

Andy Gordon

Chief Scientific Officer, Cogna
Ex-Microsoft Research

Anusha is not only a talented facilitator but also a pleasure to work with. Her dynamism, open-mindedness, and positive attitude make collaboration with her a joy. I highly recommend her workshops to anyone looking to enhance their understanding of UX design and improve their facilitation skills. Her expertise and engaging teaching style make her workshops both informative and enjoyable. I look forward to attending more of Anusha's sessions in the future.

Enzo Perelli

Product manager, RES

To say that her contribution has been transformative would be an understatement. We pride ourselves on the attention we pay to the needs of our customers and do our best to reflect that in our software products. Anusha's experience, enthusiasm and care has shone through and taken our capabilities and designs to the next level.
She has tackled the complex subjects of wind energy, analytics and machine learning with the attention they need and helped bring our team and our clients with us as we break new ground in ML software.

Michael Tinning

Co-founder Bitbloom

I was a participant in a workshop hosted by Anusha and was struck by her impressive ability both to gain the trust of the group – the environment felt safe, positive and exciting – but also to stretch and challenge us to get the most from the session. Anusha has a way of framing the challenge that makes you feel we’re all in this together, we need each other to solve this problem. Even though some of the content was challenging and stretching for us, her positive, open approach meant we didn’t get defensive. Anusha creates an environment that gets the best out of people, and gets you working together.

Poppy Mardall

Founder & Chair, Poppy's Funerals