CHRIS JACKSON - WORKSHOP FOR DESIGN TEAMS
What Is Your Design Team Becoming?
A futures-informed workshop to help design leaders and teams navigate change, clarify assumptions and shape what comes next.
Design teams are being reshaped by changes in technology, organisations, markets and expectations.
This workshop creates space for teams to explore those shifts, understand their implications and identify how their role, capabilities and ways of working may need to evolve.
Duration
2-Hours
Format
In-person or online
Group size
5-20 people
Experience
No prior Foresight experience needed
Topics
Ready to go or created with you
THE CHALLENGE
Design teams are built to solve today's problems. But the context around them is changing.
Design teams are increasingly being asked to contribute to challenges that are less defined, more complex and shaped by forces outside their immediate control.
New technologies. Changing customer expectations. Shifting organisational priorities. New business models.
The challenge is not that teams lack creativity or problem-solving ability.
The challenge is creating enough space to understand what is changing, question existing assumptions, and explore what the team may need to become next.
When teams only focus on the work in front of them, important strategic conversations often remain unexplored.
This workshop creates the space to make those conversations visible.
WHAT YOU GET
A facilitated sensemaking session for your design team.
Your team will leave with:
A shared understanding of emerging shifts affecting design and your organisation
New perspectives on assumptions that may be shaping current ways of working
A clearer view of potential opportunities, risks and areas for exploration
Questions and conversations to guide future strategy and decision-making
For many teams, this is the first time they have created deliberate space to step back from delivery, examine the forces shaping their work, and discuss what they may need to become in the future.
WHAT FUTURES WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS SAY
In their words.
“It was such an engaging and inspiring workshop.
It really forced me to think deeply, question my perspective and imagine the future in a completely different way to normal — which was really refreshing.”
“The feedback for this workshop was resoundingly positive from both students and staff involved.
The outcomes were genuinely transformative for many participants in their approach to design practice, and it was repeatedly referenced by the student cohort as one of the most valuable learning experiences of their entire year.”
“Coming from a background of design innovation it was great to stretch the mind, learn, and uncover new ways of futures thinking.
We are currently planning on using some of these methods with our team to keep up the practice.”
IS THIS FOR YOUR TEAM?
This workshop is particularly useful when:
Your design team is adapting to a changing organisational strategy
Your team is exploring how AI or new technology may affect design work
You are redefining the role and influence of design
You want your team to think beyond immediate delivery challenges
You are preparing for the next stage of your design function
About Chris.
“I’m a design leadership advisor, strategic design practitioner and futures-informed facilitator based in Wellington, New Zealand.
For over 20 years, I’ve worked with organisations to understand change, build design capability and create better ways of working. My work sits at the intersection of design leadership, systems thinking and strategic foresight.
I have practised and taught futures thinking for over 15 years, using it not as prediction or speculation, but as a way to help teams understand emerging change, challenge assumptions and make better decisions about what comes next.
I’m a certified IFTF Strategic Foresight Practitioner and have facilitated workshops and strategy sessions with design teams across government, financial services, technology and education in New Zealand and internationally.”
Every design team is operating in a different context.
If you're unsure whether a future readiness workshop, design team health check, or strategic advisory support is the right starting point, let's have a conversation.
We'll look at:
what is changing around your team
what questions you are trying to answer
what kind of support would create the most value
Ready to explore what your team needs next?
Not quite ready for a conversation?
Download the Futures of Design 2045 Scenarios—a free resource for design leaders thinking about what's ahead.