Hi, I'm Umar!
I help teams bring strategy to life through fast, thoughtful design resulting in unforgettable products & experiences
About Me
I'm a strategy consultant turned designer, with a passion for insight-led, human-centered design. I love...the click. The click is the 'A-ha!' moment that happens when you:
i
Break down data to isolate the vital few factors driving the majority of the problem
ii
Uncover hidden customer pain points that competitors have overlooked
iii
Experiment and iterate repeatedly to finally find the solution customers eagerly embrace
Nothing gets me more excited than rolling up my sleeves and diving in to a big-hairy-problem, and I love collaborating with others at every stage of the process.
My Design Process:
My mix of strategy and design has helped me create and launch new, meaningful experiences. Here are the wide variety of methods and tools I use:
I turn insights into ideas. Leading and facilitating workshops with a variety of stakeholders to generate novel solutions
Skills: Workshop facilitation, Value proposition design, Strategic foresight & futures
I gather insights and build a deep understanding of end user pains, gains and jobs to be done.
Skills: Participatory design, Mixed-method research, Trends analysis
I challenge business and technical stakeholders to explicitly articulate the product hypothesis and critical uncertainties
Skills: Assumption mapping, Idea validation
I tell a story - vertically aligning stakeholders from executive leadership down to field teams to generate momentum
Skills: Service blueprints, Visual storytelling, Systems Thinking, Executive presentations
I translate results and learnings from experiments back into the MVP and evolve the business model.
Skills: Insight generation, Product strategy
I build and execute experiments to de-risk critical uncertainties. Experiments grow in fidelity as confidence builds.
Skills: Experiment design, Experiment measurement
I develop and iterate on business models and business cases across the nine box to create products and services that work.
Skills: Business model design, Business casing, Product market fit
I lead teams to build MVPs that validate ideas and carve out sustainable growth pathways
Skills: Prototype build, Service design, Build-test-learn
Ideate
Explore*
Hypothesize
Build
Decide
Experiment
Learn
*Sometimes I start at Explore but often join mid-project to accelerate progress across the entire process
Align
Adapted from David Bland
