Design Thinking Strategist IV

Role summary / purpose

In this role, you will serve as a leader in the product and services space, helping teams discover new solutions that people love and drive value to the business. Your tasks will include framing opportunities with clients, structuring and running research activities, planning and facilitating collaborative workshops driving problem definition and concept explorations, collaborating to create impactful solutions, and validating those solutions through testing.

Key responsibilities

• Partner closely with clients, cultivating shared understanding and alignment to ensure our work meets their business needs, and they understand the value of our human centered approach. Foster a culture of curiosity and creativity that manifests in how projects are framed and executed, considering unique variables and constraints. Coach and support product leadership with strategic decision-making.
• Scope and design research plans based on business requirements and technical feasibility.
• Plan, conduct, and interpret research to inform user interaction, visual direction and technical feasibility of a product or service. Research methods include user and business stakeholder interviews, usability evaluations, and concept validation.
• Plan and host collaborative cross functional workshops and work sessions with internal and external teams to support ideation, decision making and requirements gathering.
• During research phase, guide your team in communicating complex concepts in written and visual formats to foster shared understanding and alignment with relevant stakeholders. Also, serve as central point-of-contact as it relates to design direction for a project team.
• Collaborate with cross functional product teams as we bring solutions into the build phase by translating insights into actionable outcomes and artifacts like personas, customer journeys, service blueprints, and other documentation.
• Collaborate with change management, from the definition through testing phases of work, enabling them to assess change impacts early and shape change strategies and training programs alongside design.

Requirements - education \& experience

• 3-5 years' experience in design research, product strategy and design and/or service design. Your story/portfolio reflects a full understanding of the entire product cycle, from initial conception through build and into deployment.
• Experience in business strategy and value assessment a plus to align product strategy to business objectives.
• Be able to understand the business needs and how to use value to drive research to achieve outcomes.
• Extensive experience planning and facilitating cross functional workshops at various levels of leadership in a corporate setting.
• Comfort with developing narratives and storytelling to influence and guide leaders and relevant stakeholders throughout product cycle.

Required skills

• Consultant mindset. Creative problem solving with decisiveness while leading research efforts through ambiguous spaces. Embraces the unknown with a bias towards action in ambiguous environments.
• Plan and Facilitate - Lead research efforts to better understand people and their environments. Analyze and synthesize research into actionable insights and recommendations.
• Structure and lead workshops that align research insights to defined business goals, determine priorities, and leverage artifacts to make your ideas clearly understood.
• Team Player - Collaborative maker with experience creating psychologically safe environments where people can innovate.
• You coach to product mindset, articulate problems and solutions clearly, striving for alignment.

Nice-to-have / preferred skills

• Experience designing AI solutions
• Consulting experience as it enables flexibility in ambiguous engagements

Employment details - type, location, hours

• Local position - Mandatory 3 days in office

Application process / how to apply

Skill set meeting process:

• 30 min-1 hour initial screening (via Teams)
• 4-hour Practical (via Teams)

Portfolio submission:

Portfolios are required. Please submit your portfolio as a document (PDF) rather than a website or link. If your portfolio is password protected, please grant access or download it as a PDF and share it.

Video submission required:

Record a 2-3-minute video answering one or two of the questions below and share the YouTube link once uploaded.

• What's your approach to building trust with a new client or team?
• Describe an innovation you helped create that you are proud of.
• Talk about a time when you encountered resistance in a cross functional environment. Were you able to overcome it and if so, how?
• How comfortable are you experimenting with new techniques or technology? Examples could be using AI to support research or some unusual icebreaker in a workshop.

Impellam Group and its brands are equal-opportunity employers committed to diversity and inclusion. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, pregnancy or maternity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other factor determined to be unlawful under applicable law. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application, interview process, pre-employment activity, and the performance of crucial job functions.

If you require additional disability considerations, modifications, or adjustments please let us know by contacting HR-InfoImpellamNA@impellam.com or fill out this form to request accommodations.