Start a Design Project

Turn a challenge, opportunity, or emerging need into a structured process for understanding the situation, generating possibilities, prototyping ideas, and learning what works.

A design project does not begin with a predetermined solution. It creates a disciplined process for discovering what might be possible.

Your Pathway

1. Frame → 2. Understand → 3. Reframe → 4. Imagine → 5. Prototype → 6. Test → 7. Develop → 8. Learn

1. Frame

Start with the challenge, not the solution.

What situation are you trying to improve? Who experiences the problem? What makes it important now?

Avoid framing the project around something you have already decided to build.

Do this

• Describe the challenge in plain language.

• Identify who experiences it.

• Define the initial scope.

• Write down your major assumptions.

• Identify what you do not yet understand.

Help me do it
[Ask ChatGPT] [Work with Claude] [Open Design Brief] [See Example]

You're done when: You have a clear challenge worth exploring without prematurely defining the solution.

2. Understand

Learn how people actually experience the situation.

Go beyond reports and institutional assumptions.

Use interviews, observation, conversations, existing data, journey mapping, stakeholder analysis, and other forms of inquiry.

Pay attention to differences in perspective, incentives, constraints, behavior, and lived experience.

You're done when: You can describe the challenge from several perspectives, including those of the people most affected.

3. Reframe

Reconsider what the problem might actually be.

Compare your initial assumptions with what you discovered.

Ask:

• What surprised us?

• What did we misunderstand?

• What patterns are appearing?

• Are different stakeholders experiencing different problems?

• What problem would be more useful to solve?

Develop several alternative problem framings before choosing one.

Help me think
[Reframe with ChatGPT] [Work with Claude] [Use Systems Tools]

You're done when: Your current framing reflects what you learned rather than simply restating the original brief.

4. Imagine

Generate multiple possibilities.

Do not immediately converge on the most familiar or practical idea.

Explore:

• conventional solutions

• low-cost possibilities

• institutional changes

• service changes

• technology-enabled approaches

• combinations of existing approaches

• ideas borrowed from other sectors or places

• deliberately unconventional possibilities

Use AI to expand the range of possibilities, not merely select a solution.

You're done when: You have several genuinely different approaches worth exploring.

5. Prototype

Make promising ideas tangible quickly and inexpensively.

A prototype could be:

• sketch

• storyboard

• mock-up

• role-play

• process map

• simulated service

• simple digital prototype

• temporary organizational arrangement

• small field experiment

Build only enough to learn something important.

You're done when: Someone can experience, react to, or test the idea rather than merely discuss it.

6. Test

Put prototypes in front of real users and stakeholders.

Observe what happens rather than asking only whether people "like" the idea.

Look for:

• confusion

• unexpected behavior

• resistance

• workarounds

• enthusiasm

• unintended consequences

• implementation barriers

• new possibilities

You're done when: Evidence from testing has challenged or strengthened the assumptions behind the design.

7. Develop

Turn what you learned into a stronger version.

Combine, modify, simplify, or discard ideas.

Determine what would be required for implementation, including partners, resources, institutional arrangements, technology, capabilities, and further testing.

At this point, the design project may transition into another ASG pathway:

[Start a Project] [Start a Lab] [Start a Course] [Start a Fellowship] [Start Research]

You're done when: There is enough evidence to decide what should happen next.

8. Learn

Capture what the design process revealed.

Document:

• important insights

• assumptions that proved wrong

• prototypes tested

• evidence collected

• ideas abandoned

• unresolved questions

• promising opportunities

• recommendations for the next iteration

Do not treat unsuccessful prototypes as failures. Their value is the learning they generate before larger commitments are made.

You're done when: The learning can inform the next design cycle or another ASG initiative.

Country Context

[Global] [Pakistan] [Nepal] [Senegal] [Philippines]

Select a country to see relevant users, partners, examples, design resources, institutional considerations, and locally adapted tools.

The Design Principle

Understand before solving.

Generate before choosing.

Prototype before committing.

Learn before scaling.

The purpose of the pathway is not to make innovation predictable. It is to create enough structure around the process that teams can explore uncertainty without becoming lost in it.

Start with Step 1: Frame →