Success looks different from your customer's shoes
Who we are
We help organizations innovate
Real world practitioners
Method Garage was founded in early 2016 by Justin Zacks and Saul Gurdus with the mission to bring battle tested Customer Experience (CX) and innovation methods to companies of all sizes. Our goal is to rapidly enable teams to be self-sufficient. That’s why each of our offerings comes with an unmatched ride-along experience so you can take the reins when we leave.
Meet Justin Zacks
Justin brings a unique perspective to customer experience design due to a deep background across many disciplines including psychology, product management, marketing, human resources and customer insights. He is considered an expert in a variety of innovation methods such as design thinking, journey mapping, lean and agile - often referenced by top thought leadership firms like Forrester. In addition to his responsibilities as co-founder of Method Garage, Justin mentors startups at Boomtown Accelerator and is a member of the d.global initiative centered in Boulder, CO.
Meet Saul Gurdus
Saul’s superpower is his ability to marry human-centered design and business reality. With 19 years of corporate leadership, he knows what it takes to scale customer-focused innovation in the real world. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Saul works part time with Stanford’s d.school teaching executives design thinking, speaks regularly at customer experience conferences and writes for UX Magazine. He now brings cutting-edge design methods and lessons learned to companies pursuing their own customer-centered transformations.
Our method
Human centered design
Method Garage helps you ingrain human-centered approaches into strategy, culture, operations and initiatives.
Workshops
You have been challenged to lead a cross-functional transformation at your company, but getting everyone to put aside their biases and agendas is easier said than done. You need to create a big splash moment that breaks the mold, creates excitement, unlocks creativity and gets everyone focused on what matters - the customer.
Method Garage workshops create lasting momentum and mic-drop moments for you and your team. Participants learn the basics of design thinking, customer journey mapping, lean startup and agile methods with an eye toward real-world application back at the office. From ½-day inspirational “tastes” for executive offsites to 3-day project kickoff bootcamps for your team, these workshops always create aha-moments for senior executives and front line employees alike.
Personas & Journey Maps
You have been trying to put customers at the center of your product, marketing and services efforts but everyone in the company seems to have a different definition of “the customer.” What defines the customer beyond demographics? What motivates them? What keeps them up at night? Which moments matter most to them? Personas and journey maps answer these questions in a highly consumable way that can be shared virally across your organization.
Method Garage personas and journey maps are deep, compelling narratives representing your key customer segments, their psychological needs and motivational drivers. When you bring in Method Garage to create personas and journey maps, your team gets a hands-on, front row education in the process and techniques of uncovering deep insights and turning them into a vision for the future - an experience you will never forget.
Design Sprints
You have identified a product, service or customer experience idea worth pursuing. But, it’s early days - the idea hasn’t taken shape yet. You want the team to take a fresh new approach to this opportunity and design it fast, iteratively and collaboratively with customers.
Method Garage design sprints are intensive weeklong bursts of customer-centered design activity that turn a rough idea into a higher-fidelity, tested prototype with evidence of desirability, feasibility and viability. Sprints typically include an offsite workshop in our Boulder or San Francisco design studios where the Method Garage team works alongside your project team in an intensive, rapid, iterative way to bring your idea into the real world.
Incubators
You have generated a portfolio of promising ideas on how to reimagine your products, services and customer experience. But, with limited resources, how do you know which initiatives are worth investment? You wish your teams were providing more evidence of customer desire, business viability and feasibility in order to de-risk your investment.
Method Garage incubators draw inspiration from the venture capitalist model: make small, upfront investments across a portfolio of project teams and create an environment that de-risks their ideas in a fast, smart, customer centered way. These are typically 8 week intensive programs that employ a blend of design thinking and lean startup methods to help your cohort (up to 6 project teams) distill their ideas into airtight business cases.
