Your sparring partner for scaling design and impact
At North Star, we specialize in helping startups and product-led organizations unlock the strategic value of design and supercharge their product development process.
Good design is good business. With our cross-disciplinary expertise in visual, user-centric and systemic design, we partner with leaders across Product, Design and Business and empower their design teams to drive meaningful business outcomes and create value for the end customer.
From providing holistic design direction, leading complex projects, driving alignment and optimizing design workflows, we elevate your offerings to new heights, ensuring long-lasting impact and efficiency.
As your design sparring partner we offer an in-depth commitment for future-proof outcomes
Our services
Full-time engagement
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As interim managers are helping you keep pace with ongoing strategic and operational workloads until you find a permanent placement or validate the need for investing in such a role permanently.
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We’re stepping in as a hands-on design manager who will not only closely work with your UX / product design team and help stir them in the right direction, but also look after their individual well-being and professional development.
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As consultants, we are adding more bandwidth to your project as fully embedded team members who provide end-to-end design support and direction — from discovery to delivery.
Part-time engagement
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As a remote team coach, we are dedicated to the well-being and professional development of your design or cross-functional team, helping them improve collaboration, communication, and engagement internally and with a broader group of peers and stakeholders across the organization.
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As fractional leaders, we are providing continuous yet part-time strategic support by integrating design into your company's DNA.
This engagement is best suitable for early-stage companies or those undergoing transformation, without commitment to a permanent or full-time leader position. Involvement from 10 hours per month to 3 days per week.
What makes our approach different is solving for the human side of product design and development, and the user human experience that results from their synergy.
The North Star Toolkit
After all, people are the beating heart of any organization, and we cannot ship truly human-centric products without creating a healthy and stimulating working environment for the brightest minds to drive innovation.
We use empathy, diplomacy, and systems thinking to establish trust and authority while unpacking areas for improvement on people, process, and systemic levels — helping our clients build bridges and nurture impactful relationships with stakeholders across the business. And because no organization's needs are the same, we tailor each approach to help them follow their North Star.
We also offer one-off
engagements or small
packages designed to
unblock, align and inspire.
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Book a single session, or a bundle of 5 or 10 sessions in a “How Might We” or “Pick a Brain” format in any area of our expertise to receive practical guidance and insights, be it from strategic, operational, or interpersonal perspective.
Sample topics with our clientsGetting buy-in for an initiative or more headcount
Building a case
Kicking off a complex project
Managing change
Design System team setup, migration, governance, or contribution model
Building a case for your promotion
Engaging stakeholders and handling difficult behaviors
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Request a live 1-hour session incl. Q&A packed with inspiration and actionable insights for the members of your design team or broader product community inside the organization — at your team's convenience.
Current offering:
Design System Rollercoaster: From Enabler and Bottleneck to Catalyst for Change, as seen at 2023 DesignOps Summit. -
Our half-day to full-day workshops are carefully crafted to help your team kick off a complex project or design system, derisk your decisions, fast-track your progress, and create more collaboration and alignment.
