Design and innovation consulting | Actionable Innovation

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HUMAN

BUSINESS

CREATIVE

Actionable are an award winning research, strategy &

innovation consultancy

We combine deep human understanding, business intelligence and creative thinking to help our clients understand people and markets, discover and improve their offerings, develop winning strategy and design new ventures.

Find out how

ABOUT

What we do

OUR DNA

We are award-winning strategic designers, innovators, academics and entrepreneurs. Our team have created radical innovations for global companies, accumulated a portfolio of over 50 patents, conceived and launched successful global ventures and carried out internationally published research in design, strategy & innovation. We strive to make our clients stronger by bringing exciting new thinking, rigour, passion and a unique and proven approach to their challenges.

Pragmatic

& practical

it's not just about delivering projects on time and on budget, creating something new and innovative should be exciting, interesting and fun!. To do this, you have to be practical, take a common-sense approach, make the complex simple and work fast and smart.

Rigour &

relevance

Too often we see projects focus on outputs over outcomes and overcomplicated to justify fees or to demonstrate "smarts". This can work, but it is often wasted time and money - and nothing more than innovation theatre. We keep our projects lean, we don't delegate understanding and we aim for that sweet-spot between rigour AND relevance

Respect &

progress

We don't think in terms of customers, users, stakeholders, clients or targets. We think in terms of people and the progress they are trying to make. We respect people; their time, money, deadlines, constraints, needs and goals, and we use this to motivate and inspire us.

Process &

magic

Our process is the culmination of 20 years of practice and reflection, experimentation and delivery. We draw from diverse fields, from anthropology and psychology to behavioural science and design. Good process is notenough though, you need a little bit of magic to transform good into great!.

WHAT WE DO

INNOVATION

You want to explore opportunities for growth through radical product, service and business model innovation.

Services include:

Exploring and mapping new and existing markets for innovation opportunity
Full cycle innovation project from strategic gap analysis to validation and delivery. Designed to help you answer critical business questions faster.
Evidence-based decisions through experimentation

RESEARCH

& INSIGHT

You want to explore where to play and how to win, align management and motivate and enable your team

Services include:

Developing rich stakeholder and market understanding to draw out compelling and actionable insight
Deep-dive into the company aspirations and capabilities to propose viable, desirable and feasible opportunities

TRAINING

You want to build an innovation capability across the organisation, team or key individuals.

Services include:

Development of engaging and tailored workshops and programmes to build foundational innovation capability in your team

Guidance and mentoring of senior management

Ventures

You want to build an innovation capability across the organisation, team or key individuals.

Services include:

Development of engaging and tailored workshops and programmes to build foundational innovation capability in your team

Guidance and mentoring of senior management

PROJECTS

RECENT

We would love to share more of what we are working on, but due to the sensitive commercial nature of our projects, we cannot at this time. For now, here is a high-level selection of ongoing and recent work.

Actionable are currently working with the HSE on a number of exciting strategic Initiatives to build innovation capability across frontline staff. Launching Q1 - Q4 2021

We are in the process of launching an innovative new sports product with a global sports brand - Launching Q3 2021

We are researching, designing and developing a new inclusive healthcare venture - Launching Q4 2021

We have commenced an innovation project focused on identifying customer needs in the Covid era for one of Irelands largest property developers - Ongoing

We are currently in the final stages of delivering an ambitious, interreg funded programme designed to build design innovation capacity across Irish SMEs - Enterprise Ireland

We recently facilitated the workshops working towards developing an all Ireland Biobank - IntertradeIreland

We recently worked with VHI to carry out in-depth ethnographic research, develop market insight and develop a number if innovative health insurance related propositions.

Designing the transition to Higher Education for students from underrepresented groups - Maynooth University

Building innovation capability in the world's most successful FDI unit - IDA

Understanding the cancer journey and developing a new charity- OvaCare

Recent activity

The Big Life Fix TV series

Actionable partner Trevor Vaugh recently appeared as an expert on the acclaimed RTE television series “The Big Life Fix”. The series partnered with a number of health focused charities to identify 12 participants that would share their stories and take part as co-creators. A team of 'experts' were assembled from the fields of design, engineering and computer science, to work through an accelerated design process, to conceive, concept and realise bespoke solutions that would significantly improve the quality of life of participants. Each 'expert' worked collaboratively with a spectrum of experts from neurologists to fashion designers and craft furniture makers. This purpose-driven collaboration insured the series and the projects delivered extraordinary impact within unique constraints.The significance of the program has been marked by a massive upsurge in public awareness of the role design can in innovation.

Challenge

This was an ambitious project in terms of scale, extremely tight production deadlines, and in some cases, the deteriorating health of participants. Over one year, the series followed eight 'experts' as they attempted to understand the unique challenges faced by the participants and then move rapidly into concept development, experimentation and a humbling dose of trial & error. This was a challenging process for participants, often asked to try things outside of their comfort zone. The prototyping phase saw the solutions refined, and first-of-their-kind, safe, robust and reliable solutions developed. Added to the complexity, the entire process had to be captured on camera, meaning projects had to be carefully planned to align with crew and participant availability and project scheduling. The brief to the 'experts' was simple – immerse in the participant lives to understand their challenges and design a solution that will make a meaningful improvement in their lives.

Resolution & impact

Over 45 minutes, across six episodes, two participants and the experts working with them were introduced to viewers. These participants had debilitating and often progressive medical conditions ranging from Alzheimer’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis, to Motor neuron disease and Caudal Regression Syndrome. Each episode tells the story of how the ‘experts’ worked to understand the participants challenges, meet doctors, medical supports and researchers and then proceed with designing, prototyping and producing an solution.

Each of the 12 projects were novel, bespoke and highly innovative. The 12 projects were universally considered to have exceeded the participants expectations and those of their families, carers and clinical teams.

Innovating one of the worlds most traditional industries.

This is the story of the design thinking process used to develop the worlds first Cantilevered Saddle. The saddle was the invention of Martin Ryan, a young Irish designer with a passion for innovation later commercialised under the brand name Bua. The Saddle was inspired by a design philosophy that challenges orthodoxies and focuses on improving performance of the product for horse and rider. The Saddle patent was formally granted in 2014.

Award-winning surgical system

While leading design at ASC, Actionable partner Trevor Vaugh was responsible for the research, concept design and early development of Laparoendoscopic single-site surgery (LESS), or as it is better known ‘scarless surgery’. The system consists of a revolutionary access port, innovative instrumentation, a new surgical methodology and operative system. LESS has been heralded as the next evolution of laparoscopic surgery and was featured in the Cleveland clinic's top medical innovations of 2009. The system was developed for Olympus

The History of PPE - Audio essay by Trevor Vaugh on RTE Radio One 'The Business"

€28m worth of personal protection equipment such as masks, gloves and goggles is coming from China to Ireland. It comes as healthcare workers complained about the shortage of protective equipment in our hospitals. Trevor Vaugh, from Maynooth University explains the origins of such products.

Design Strint with Musgrave Group

UX Design module Talent Garden

This module was designed to give participants a deep introduction and understanding of the Human-Centered Design process. Working closely with the leadership team in Talent Garden, Actionable designed and delivered this engaging, hands-on and challenge based module.

Each tight deadline was met and the team showed the highest level of commitment to our project, facilitating workshops, ethnographic interviews, surveys and an anthropological approach through to stakeholder debriefs and presentation all within just a couple of weeks.

The output from Actionable is hugely valuable and has been used across our business in shaping our strategy while also integrating successfully into the future roadmaps for our activity.”

Orla Caffery

Marketing Communications Manager

Vhi Healthcare

HUMAN

BUSINESS

CREATIVE

OUR DNA

Pragmatic

& practical

it's not just about delivering projects on time and on budget, creating something new and innovative should be exciting, interesting and fun!. To do this, you have to be practical, take a common-sense approach, make the complex simple and work fast and smart.

Rigour &

relevance

Respect &

progress

We don't think in terms of customers, users, stakeholders, clients or targets. We think in terms of people and the progress they are trying to make. We respect people; their time, money, deadlines, constraints, needs and goals, and we use this to motivate and inspire us.

Process &

magic

Our process is the culmination of 20 years of practice and reflection, experimentation and delivery. We draw from diverse fields, from anthropology and psychology to behavioural science and design. Good process is notenough though, you need a little bit of magic to transform good into great!.

WHAT WE DO

INNOVATION

RESEARCH

& INSIGHT

TRAINING

Ventures

RECENT

Recent activity

contact us

Sign up for news

HUMAN

BUSINESS

CREATIVE

OUR DNA

Pragmatic

& practical ​

​

it's not just about delivering projects on time and on budget, creating something new and innovative should be exciting, interesting and fun!. To do this, you have to be practical, take a common-sense approach, make the complex simple and work fast and smart.

Rigour &

relevance

​

Respect &

progress

​

​

We don't think in terms of customers, users, stakeholders, clients or targets. We think in terms of people and the progress they are trying to make. We respect people; their time, money, deadlines, constraints, needs and goals, and we use this to motivate and inspire us.

​

Process &

magic

​

Our process is the culmination of 20 years of practice and reflection, experimentation and delivery. We draw from diverse fields, from anthropology and psychology to behavioural science and design. Good process is notenough though, you need a little bit of magic to transform good into great!.

WHAT WE DO

INNOVATION

RESEARCH

& INSIGHT

TRAINING

Ventures

RECENT

Recent activity

contact us

Sign up for news

& practical