It's popular thinking that the best solutions only come from a few people inside a company. This group of people will enter a boardroom, receive a brief, brainstorm, and suddenly amidst a clutter of ideas, that winning solution will come forth like a newborn superhero! This is the origin story of innovative solutions we all know by heart.

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Our ideas at Limitless Lab don't follow that origin story. 

We're proud to say that one of the things that make working with Limitless Lab unique is our co-design process. 

Yes, we still have the boardroom, the agenda, and the brainstorming session. But we don't just have a few people inside our company thinking of an idea. 

In fact, our team isn't the only one who does the ideation process, but we make sure that our clients, the people who usually stand outside and wait for the heroes to swoop in with the winning pitch, are part of the process. 

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How do we do it? Here's our 7-step process 

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1. Discovering our alignment 

Before we can even begin ideating, we first schedule a discovery call with our soon-to-be partner. The call has two main goals:

1.) To uncover the goals and needs of the clients, and
2.) To check whether or not their values and advocacies match ours. 

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‍2. Creating the proposal 

After finding out our client's needs and challenges, the team uses the insights to create a personalized proposal that can fit their requirements. 

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3. Co-designing the solution 

Now, this is where the fun begins. After accepting the proposal, we invite our clients to a kick-off co-design workshop. In this workshop, we collaborate with the clients and other key stakeholders on their challenges, current practices, aspirations, and initial ideas. 

Not only does this help us make sure that we are all aligned with what the project hopes to achieve (aka project vision) and how we can get there, but it also gives our clients more responsibility and fulfillment because they know that their voices were heard and that their solutions will have a more personal touch. 

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4. Designing the strategy

From the co-design workshop, we will take the insights and ideas and turn them into a working strategy with proposed design principles, elements, and recommendations we will use moving forward. 

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5. Prototyping the design 

Once the strategy is approved, the team will work on creating the prototype. This can be in the form of knowledge products such as toolkits and learning experiences, or digital products like websites and apps. Our innovation prototype will depend on the product or service needed, grounded on the insights gathered through the co-design workshop. 

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‍6. Testing the prototype

Of course, no prototype is perfect on the first try. The testing step allows us to improve the prototype over time, ensuring we are meeting the stakeholders' needs. 

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7. The birth of a superhero 

Finally, we launch! After so much testing, client ideas, feedback, push, and pull, we launch this new product or service into the world, ready to help the people in need. 

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Our process is rigorous, and some might say it wastes time and effort because who else invites their clients and end users into the ideation process? Not many companies are willing to take such an extra step. The question is, is it worth it? 

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But we have been co-designing since 2018, and we see the benefits first-hand.

Our clients are happier and more engaged because they have contributed a lot to the process, increasing their stakes. Our ideas are better because it comes from the people who have been thinking of these challenges far longer than we have, making our products and services greater. The co-design process also helps us to engage the end users who will benefit the most from the innovation products that we create, may it be farmers, small-scale women entrepreneurs from Mindanao, or local public officials, we view all our stakeholders as an equal collaborator in the design process. 

Most of all, our co-innovation process allows our products and services to get better with time. We know that our innovative products won’t solve everything. We know that we will make mistakes along the way, but through co-design, we can get better with everyone’s help. 

We must stop thinking that only a few people can make game-changing products or services. Instead, we invite you to think of a hero's origin story as a co-design, co-create, co-innovate process.

The best heroes start and improve that way.