Most innovation doesn't fail. It just never gets decided.
WAAI Design is the practice of Jan Van Caneghem. I work with innovation managers who carry responsibility without a mandate, and with the sponsors and boards who should be giving them one. The goal is always the same: a clear decision on your innovation case. Go, pivot or stop. In weeks, not years.
Organisations I've worked with include Johnson & Johnson, Barco and Securex.
Based in Belgium. On site across Belgium and the Netherlands, remote anywhere.
Author of The Book That Helps You Become the EPIC Designer of Our Tomorrows (ASP, 2022). It introduces the EPIC design maturity model that WAAI's assessments are built on.
Get the book →
Selected work
Johnson & Johnson
Redesigned how decisions get made in drug development. I researched the needs and context of every stakeholder in the process, then shaped it into a more coherent workflow.
Barco
Researched customer support as it was and redesigned it for ClickShare customers, whose needs are nothing like those of the engineers running airport control rooms.
Securex
Researched what founders and freelancers need to grow their wealth, and advised on the tools to build for them.
Decisions and services are designed, whether you intend it or not. Better to do it on purpose.
Who I am
A designer by training. By day I lecture at Artevelde University of Applied Sciences, teaching design thinking, design research and business model innovation. At WAAI I put that to work where it matters most: in organisations with more ideas than decisions.
What I believe
Design thinking is not a workshop format. It is how you build evidence. And every innovation is a business model challenge: if you can't say how it creates, delivers and captures value, you don't have a case yet. You have a hobby.
How I work
Small, fixed scope, built around a decision. The Case Sprint takes a stalled case to go, pivot or stop. The Mandate Sprint gets a board to agree what innovation must deliver. Solo and the Community of Practice build the skills to do it again, without me.
Books
I wrote the book on it.
Most innovation books hand you a process. This one asks why your organisation keeps getting in its own way. It covers creative thinking, framing, design policy and design research, and why the real obstacle is usually the business model, not the technology. It also introduces the EPIC design maturity model that WAAI's EPIC scan is built on.
Get the book →
And I contributed to the next one.
Thirteen authors show how human-centred design improves work in practice, with honest cases that include the constraints and the lessons, not just the wins. My chapter, Building Empathy and Focussing on Impact to Foster Purpose-Driven Innovation and a Thriving Organisational Culture, puts the EPIC model to work. Start from the impact you want to make, not the technology you happen to have. Get close enough to your beneficiaries to see their world. Then build the processes and the culture that make innovation repeatable rather than heroic.
Pre-order on Routledge →