Our approach
how Phrame works with your team on complex industrial product development
Phrame leads the actual development work from first framing to launch — or safeguards continuity for teams that lead themselves. Through user research, structured ideation, prototyping with production partners, and into production-ready design. We run the work on Phrame Rocket, our own development framework, so your team works inside the process with us instead of being briefed and waiting for slides.
how we come in
lead
When your team needs a development expert from the start, Phrame leads. Not as an external consultant who interviews and disappears — we lead the actual industrial product development, using Phrame Rocket to bring your team in as active co-developers rather than briefing recipients.
safeguard
When your team leads themselves, Phrame safeguards continuity. We keep the insights, decisions, and details from early phases in play through every later phrame — so the important things don't get lost on the way to launch.
both
Either way, you get someone who develops and someone who facilitates. In the same engagement. At the same time.
phrame rocket — how we run it
framework
Classical design thinking is powerful — but in complex industrial development it can be slow, hard to navigate, and difficult to run with a cross-functional team. Phrame Rocket is our answer to that: a development framework we built to sharpen the core mechanics of design thinking without losing the rigour that complex industrial problems demand.
live
13 phases from first framing to launch — Time, Align, Gather, Analyze, Ideas, Concepts, Refine, Proof, Detailed Design, Maturing, Production, Go to Market, Launch. The process isn't strictly linear — we move back and forth as insights surface and earlier decisions get revisited. Project data, constraints, user insights, concept directions, and prototypes all live on one live board. Everything visible. The whole team knows where they are, what's been decided, and why — in real time.
try it yourself
Pan, zoom, and explore the framework live. This is a real Phrame Rocket board — the same structure we use with clients.
the co-development bonus
opening
Because the framework makes the development process legible to everyone in the room, it opens up something that rarely happens in industrial development: the client's team can join as genuine co-developers — not just domain experts being interviewed, but active participants in the actual development work.
together
Sessions run in FigJam during regular Teams meetings, so distributed teams — engineers in one country, product leads in another — develop together on the same live board, in real time. Phrame leads and develops. The team contributes from the inside. The gap between "the consultant's solution" and "our solution" disappears.
why it works better
speed
When the problem space is visible and structured, decisions stop bouncing around in email chains. What used to take weeks gets resolved in a session.
alignment
Assumptions become explicit before they become expensive. Engineering, design, and management all work from the same picture — no more "but i thought we agreed…"
fit
Deep development expertise combined with the team's domain knowledge — structured by a framework designed for exactly this — dramatically reduces the risk of solving the wrong problem.
what you get
expertise
Expert-led industrial development from early stage — first framing through to concrete concept directions.
concepts
1–3 concept directions built against real constraints, with CAD (STEP files), visualisations, and functional prototypes built with production partners — feasibility proven before tooling.
clarity
A structured process that makes every decision visible — no more "how did we end up here?"
together
Your team developed alongside, not managed around — their domain knowledge and Phrame's development expertise shape the solution together.
ownership
A decision record your team owns — the reasoning behind every choice stays with you, not in a consultant's head.
research
The full dataset — user insights from field research, market and stakeholder analysis, domain research — yours to reuse across future projects.
how engagements run
start
We start by getting honest about scope, constraints, and what "good" looks like for this specific project. Then Phrame leads the work through insight gathering, analysis, and structured ideation — using Phrame Rocket to keep the process visible, adaptable, and genuinely collaborative throughout.
pace
Most engagements run 4–12 weeks. Timeframes are set up front — soft deadlines that guide the team, hard deadlines that anchor the project. Sessions happen in FigJam during Teams meetings, so a distributed team — engineers in one country, product leads in another — develop together on the same live board. Some problems need longer. Some are surprisingly quick once the framing clicks into place.
what this typically looks like
brief
A recent engagement — outdoor industrial system, full redesign. Modular, operable across extreme climates, safe for field operators, scalable across an existing product platform, and meeting strict regulatory requirements. Technically demanding brief. Cross-functional stakeholder group distributed across several countries. Early-stage decisions of the kind that are very expensive to undo later.
approach
Phrame joined before the brief was locked and led the work from early stage. User research — field observations and stakeholder interviews — shaped the brief itself. Sessions ran in FigJam during regular Teams meetings, all on the same live board. Domain experts didn't brief and wait for slides; they shaped the direction in real time alongside Phrame. As concepts firmed up, prototypes and proofs of concept were built with production partners — so feasibility, manufacturability, and partner-specific constraints were known before tooling. Safety requirements, field usability, modular architecture, climate resilience — all developed systematically with the people who understood the operational reality in the loop throughout.
output
Concrete concept directions built on real constraints, CAD files (STEP), visualisations, prototypes proven with production partners, the full research dataset, and a decision record the team owned — because they'd been part of building it.
Client details withheld under NDA.
who it's for
Industrial companies with technically complex development challenges — R&D leads, product directors, and engineering managers who need a development expert, not just a process consultant. People who want the solution developed properly, with their team in the room, not handed over in a PDF.