Sprint
Focused diagnosis and design direction
Design Leadership Engagement ModelsPricing architecture · 2026
Start focused.
Scale ownership.
Senior product and design leadership that grows with your team—from one critical sprint to an embedded design function.
01 The engagement model
One starting point.
Three ways to continue.
The Product & Design Sprint is a focused starting engagement.
After the Sprint, choose how much ongoing design ownership and delivery capacity the team needs:
Senior judgment
Experienced critique without delivery ownership
Judgment + hands
Judgment plus hands-on design and ownership
Scaled capacity
Everything in Fractional, plus additional designers brought in to increase velocity and output across more of the product
Each level builds on the one before it. Start with a Sprint. Continue at the right level.
02 Focused starting engagement
Start here
Product &
Design Sprint
For teams that know the product needs work but want to start with focus, improve something meaningful, and make progress through a fixed-scope engagement.
Fixed scope · USD$7,500 USD3–4 weeksDiscuss a Sprint
How we work
- Review the existing product and its most important workflows
- Work directly with the founder and engineering team
- Speak with selected users where useful
- Take agreed critical workflows from problem to prototype
- Review the direction with the team
What you get
- Product and UX diagnosis
- Improvements to selected existing workflows
- Interactive prototypes
- Initial design direction and principles
- Design-system foundation
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- Initial custom AI design skills setup
- Visual-language guidelines
- Clear list of what should be fixed or designed next
Design-system and AI-skill foundations created during the Sprint are limited to the selected workflows and can be expanded through an ongoing engagement.
Done means
The team has a clear design direction, tested work it can build, and a shared understanding of what good looks like.
The Sprint outputs, including the design direction, principles, system foundation, and priority list, feed directly into any ongoing engagement.
If ongoing design leadership is not needed, the engagement can end here.
03 Ongoing engagements
Choose the level
of ownership.
Progress from advice to direct ownership to a scaled design function. Open any model to see exactly how it works.
01
Advisor
For teams that can execute independently but want experienced design judgment.
$2,500 USD/ month
How we work
- One structured session each week for the first 4–6 weeks
- Biweekly sessions once the product context is established
- Async feedback on a defined set of decisions or artefacts during each cycle
You get
- Product and design critiques
- Feedback on important workflows
- Review of priorities and upcoming features
- Written decisions and recommendations
- Advice on design quality, hiring, and team structure
Read ownership and boundaries
Ownership
Your team owns the design and delivery. I help improve the decisions.
Hands-on design, design-system production, workstream ownership, and day-to-day engineering support are not included.
Recommended
02
Fractional Product
& Design Lead
For teams that need ongoing design ownership without hiring a full-time design leader yet.
$6,500 USD/ month
What you get
- Hands-on design for two priority workstreams at a time
- Existing-product UX improvements
- New feature design
- User flows and interactive prototypes
- Build-ready screens, states, and design details
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- Build-ready interface code in the team’s stack
- An evolving agentic design system
- Custom design skills for the team’s AI tools
- Direct collaboration with engineering
- Design QA before agreed releases
- Support defining and hiring the future internal design owner
How we work
- Three-month initial term
- Weekly founder and team working session
- One shared priority list
- Two active workstreams at a time
- Direct design support when engineering needs clarification
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- Monthly review of what shipped and what comes next
Read ownership and working model
Workstream definition
A workstream is one focused product area or connected feature set. New priorities replace existing priorities rather than being added on top.
Ownership
I take primary ownership of the design direction, experience quality, and active design workstreams from problem to release.
The founder remains the final owner of business priorities. I will surface prioritisation recommendations and challenge the scope, but full PM ownership and backlog management are a different engagement.
03
Embedded Design
Partner
For teams moving several important product areas at once and needing a senior design function inside the company, supported by additional designers brought in to increase delivery velocity and output.
≈ $15,000 USD+/ month · custom scope
What you get
- Multiple product workstreams
- Additional designers brought in and directed as agreed for the active scope
- Increased design capacity and delivery velocity
- More hands-on workflow and interaction design across parallel workstreams
- Wider agentic design-system coverage
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- Figma and coded-component alignment
- Custom design skills and automated quality checks
- Design reviews across agreed releases
- Faster access for active delivery decisions
- Coaching for engineers and internal designers
- Help hiring and onboarding the internal design team
- A repeatable design workflow the company can continue using
How we work
- Three-month initial term
- Regular participation in planning and reviews
- Direct collaboration with the founder and engineering team
- An agreed number of workstreams moving in parallel
- Additional designers coordinated around agreed priorities
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- Clear ownership of quality, consistency, and delivery across the design team
- Broader responsibility for shipped product quality
Read scope, pricing, and ownership
How pricing works
Custom pricing, starting at approximately $15,000 USD/month.
Pricing depends on the number of concurrent workstreams, the number and seniority of additional designers required, and the depth of the design-system, engineering, and automation work.
Starting pricing includes my design leadership and the design capacity agreed in the engagement scope. Additional specialists or capacity beyond that scope are quoted separately.
Concurrency
The number of concurrent workstreams is agreed before the engagement begins and reflected in the final pricing.
Ownership
I own the design direction, active experience work, system quality, and the working relationship between design and engineering.
I also lead and coordinate any additional designers brought into the engagement, including their priorities, standards, collaboration, and output.
The founder or designated PM retains final prioritisation and roadmap ownership.
04 How the levels build
Compare the
engagements.
Every model keeps the senior design direction. The difference is how much hands-on delivery, ownership, and parallel capacity the team needs.
| Capability | Sprint | Advisor | Fractional | Embedded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Senior design direction | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Product and UX critique | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Hands-on product design | One fixed-scope workstream | None | Two concurrent workstreams | As agreed in scope |
| Additional designers | No | No | No | Agreed in scope |
| Design-team coordination | No | No | No | Yes |
| Interactive prototypes | Yes | Review only | Yes | Yes |
| Build-ready interface code | Where agreed | No | Yes | Yes |
| Engineering collaboration | During Sprint | Limited | Ongoing | Embedded |
| Design-system work | Initial setup | Advice | Evolving system | Wider system |
| Custom AI design skills | Initial setup | Advice | Ongoing | Wider automation |
| Design QA | Agreed workflow | Review sessions | Agreed releases | Across workstreams |
| Workstream ownership | Fixed scope | None | Two parallel | Agreed in scope |
| Design capacity | Fixed scope | Advisory | Individual lead | Lead plus agreed designers |
Scroll sideways to compare all models →
05 Tangible design outcomes
Less theatre.
More leverage.
The exact output depends on the selected engagement and active product priorities.
The goal is not to produce more design artefacts. It is to help the team make better product decisions, move faster, and create a product that earns or saves more money.
01Redesigned product workflows
Important existing workflows redesigned to be clearer, easier to use, and ready for engineering.
Business impactLess user friction, fewer support issues, better activation and conversion, and more value delivered through the product.
02New feature design
Flows, screens, interactions, states, and prototypes for upcoming product capabilities.
Business impactFaster validation before engineering investment, clearer prioritisation, and a shorter path from product idea to shipped value.
03Build-ready coded interfaces
Production-quality interface code in the same language and framework as the engineering team, including responsive behaviour, edge cases, permissions, empty states, loading states, and error states.
Build-ready interface code covers agreed front-end surfaces. The engineering team owns integration, architecture, testing, deployment, and ongoing maintenance.
Team impactLess back-and-forth between product, design, and engineering, fewer implementation questions, less rework, and faster delivery.
04Agentic design system
Reusable foundations, tokens, components, patterns, and rules that designers, engineers, and AI agents can follow.
Team impactHigher design and engineering velocity, more consistent output, and less time spent solving the same interface problems repeatedly.
05Visual-language guidelines
A clear standard for layout, hierarchy, typography, spacing, interaction, motion, and product personality.
Product impactA more coherent and trustworthy experience that is easier for users and buyers to understand.
06Custom design skills
Reusable instructions that teach the team’s AI tools how to create, review, and improve interfaces using the product’s standards.
Team impactFaster exploration and production without lowering quality, allowing a small team to increase its design capacity without immediately adding headcount.
07Design QA
Implementation reviews with clear, prioritised fixes before agreed releases.
Business impactFewer quality issues reaching users, less expensive rework after release, and a better chance that shipped work delivers the intended outcome.
08Design decision record
Important design decisions, the reasoning behind them, and the standards the team should continue using.
Team impactFaster onboarding, fewer repeated debates, clearer trade-offs, and more consistent decisions as the company grows.
These outcomes are created when they support active product work. They are not documentation produced for its own sake.
Success is measured by better product decisions, faster team velocity, less rework, and progress toward relevant commercial outcomes such as revenue, conversion, retention, support cost, or time to ship.
06 Commercial terms
Clear terms.
Clean working model.
The boundaries protect focus, delivery quality, and the working relationship on both sides.
View all commercial terms
- 01Sprint: 50% to start and 50% before final handover
- 02Monthly engagements: billed in advance
- 03Fractional and Embedded: three-month initial commitment
- 04A 10% discount is available for a six-month Fractional or Embedded commitment
- 05Sprint clients who move into Fractional or Embedded within 30 days receive preferential scheduling
- 06Advisor: month-to-month after the initial context-building period
- 07Embedded pricing includes my leadership and coordination of the design capacity agreed in the engagement scope
- 08The number, seniority, and availability of additional designers are fixed in the final scope
- 09Additional specialists or capacity beyond the agreed scope are quoted separately
- 10New priorities replace existing priorities rather than being added on top
- 11Full PM ownership, sprint management, and backlog administration require separate scope
- 12Engineering owns architecture, estimates, implementation, testing, and release dates
- 13Branding, marketing design, pitch decks, and unlimited production work are separate
- 14Travel, specialist research, and external production costs require prior approval
- 15Fees exclude applicable taxes
07 Next step
Start with
the Sprint.
We’ll establish the right design direction, improve one meaningful part of the product, and leave the team with work it can build.