Data Vanguards.
Problem-Framing Field Guide
Your recommended method
Design Thinking
Get human-centred when the problem is still fuzzy.
Why this method
A loop of empathise → define → ideate → prototype → test, for problems where you don't yet understand what fans or members truly need. Clubs often jump to building an app when the real problem is a feeling — friction, exclusion, irrelevance. Design Thinking helps you reframe the problem before you attempt to solve it.
The most important step is the first one: getting into the room with the people who feel the problem. Not in a focus group or a survey — at the actual touchpoint, watching what happens and asking what surprised them. The 'How Might We' that comes out of that is worth more than any solution generated in a meeting room.
Your next move
Run an empathy pass: shadow three to five fans or members at a real touchpoint — matchday, renewal, joining — and capture what genuinely surprises you. Then rewrite the problem as a single “How might we …” statement from their point of view before generating any solutions.
Your template — the How Might We statement
Write this after your empathy pass
How might we [enable or improve something, reframed from what you observed]
for [specific person or segment you shadowed]
so that [the outcome or progress they're trying to reach]?
e.g. "How might we make the renewal experience feel like a reward for loyal supporters, so that renewing feels better than not renewing — rather than just an obligation?"
Three quick-start steps
-
1
Choose the touchpoint. Pick the one moment that feels most broken — matchday, joining, renewal, digital communications. Block time to be there in person, not to read about it. The insight lives in the moment, not in a report.
-
2
Shadow, don't survey. Spend time with 3–5 fans or members at that touchpoint. Ask: "Walk me through what you just did." Capture what surprised you — the things that didn't match your assumptions. That surprise is the data.
-
3
Write the How Might We. Reframe the problem from the fan's point of view. Test the statement: if the person you shadowed read it, would they nod? If not, rewrite it until they would. Only then start generating solutions.
Turn this into a build plan.
A Data Vanguards diagnostic helps you design the empathy pass, interpret what you find, and turn the insight into the product decision.
Book a diagnostic →