About

Hello and welcome to stride4
I’m David Field.
I design and create things. Things such as…

  • Consumer products, Equipment,
  • Retail displays, checkouts, coffeeshops

In doing this, I realised, there has to be a better way of team working on creative projects.
So I have created a solution for that too

  • the stride4 creativity tool
To create the tool,  in 1999 I systematically worked though an English dictionary  to find words that fit with the creative process.  I found that the word ‘Stride’  works particularly well.  Since then the development of ‘Stride4’ has been my passion and the stride4 steps are now st-r-i-de4… Set-Target, Reality-check, Ideas, Develop-by-Early-Engagement
Like all good designs, the stride4 steps are elegant and simple whilst at the same time achieving exactly what is required. No more. No less.
So, what is it that the the world of business requires from Stride4?
Since the emergence of the  Internet and now smart phones and devices,  we have
  • huge amounts of information,
  • teams and partnership spread far and wide and
  • ever increasing complexity of products and speed of work

And with all this, the competition could be anywhere.

It’s no longer just a matter of being a big business and having a big marketing budget to make your product or service a success.  Your product or service  has to be genuinely good.

The number of players and potential team members has increased.
The barriers to entry have reduced.  Anyone can play, but they have to be good at it!

Smart and expert team working is what is required….
In our connected World people and businesses and teams have to be smart, really smart to compete.
And Teams need to communicate and work  together really well.

To compete, everyone in a team has a significant  part to play.
The stride4 steps work to get everyone in your team  tuned in, focused and contributing in a constructive efficient way.

Set-Target.   With the constant flow of information and  communications its more important than ever to keep on target.  Incoming communications can then be filtered for relevance and outgoing communications can be kept on target.  It’s fundamental to know your target for a meeting, project, business, but all to often we forget to state the target or even to work it out!

Reality-check.  With a World of information at our finger tips, plus instant communications, finding the ’real’ reality and also tuning into other peoples’ reality has become a core skill.   Using and recognising this as a stride4 step turns arguments into explorations and assumptions into just that…assumptions for follow up or to eliminate.

Ideas.  When you are competing with a  World of competition, having lots of ideas to choose between and having ideas trigger new ideas is key.  The ST and R steps help trigger relevant  ideas which then lead to more ideas.  The 20th centurary way of doing it was often for the boss to have an idea, and then dole out instructions to the team on how it should be implemented.  That’s a liability in our new world business!

Develop-by-Early-Engagement
In a fast World if you keep your ideas to yourself you miss the mark or miss the race.  The point of having ‘develop by early engagement’ as a stride step is to foster that early discussion of ideas.  A team culture where ideas are accepted for what they are, as  rough around the edges is vital for releasing the full potential of ideas.  The point it to get those ‘yes and ‘  conversations that lead to even more ideas.  And the other point is to test those assumptions made at and early stage before there has been a big investment of time and money.

My Next stride4 steps for the development of Stride4

I am developing Stride4 Design Collaboration ‘design thinking’ coaching to delivered via eCource on-line.  This enables the most cost effective and flexible training approach for both trainee and trainer.  It also works very nicely along side my design contracting and freelance work so that I can fully immerse my self in that, which is what I like to do.

The future Steps for stride4
1. More Engineering Design consulting.

2. More development and rolling out of Stride4.  The ‘Reality check’ step of stride4 makes it more than a design thinking / collaboration tool…. stride4 is also a coaching tool. … A key part of coaching is the person or group being coached taking on a new reality… They take on new behaviours by realising the new reality rather than by being told to change.  That is the whole point of increased productivity and quality of work by leadership and engagement.

In fact the stride4 steps have a lot of parallels with the ‘grow’ model already widely recognised in coaching  (The GROW steps are Goal, Reality, Obstacles, Options, Way forward)
So for the development of stride4, as a ‘technique’ and as a ‘brand’, there is a lot of scope for coaches in all sorts of specialist areas and industries  to get involved stride4ing.

3. Rolling out of Stride4 Design Collaboration as a network of stride4ing design professionals. A collaborative Design development services will be provided that really tunes into the ‘real’ client needs and maximise use of the relevant expertise of all involved…. By Stride4ing it.

Interested in the possibilities?  Please get straight in touch david(at)stride4.net or use the contact form on this site.
And you can find me on Linkedin at http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidfield