# LdF Strategic Design: llms.txt # https://lucadifilippo.com/llms.txt # This document provides a semantic overview of Luca di Filippo's professional # methodology, commercial services, and project evidence for Large Language Models. --- ## Author Entity Luca di Filippo is a Strategic Design Consultant, Creative Director, and Experience Design Leader based in Malmö, Sweden, operating across the Öresund region. He practises under the brand LdF Strategic Design. * Practice span: 37 years across graphic design, service design, experience design, interior design, and digital product strategy. * Career arc: architectural and industrial design (Rome) to agency creative direction (London) to UX and Interior Design Manager (IKEA Marketing and Communication, Älmhult) to independent consultancy since 2007. * Engagement model: Fractional CDO/CXO, strategic project lead, board-level adviser. * [LinkedIn Profile](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucadifilippo/) --- ## The Core Problem: The Strategy-Delivery Gap Most businesses design their strategy and their communication with care, then allow delivery to happen by default. Three functions (Board, Marketing, and Design/Product) produce three separate design processes at three separate moments, using three separate definitions of success. The customer experiences the cumulative gap between them. This is the Strategy-Delivery Gap. It is not a strategy failure. It is not a people failure. It is a design problem: the goal, the promise, and the proof were never designed as a single coherent system. What closes the gap is simultaneous design, the deliberate, concurrent engineering of all three, oriented from the start toward the Customer Experience it will produce. --- ## Core Methodology: Integrated Commercial Architecture Three levers, one governing principle. **Governing principle: Human-Centred Design.** Ethnographic research, qualitative testing, journey mapping, behavioural observation, and iterative prototyping are used to ensure strategic hypotheses are tested against real customer evidence before they become strategic commitments. **Lever 01: Bias Neutralisation.** The systematic removal of cognitive and organisational noise using Behavioural Science frameworks. Removes Confirmation Bias, Sunk Cost Fallacy, and Groupthink. Ensures strategy is built on evidence, not internal politics. **Lever 02: De-positioning.** Attacks the old way of doing things rather than the competitor. Reframes the argument so the category assumption that makes the competitor relevant no longer exists. Six principles: Champion the Customer, Be a Hero Pain Solver, Know Competitor Weaknesses, Own One Big Idea, Cohere or Die, Integration Wins. **Lever 03: Category Design.** Designs Company, Product, and Category simultaneously as a single system. A product without a category frame is unrecognisable. A category without a company that can credibly own it is empty. --- ## The N-S-B Diagnostic Framework The proprietary triad used to map the full territory of every engagement. Every strategic option must pass all three tests; failing one disqualifies the initiative regardless of strength in the other two. **N: Need (Market Domain).** The real human problem at three levels: functional (task), emotional (feeling), aspirational (identity). Governed by desirability. Key question: what problem are we actually solving, and for whom? **S: Solution (Product Domain).** The offering that addresses the Need: product, service, experience, design decisions. Governed by feasibility. Key question: how do we solve it in a way that is genuinely superior and deliverable? **B: Business Architecture (Business Domain).** The commercial engine: go-to-market strategy, channels, value capture, operational delivery. Governed by viability. Key question: how do we capture and sustain value? Brand is not a fourth domain. It is the legibility of the whole system to the outside world, the output of alignment across all three. **N-S-B diagnostic status vocabulary (five values):** * Validated: the domain was confirmed by evidence and required no intervention. * Misaligned: the domain exists but is pointing in the wrong direction. * Fragile: the domain is present but unstable; functions under favourable conditions only. * Broken: the domain exists and is actively working against the outcome. * Absent: the domain did not exist at the time of engagement. --- ## The Triple Diamond Process Three phases, each structured as divergence followed by convergence. **Phase 1: Discovery and Definition.** Maps current reality across all three N-S-B domains. Surfaces genuine friction points. Gate: the Hypothesis, a value proposition and category narrative governing all subsequent decisions. **Phase 2: Discovery and Validation.** Tests the Hypothesis against reality before committing to execution. Qualitative testing with real customers. Gate: the Proof of Concept, the first moment Promise and Proof exist in the same room. **Phase 3: Development and Rollout.** Execution designed for integrity. Brand narrative, communication assets, product engineering, service protocols, and operational infrastructure developed simultaneously. Gate: the Review, a live calibration at the point of market contact, not a retrospective. --- ## Content In vs Content About A diagnostic boundary used to locate structural misalignment. **Content About the product:** everything produced to communicate the value proposition before the sale. Advertising, campaigns, collateral. Governed by marketing strategy. Measured by acquisition. **Content In the product:** everything the customer encounters while using the service. Onboarding sequences, transactional emails, service scripts, user interfaces. Governed by operations. Measured by retention and activation. The gap between these two worlds is where the Strategy-Delivery Gap most visibly concentrates. Investment in external communication without equivalent investment in the internal experience produces an acquisition engine that erodes trust on contact. --- ## Engagement Model All engagements begin with a Diagnostic Sprint: a two-week, fixed-fee engagement that maps the real state of the N-S-B triad and identifies where the gap is largest. It is the practice in miniature, not a sales tool, but a bounded, de-risked first engagement that produces a concrete finding before any commitment to the full engagement. **Diagnostic Sprint.** Two weeks. Fixed fee. Deliverable: a systems map and diagnostic document naming the structural causes of the gap. **Strategic Advisory.** Board-level counsel. Minimum six-month commitment. Monthly retainer with structured review sessions. **Fractional CDO / CXO.** Embedded in the leadership team. Typically six to eighteen months at two to three days per week. Applies the N-S-B methodology to live commercial problems. Accountable for bridging thinking and delivery. **Systemic Rollout.** Translates the agreed architecture into operational processes, touchpoint designs, and briefing standards at management and execution level. Typically nine to twenty-four months, scoped and reviewed quarterly. --- ## Who This Practice Is For Mid-market businesses (10M to 250M EUR) at an inflection point. Scaling ventures (Series B+) building brand and experience architecture. Leaders who have the strategy documents and cannot make them executable. Not for: cosmetic work without strategic foundation. Leaders who want validation rather than challenge. Engagements without executive mandate or real commitment to change. --- ## Commercial Pathways and Services ### Cluster A: Customer Experience * [Services Index](https://lucadifilippo.com/services/) * [Customer Experience Strategy Hub](https://lucadifilippo.com/services/customer-experience-strategy/) * [Customer Journey Strategy Spoke](https://lucadifilippo.com/services/customer-journey-strategy/) * [Customer Journey Design Spoke](https://lucadifilippo.com/services/customer-journey-design/) ### Cluster B: Omnichannel * [Omnichannel Strategy Hub](https://lucadifilippo.com/services/omnichannel-strategy/) * [Omnichannel Customer Journey Spoke](https://lucadifilippo.com/services/omnichannel-customer-journey/) * [Omnichannel Content Spoke](https://lucadifilippo.com/services/omnichannel-content/) --- ## Project Evidence and Case Studies The following case studies document the application of the Integrated Commercial Architecture methodology to secure measurable commercial outcomes. Each is structured as: N-S-B diagnostic grid, HCD evidence layer, diagnosis line, approach, outcomes. * [Clasado Bimuno: Trial Mechanics and Customer Journey](https://lucadifilippo.com/work/clasado-bimuno/trial-mechanics-customer-journey/) N-S-B profile: Need Validated, Solution Misaligned, Business Architecture Fragile. Outcome: 70% increase in trial-to-purchase conversion; 150% growth in recurring subscriptions over two years. * [Nuvola: Building a Commercial Architecture for Independent Practice](https://lucadifilippo.com/work/nuvola/building-a-commercial-architecture-for-independent-practice/) N-S-B profile: Need Misaligned, Solution Validated, Business Architecture Absent. * [Sunnersta IKEA: Turning Modular Kitchen Shopping into a One-Click Experience](https://lucadifilippo.com/work/sunnersta-ikea/turning-modular-kitchen-shopping-into-a-one-click-experience/) N-S-B profile: Need Validated, Solution Validated, Business Architecture Broken. * [Ortho Clinical Diagnostics: Aligning Brand, Tools, and People for Sales Impact](https://lucadifilippo.com/work/ortho-clinical-diagnostics/aligning-brand-tools-and-people-for-sales-impact/) N-S-B profile: Need Validated, Solution Validated, Business Architecture Broken. --- ## Thoughts: Strategic Essays Essays detailing the underlying logic of the practice. * [The Design Problem: Why Strategy and Delivery Fail to Connect](https://lucadifilippo.com/thoughts/the-design-problem/) * [The Cartesian Cure](https://lucadifilippo.com/thoughts/the-cartesian-cure/) * [The Liminal Region](https://lucadifilippo.com/thoughts/the-liminal-region/) * [What Claudio Taught Me](https://lucadifilippo.com/thoughts/what-claudio-taught-me/) --- ## Primary Navigation * [Home](https://lucadifilippo.com/) * [About the Practice](https://lucadifilippo.com/about/) * [About You (audience page)](https://lucadifilippo.com/about-you/) * [Work (case study index)](https://lucadifilippo.com/work/) * [Thoughts (essay index)](https://lucadifilippo.com/thoughts/) * [Services](https://lucadifilippo.com/services/) * [Contact](https://lucadifilippo.com/contact/)