Research & design consulting
Collaborating for a better tomorrow.
Cultiva Labs is a boutique studio that grows ideas from insight to impact, pairing human-centered research, futures thinking, and hands-on design sprints so teams build products people actually need.
What we do
Three disciplines, one studio.
Design sprints
Facilitated, time-boxed sprints that take a cross-functional team from problem to tested prototype in days, not quarters.
Futures research
Signal-scanning and scenario work that gives leadership a grounded view of where a market or behavior is headed.
UX & product strategy
Human-centered research and design management that turns insight into a roadmap a team can actually ship.
How an engagement grows
From seed to harvest.
Every stage is an invitation to try something small before you commit to something big, so risk gets designed out early, not discovered late.
Research
Understand the ground
Interviews, field studies, and desk research to map what's actually true for users and the market, before anyone assumes they already know.
Insight
Find what matters
Synthesis and foresight work that turns raw findings into a clear point of view worth acting on, and worth testing further.
Prototype
Experiment on purpose
Fast, cheap, testable prototypes, built in a workshop or a sprint, made to be wrong safely so the real version doesn't have to be.
Impact
Launch with conviction
A validated direction, tested with real people, handed off with the rationale a team needs to ship it with confidence instead of a guess.
Why we work this way
An open invitation to experiment.
Cultivation isn't a straight line. It's tending, testing, and adjusting as you go. That's the posture we bring to every engagement.
Try it out loud
Ideas are cheap to be wrong about in a sketch or a workshop. We create the room to test hunches early, so nobody's betting the whole budget on a first guess.
Keep the loop open
Every sprint and research cycle feeds the next one. Insight compounds instead of sitting in a deck nobody reopens. The studio and the client both get sharper over time.
Ship with conviction
Because it's already been tested with real people, what launches has evidence behind it, not just optimism. That's how you get impact with a fraction of the risk.
"Good design starts with real people and ends with something they'll actually use. Everything in between is the work."
Christine Fish, Principal, Cultiva Labs
Have a problem worth understanding better?
Tell us where you're stuck. We'll tell you honestly whether a sprint, a research engagement, or a quick conversation is the right next step.
Services
Work that starts with people, not slides.
Every engagement draws from the same three disciplines, combined in whatever mix the problem actually calls for, always built around cheap experiments early so the eventual launch carries far less risk.
01 · Sprints
Design sprints
A facilitated, time-boxed process, typically 3 to 10 days, that takes a cross-functional team from a hard problem to a tested prototype without months of meetings.
What's included
Problem framing, expert interviews, concept sketching, storyboarding, prototyping, and real-user testing, run in a single focused week.
Best for
Teams that are stuck, misaligned on direction, or need evidence before committing engineering time to an idea.
02 · Foresight
Futures research
Signal-scanning and scenario planning that gives leadership a grounded read on where a market, technology, or behavior is actually headed, not a trend report that ages out in a quarter.
What's included
Horizon scanning, expert and stakeholder interviews, scenario mapping, and workshops that pressure-test strategy against multiple futures.
Best for
Leadership teams setting 2–5 year strategy, or preparing to enter a market that's still taking shape.
03 · Strategy
UX & product strategy
Human-centered research and design management that turns fuzzy problems into a roadmap a team can actually execute, plus the coaching to keep it human-centered after we're gone.
What's included
User research, journey mapping, agile UX coaching, and design management support for in-house teams.
Best for
Organizations building internal design capability or navigating a product that's outgrown its original strategy.
Not sure which one fits?
Most projects start as a conversation, not a proposal. Tell us what's going on and we'll point you the right direction.
Selected engagements
A field guide to the work.
A sample of the organizations Cultiva Labs and its team have partnered with on sprints, research, and strategy.
MSA Safety
Human-centered design for fire safety equipment and systems, working directly alongside firefighters and civic government partners in Berlin. Led Agile UX practice to bring field-tested insight into product decisions faster.
Vapotherm
UX design across patient and clinician experiences for respiratory therapy, turning device readings and symptoms into insight patients can act on, and building real-time monitoring dashboards that help clinicians track COPD patients remotely without drowning in data.
Design sprint facilitation
A cross-functional team worked through a week-long sprint to frame a hard product question and test a prototype with real users before committing engineering time.
Human-centered concept exploration
Research and rapid prototyping to explore how a product concept would actually hold up in the hands of the people meant to use it.
Product strategy sprint
Facilitated sessions to align stakeholders around a shared problem statement and stress-test early directions before broader investment.
Futures & foresight workshop
Scenario planning and signal-scanning to help the team reason about a longer-horizon strategic question with more than a single guess at the future.
Human-centered research
Field research and design work grounded in the realities of a public-sector health context, translated into concepts a team could act on.
Want the full story?
Detailed case studies live on the team's individual portfolios, or ask directly and we'll walk you through the ones most relevant to your problem.
"The best case studies aren't the ones with the cleanest slides. They're the ones where the team could point to something real that changed because of the work."
Christine Fish, Principal, Cultiva Labs
Team
Small studio, deep bench.
Cultiva Labs works with a close network of researchers and designers, brought in based on what each engagement needs.
Christine Fish
PrincipalDesign Director, futurist, and Professor of Design Management at SCAD, where she directs SCADpro's corporate design sprint program. Two decades of human-centered design across fire safety, healthcare, financial services, and consumer products, from MSA Safety in Berlin to Highmark Health to sprints for Google, BMW, and Deloitte.
Nicole Mills
Lead DesignerA UX designer fueled by curiosity, research, and craft. Nicole spent two years in-house at Vapotherm designing both patient- and clinician-facing experiences, turning device data into something patients could understand and building real-time monitoring dashboards for clinicians. Her SCADpro sprint work spans Google Pay and Deloitte.
Contact
Tell us what's going on.
No proposal needed to start. A short note about the problem you're facing is plenty.
Phone
+1 214 676 4777Studio
Savannah, Georgia
Response time
Usually within two business days.