ABOUT
New Leadership.
Autonomous Teams.
Real Value Creation
Traditional leadership and organizational development often fail because they impose solutions from outside. We work differently: co-creating approaches that grow from your system, enabling leadership to provide clarity and teams to own responsibility.
Design Sprints Studio – founded and led by Martin Backes – grew out of years working in innovation, product strategy, and workshop facilitation. Today the work has expanded to where the real leverage is: leadership, collaboration, and organizational development.
THE SITUATION
The Real Problem
Most organizations are not short on strategy, tools, or effort. What they are short on: leaders who create real conditions for good work, and teams who actually own their results – not just on paper.
What this looks like:
🔄 “We need to align first” – every week
⬆️ “I’ll check with the boss” – every decision
⏰ 31 hours/month in pointless meetings
⏳ Teams waiting for permission to move
❓ “Great workshop! Now back to normal…”
This is not a people problem. It is a system problem – complexity that more rules can’t control, but clear principles can navigate.
The cost is not just frustration — it is real value that never gets created.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
What We Believe
Good work rarely fails because people don’t care. It usually fails because the conditions for good work are broken — and most organizations respond to that friction with more meetings, more tools, or more control. That creates more complexity and less value. We care about real work, not performative busyness — the kind that creates genuine value for customers, clarity for teams, and meaning for the people doing it.
The missing piece is almost always leadership. Not leadership as the art of having the right answers — but as the discipline of creating the right conditions, so that teams can think clearly, decide confidently, and take real ownership of outcomes. New leadership doesn’t mean less direction. It means direction that enables, rather than replaces, the judgment of the people doing the work.
Real change starts where confusion ends:
✅ Clearer decisions — less escalation, more ownership at the right level
✅ Stronger ownership — teams that act without waiting for permission
✅ Shared priorities — less alignment theater, more actual alignment
✅ Collaboration that works — not just in workshops, but on a regular Tuesday
A workshop can be a powerful intervention — but only when it’s designed to change something that holds after everyone leaves the room. Isolated events without structural follow-through are expensive conversations. We design for what comes after.
THE PERSON
Founded by Martin Backes
Martin Backes is a transformation coach, consultant, and facilitator for leadership, innovation, and organizational development — and an entrepreneur who has founded multiple companies across design, art, media, and organizational development. He works as a systems navigator in organizations: observing before intervening, making patterns visible, questioning assumptions, and helping leaders and teams see their system more clearly — so they can act more freely and create real value.
He has consulted and designed for organizations such as VW, Škoda, Miele, Bayer, Google, YouTube, Linde, MINI, BMW, Native Instruments, WhiteVoid, and Blinkist — across digital products, in-vehicle systems, services, and complex transformation initiatives.
Since 2009, he has taught at universities across Europe — connecting theory with practice. Today, he continues that work at XDi (training leaders and teams in Product Design, Innovation, UX, Usability, Agile, and Strategy) and as an AI Design Sprint Trainer at 33A — alongside leading Cohive.
The throughline across all of it: helping leaders and teams develop leadership and collaboration as core competencies — turning complexity into clarity, from startups to corporations. Not with imported methods or expert answers, but by designing conditions where better work emerges naturally. Removing the friction that stands between people and the work that actually matters.
🥷 20+ years of experience in design, leadership, innovation, and organizational development, across projects, trainings, and teaching.
📊 3 companies founded (Design Sprints Studio/Cohive, Studio Martin Backes, aconica)
🎤 15+ years of experience as a university lecturer (theory meets practice)
👨🏫 10+ years of experience as a business trainer and mentor
🪪 1,000+ people trained and certified in workshops and seminars
📱 Product Design, UX expert and official usability certifier in the DACH region
🥇 German Design Award winner 2021
🎨 International recognition: work exhibited in museums worldwide
🏅 Certified in Transformation, Change Management, New Work, Agile Coaching, (AI) Design Sprints, Design Thinking, UX and Service Design, Problem Framing, JTBD, and Workshop Facilitation
THE STORY
From Outputs to Conditions
Martin started out designing digital products and experiences — working with organizations on strategy, innovation, design and the tools people use to collaborate. The work was concrete and tangible. But a pattern kept surfacing across projects: the bottleneck was almost never the product or the process. It was what happened around it.
Organizations talked about innovation. New methods. New tools. New programs. And yet, the same tensions kept coming back: leadership imposed from above, slow decisions, unclear ownership, and the quiet feeling in many teams that something important should be changing — but somehow doesn’t.
His own journey through this looked something like this:
As a beginner, he believed in experts. The bigger the name, the better. He was almost always disappointed — most of what they delivered was already known, and far removed from daily reality.
As an amateur, he believed in methods. Learn the right framework, apply it correctly, and things will change. This is sometimes true. But the results rarely stuck.
As a professional, nearly 20 years later, the conclusion is different: it was never about the expert, and it was never about the method. What determines whether change actually happens is the system people are working in — the structures, the patterns, the invisible forces shaping behavior every single day. Methods are useful. But only when you understand the context first. A good tool in the wrong conditions changes nothing. A clear principle in the right conditions changes everything.
One thing worth saying clearly: this has nothing to do with New Work as lifestyle. No table soccer, no fruit baskets, no culture theater. The organizations worth working with don’t need another feel-good program — they need clearer conditions for real work. That means taking organizations seriously as what they actually are: not machines to be optimized, but complex social systems with their own logic, patterns, and dynamics. You don’t control them. You understand them — and then you design conditions that let better things emerge.
We focus on causes, not symptoms. That’s the shift Cohive is built on: from designing outputs to designing conditions. From fixing symptoms to working at the level where patterns change — and real value creation becomes possible.
RIGHT FIT?
Who This is For
We work with leaders, teams, and organizations who sense that something structural is off — not just a performance gap or a difficult person, but a pattern that keeps coming back no matter what they try. What they have in common: enormous potential for value creation, held back by structural patterns that better conditions could fix.
Typically that means:
Leadership teams stuck in recurring friction they can name but can’t resolve
Mid-sized companies navigating growth, transformation, or a strategy that isn't landing in day-to-day work
Founders whose organization can't scale without them in every decision
Transformation and L&D teams looking for a partner who works at the system level — not just at the level of tools and workshops
If you want change that actually holds once we’re no longer in the room — it’s worth talking.
TESTIMONIALS
Hear It From the People We’ve Worked With
Martin Backes brings clarity to complex teamwork and leadership
I brought Martin Backes on board for the UX Growth Academy (UXGA) to create two new learning modules: communication complexity in teams and overcoming silo thinking. Martin brings rare expertise, structural clarity, and real innovative thinking. He has a sharp sense for team dynamics and knows how to make complex topics immediately usable. His work strengthens lasting collaboration. Our course "Designing Influence" gained real focus and impact through his contributions. Participants told us they felt more confident communicating and stronger in their teamwork. I recommend Martin to anyone who wants to genuinely rethink teamwork, communication, and leadership—not just tweak it. His approach to clarity and collaboration creates effects that last well beyond the course itself.
From complex AI challenges to promising pilot projects
I recently collaborated with Martin Backes on an AI Design Sprint® for a prominent German energy service provider. Martin is very open and refreshingly uncomplicated, which makes him incredibly easy to work with. His expertise in innovation facilitation and his structured, calm approach were instrumental in helping the teams navigate complex AI challenges, ultimately leading to the definition of promising pilot projects. His ability to create momentum, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and keep diverse groups aligned stood out throughout the session. I highly recommend Martin to any organization looking to drive innovation, improve collaboration, and bring clarity to complex topics — thanks to his tech-savvy expertise, proactive mindset, and sharp toolset.
This is what lasting organizational change feels like
Working with Martin Backes was a turning point for our organization. He helped us build real structures for leadership and collaboration, not just better meetings. Our team became more autonomous, decision-making got faster, and the dynamic shifted in ways that have lasted. If you want lasting organizational change, not a workshop high that fades after two weeks, Martin is the right partner.
From strategic fog to German Design Award
Martin helped us align our leadership team around our vision of becoming a worldwide-leading audio product. What would have taken months of back-and-forth took days. Over the following eighteen months, he stayed with us as a strategic partner, coach, and consultant, helping us navigate the execution and keep the team aligned. He brought the right structure to get a complex stakeholder group moving, and the results spoke for themselves. We executed, shipped, and won the German Design Award in the process.
Our go-to coach and trainer for years
Martin has a talent for explaining complex concepts in a clear and simple way, whether in UX, product strategy, design thinking, agile methods, or usability. He is skilled at tailoring programs to meet the unique needs of his participants and clients, providing actionable and practical takeaways for immediate application. Martin has been one of our go-to trainers and coaches for many years, and for good reason. I highly recommend him for any corporate training or facilitation role. He is an exceptional coach and trainer, and a valuable asset to any organization.
Martin is an exceptional mentor, teacher, and workshop facilitator
Martin is an exceptional Design mentor, teacher, and workshop facilitator. He has a remarkable talent for engaging and motivating his students while equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. As a creative and dynamic instructor, Martin is constantly seeking new ways to make learning fun and engaging. His passion for teaching and his commitment to helping his students reach their goals is unparalleled. He is a great asset to StartSteps, and I highly recommend him.
CONTACT
Ready to Work on Conditions, Not Just Outputs?
Every engagement starts with a conversation. No pitch, no pressure.