A four-module program delivered to four global cohorts - with an NPS of +65.
EY wavespace is the firm's global network of innovation centers - spaces designed to spark bold thinking with clients. But even the most forward-looking environments need sharp human skills to match the ambition.
The wavespace team wanted to elevate CX capability across their global network. Not through more frameworks or theory. Through practice.
The gap wasn't knowledge. It was the ability to actually do client-centric work under pressure: reading rooms, building trust with diverse stakeholders, designing experiences that stick, telling stories that don't lose the room.
A four-module program where 75% of each session was hands-on. No lengthy slide decks about CX principles. Scenarios, drills, and real application.
The brief sounded simple: build CX capability across a global team. The real challenge was harder.
How do you teach something as instinctive as reading a room? How do you scale an experiential program across time zones without losing what makes it work? And how do you make senior professionals practice skills they think they already have?
We ran a multi-week sprint with wavespace leaders, digging past the official brief to surface the real needs underneath.
What emerged: skill gaps that couldn't be solved with more frameworks, a need to link creative work more closely to business outcomes, and pain points that required practice rather than theory.
We used our SDS framework (Skills, Drills, Scenarios), but the real innovation was in the mechanics. Each module combined:
Drills like "Dial It to 11" pushed participants to take safe ideas and make them genuinely memorable.
The program moved from human fundamentals to experience architecture to live application:
Diagnostic tools for reading people and situations. The 5 Whys for getting past surface-level answers. Social Styles (TRACOM) for adapting communication. Practice scenarios where participants had to decode what clients weren't saying out loud.
Experience architecture fundamentals. The 6 Phases of Experience Design as a lens for sequencing moments. Inspiration drawn from hospitality - Will Guidara's Unreasonable Hospitality, sensory design principles.
Subtlety and spectacle. The Eventness framework for understanding what makes moments memorable. Format anatomy for designing repeatable experiences. References ranged from Brian Eno's generative art to Hot Ones interview prep.
Story science and the 7 story types. Three levels of immersion - sensory, narrative, ontological. How technology can amplify meaning rather than just add flash.
Each module included a resource pack with frameworks, prompts, and references participants could return to after the program.
The harder problem was iteration at scale. Each cohort surfaced what worked and what didn't.
For cohorts 3 and 4, we refined drills for greater complexity, added clearer scenario scaffolding, and introduced new frameworks based on what participants were actually struggling with:
By cohorts 3 and 4, the program had evolved significantly from where it started. Participants from Denver to Hong Kong went through the same structure, but each cohort shaped what came next.
NPS of +65 across cohorts 3 and 4, with an overall rating of 8.86/10.
But the qualitative feedback told the fuller story. Participants consistently highlighted practical application:
Frameworks like Eventness, Journey Mapping, and Levels of Immersion gave people concrete language to talk about experience design. The global peer connections were valued as much as the content itself.
The program has expanded beyond the original brief:
What began as a capabilities program became something more: shared language, genuine community, and a way of thinking about experience design that participants carry into every client engagement.
