Starting from Limited.
GroupM, the global media investment company managing advertising and media buying for the world’s largest brands, asked us to run a bespoke UX Fundamentals programme for a six-person group through GroupM University, their internal L&D function.
Client
GroupM
Team trained
Six-person group
Delivered via
GroupM University
Format
UX Fundamentals programme, evening cohorts
Duration
4 weeks
Delivered
2024
Note: GroupM was rebranded WPP Media in May 2025. This case study describes the engagement as it ran, under the GroupM name, in 2024.
A team that knew it needed something — but not what.
Where the group told us they were starting from
GroupM, part of WPP, was evolving into a more technology-driven organisation. The group that came to us described their own starting point this way:
- No dedicated UX person or team in-house.
- Wanted to reduce dependency on agencies.
- Aware they lacked UX skills, but unsure what they actually needed.
- Using Figma, but not fully competent with it.
- Did not know how to conduct user testing or analyse quantitative data.
The goal
Give the group a grounding in UX fundamentals so they could start making decisions that speak to real people’s needs and expectations, delivered around their client work rather than instead of it.
Placing the starting point on a known model.
Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) describes UX maturity across six stages, from an organisation with no UX practice at all through to one where UX drives strategy: Absent, Limited, Emergent, Structured, Integrated, User-Driven. Based on what the group told us about their own starting point — no in-house UX person, unsure what they actually needed, no capability to run user testing — GroupM was at Limited at the point we were engaged. We are describing where they told us they were starting from, not where the group is now.
Maturity model: Nielsen Norman Group. This is our own diagram, not NN/g’s.
Four weeks, around client work.
We ran a bespoke UX Fundamentals programme for the six-person group through GroupM University, their internal L&D function, over four weeks in 2024. Sessions were structured as evening cohorts, so the group could attend around client work rather than have training compete with it.
What we covered
The programme addressed the gaps the group described in their own starting point:
- UX fundamentals: the core design process, for a group that had never had a dedicated UX person to learn it from.
- User testing: how to plan and run it, addressing a capability the group said they did not have.
- Working with quantitative data: how to analyse it as part of a design process, not just report it.
- Figma in a design process: using the tool the group already had, but were not yet fully competent with, as part of an end-to-end design process rather than in isolation.
What GroupM told us.
“The trainer did a great job of navigating our level and aspirations (which varied across the group). She responded well to our request to keep the sessions as interactive as possible. It was the right amount of content for a Fundamentals course. It was this grounding that we needed, as a team, to be making decisions that will speak to real people’s needs and expectations on the site.”
Is your team ready to learn?
Whether your team is design-led, media-led, or somewhere in between, we can design a UX training programme that fits your team, your product challenges, and your timeline. From £600 per person for onsite, customised multi-day training.