A MaxGood.work Case Study on How Herwig (Hardy Sr) Fölster Built a Design Thinking AI Coach on MaxGood.work

Herwig Fölster trained and upskilled an essential Avatar on the MaxGood.work platform as a “Design Thinking AI-Coach” to expedite the planning, execution, prototype development and process specification of a process innovation and digitization workshop, based on the Design Thinking Process.

The Background: Herwig (Hardy Sr.) Foelster Used his Design Thinking AI Coach on MaxGood.work to prepare for two workshops

This case study shows how Herwig used his Design Thinking-AI-Coach on MaxGood.work to prepare and run two linked workshops:

1) prioritization/scoping improvement ideas on day 1 and

2) rapid prototyping and executing and testing the priority one solution option on day 2

in addition, process specifications for future digitization and software implementation were documented. The DT-AI-Coach produced e.g. Microsoft 365–ready outputs (MS PowerPoint/ MS Word outlines and a Visio CSV import file) and kept all workshop artifacts structured, digitized and immediately reusable – no more time-consuming transcription of photos outside the workshop context needed!

Figure 1: The goal is to explore the problem space thoroughly, then converge on the right solution, with feedback loops in both WS1 and WS2.

The Problem : Preparing for the workshops

• Too much administrative preparation and follow-up work: agendas, notes, and “photo protocol” slowed teams, leading to documentation errors and delays in further result processing.
• Fragmented outputs: sticky notes weren’t implementation‑ready for further steps, fewer test cycles lead to lower quality assurance.
• Slow prioritization: ranking ideas took precious time in the problem space, often at the expense of time in the solution space.
• Prototypes remain analog, no testing with real digital data is common, therefore lack of feasibility checks and decision support.

The Solution: Leveraging his Design Thinking AI Coach on MaxGood.work

Training the Design Thinking -AI-Coach, starting with the first workshop briefing client meeting.

Teach it:

• Avatar Admin/ Align Tab; e.g. goals, inputs, guardrails (vision, mission, values, personality description, expertise, tone, client specific content), calculation scheme, e.g. WSJF formular, design thinking experience and templates.
• Avatar Admin/ Users; grant role-based access to all workshop participants and introduce the DT-AI-Coach as their first AI employee, that supports the workshop, and which will be available for any request.

• Chat With AI; exercise a few examples to realize an instant WSJF prioritization: the DT-AI-Coach generates scoring proposals in seconds for a clear, auditable shortlist. Dual, easy to process further outputs: a SmartArt‑friendly outline for group alignment, then a “data truth” table (IDs, next, connectors, one KPI/ SLA per step) and a Visio Data Visualizer CSV (lanes, phases, DE/EN branches) for seamless execution during and after the solution space.

*WSJF: Weighted shortest Job first, A prioritization method that schedules the highest economic benefit first to deliver more value sooner.

What others Coaches can learn from Hardy’s use case & experience 

• Treat your DT-AI-Coach like a team member by providing it with all relevant information and using it for all mentally tiring or AI-suitable tasks, it will not get tired to assist you well.
• Focus with “HI” – human intelligence – on innovation and ideation by using the AI capabilities to speed up WSJF calculation and prioritization.
• Use digital results to ship twin artifacts: a fast alignment view by process representation for a fast improvement cycle and a single source-of-truth table (Visio import ready) to be implementation ready for the next iterative development steps.

Herwig (Hardy Sr.) Foelster Results : 

• 50% faster from idea to testable prototype including specification: DT-AI‑Coach delivers fast in the workshop, coaches throughout the assignment, 24/7 available.
• Positive business case, up to ~60% workshop cost reduction and start of amortization by implementing the first improvement in the 2nd workshop.
• Zero transcription; 100% digital, implementation‑ready outputs.
• Hands‑on enablement: participants were guided, via a concrete urgent example, into a business‑ready way of working with a secure, GDPR‑compliant AI and gained their first prompt‑engineering experience.
• The trained DT-AI-Coach can now also be seamlessly deployed with it’s exclusive content for the upcoming implementation work with minimal effort.

Avatar Admin/ Align Tab:

Figure 2: To make sure the DT-AI-Coach delivers the expected results, the personality information and client details need to be defined in the Align Tab.

Avatar Admin/ Users:

Figure 3: The more relevant information the DT-AI-Coach knows about the Design Thinking workshop participants, the more individual and more precise the answer will be. To accomplish this, the needed user data can be maintained in the User/ Manage/ Account Info or in the User/ Manage/ Notes about this Client (User).

In conclusion, Herwig Fölster’s case shows that with the right tools, AI doesn’t replace coaches—it amplifies them.
By training a Design Thinking AI-Coach on MaxGood.work, he turned complex workshops into intelligent, automated, and fully digital experiences that deliver measurable business value.

Coaches, facilitators, and innovation leaders can replicate this success by:

• Treating AI as a structured team member

• Using WSJF prioritization to drive faster decisions

• Leveraging digital-ready outputs for immediate implementation

About Herwig ( Hardy Sr.) Foelster

Herwig (Hardy Sr.) Foelster is a Dipl.-Ing. in Process Engineering with 27 years experience in consulting firm and corporate leadership roles, digitizing, automating, and accelerating processes to improve business outcomes while relieving employees—so they can focus on intellectually challenging, innovative work. He now focuses on SMEs with a people- and market-oriented approach to boost business agility, enable effective innovation, and provide 24/7 AI-based leadership and team performance coaching—lifting the whole organization, not just single silos- to make the difference on the market. Proven results include cutting data provision (incl. QA) from 3 days to 3 hours, saving €1.7M per year OPEX in operating costs, reducing digital IoT product delivery from 12 to 3 months, and freeing 1,300 person-days by establishing an agile, fluid organization and using an AI assistant to convert CV data into new target templates.

Try the Hardy’s Design Thinking AI Coach (Free User) or request a Demo for your personal AI Assistant by visiting: www.radigile.net or connect with Herwig Foelster on LinkedIn.

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