Two problem solvers.
One joined-up answer.

Shared story

We have been friends since 1995.

Our careers have always met where an idea has to become something real.

Lee has spent his career understanding people, reframing difficult problems and designing original products, services and experiences.

Dave has spent his career solving technical problems and building the software, infrastructure, security and support that real organisations rely on.

AI has expanded what we can do together. We use it every day in our own work, not as a substitute for human judgement, but as a way to explore more, build more and create useful capability around a business.

I make sense of difficult problems.

I have spent 24 years in human-centred product design and innovation.

I listen closely to the people who use a product, service or system, make sense of what is really happening and turn difficult problems into something clear enough to solve.

My work with teams has contributed to nearly 50 patents.

That does not mean chasing novelty for its own sake. It means finding original answers when the obvious ones are not good enough, then making the experience clear, useful and low-friction for the people who rely on it.

I have led multidisciplinary work from early research and opportunity discovery through concept development, engineering, validation and commercialisation.

I am most useful when the problem is tangled, the answer is not obvious and people need a clear path from insight to something real.

I turn fast-moving technology into useful, dependable capability.

I have spent 28 years solving technology problems across business IT, software, cloud, networks, infrastructure, security and support.

I am also a pioneer in the practical use of AI.

I track new models, tools and agent systems as they arrive, test them in our own work and learn what they can genuinely do before we recommend them to anyone else.

Applied AI changes constantly. A tool that looks impressive in a demonstration can still fail when it meets real data, security, systems and people.

My job is to understand that gap, choose the right technology and make it connected, secure, reliable and supportable.

I do not only maintain systems. I use technology to explore, create and solve problems.

How we work together

Lee often starts with people and experience.

Dave often starts with systems and technical possibility.

Both challenge assumptions, generate ideas and stay involved in making the answer work.

Together, we can move from a difficult problem to an original, low-friction experience supported by technology the business can rely on.

Rigour underneath the work.

ProblemSmith provides the method underneath HumanAmp.

It helps us bring evidence together, make uncertainty visible, test assumptions and decide what is worth solving before a team commits to an answer.

HumanAmp then adds the people, design, technology and managed agent capability needed to act on what we find.

IDEO context

ProblemSmith’s agentic design-research work has been discussed with IDEO.

Their questions helped sharpen how the system should help teams compare opportunities, understand evidence and recognise risk.

We use it before we recommend it.

We apply new methods and technologies in our own work first.

We learn what they do well, where they fail and what it takes to manage them responsibly.

Then we bring the useful parts into the client’s business.