Guest of the Practice · Contributing Author

Aaron Cooper

Sr. Director of Digital Experience, Banner Health

Aaron leads, teaches and practices human-centered design to deliver measurable value, drawing on global Design Thinking experience in many domains. He actively listens, builds relationships, and influences to create intelligent, innovative, desirable experiences that drive growth. Outside of work, Aaron enjoys time with his family in small-town Minnesota, hiking, biking, making stained glass and perfecting the art of toasting s'mores.

On Invisible Machines

1 episode

S7 Ep. 7 · Invisible Machines

Crisis Is Your Opening

Most organizations treat crisis as a failure state. Marina Nitze treats it as a window. The five indicators that distinguish a useful crisis from chronic dysfunction—and the toolkit for standing up a crisis engineering center in hours, not weeks.

◆ Open the ideation

Contributions to UXM

2 pieces

Book Excerpt · Crisis Engineering

The Crisis Worth Using

The five indicators of a genuinely useful crisis—and the difference between the kind that opens a window for transformational change and the kind that merely accelerates collapse. Excerpted from Crisis Engineering.

7 min read April 2025 ◆ The Useful Crisis

Guest Article

When the Window Opens: A Field Guide to Crisis Seizing

Written for UXM as a companion to the episode. Not theory—what Marina actually does when she walks into a failing system with a 90-day mandate and no authority to hire. Practical, specific, and unsettling in the best way.

11 min read April 2025 ◆ The Useful Crisis

Ideations

1 cluster

The Useful Crisis

S7 Ep. 4 · 7 pieces · April 2025