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CORE Discovery Framework

The CORE Discovery Framework

Jose Caballer · The Futur · 2019

Introduction
Strategy Work Sessions Led by Designers

Jose Caballer is a designer and strategist who is linked to the start of The Skool, later known as The Futur. He created CORE Discovery to bring creative projects in line with business goals (Caballer, 2024). The CORE Discovery Kit came out with The Futur in November 2019 and updated his earlier CORE Strategy kit. It brought new exercises and a template for the brief, and its main addition is a conceptual framework "to masterfully translate Strategy into Design" (Caballer, 2019). Its manifesto, modelled on the Agile Manifesto, opens with "The Designer as Strategic Leader": the designer facilitates collaboration and co-creates with the client instead of only delivering what the brief asked for (Caballer, 2019). The core of the kit is eight exercises that a team works through in facilitated work sessions, from aligning the participants to a signed design brief (Caballer, 2019). Version 3.0 of 2024 sorts the exercises into main and supporting ones and adds a CORE Brief that sums up the findings; Caballer names websites, brand identities and packaging as fields of use (Caballer, 2024).

The Model

CORE Discovery Framework: contents of the CORE Discovery Kit in 18 numbered sections, with the eight core exercises highlighted, from Team Alignment to The Brief
Schematic after Caballer (2019, figure "The core of CORE."), section names only; the eight core exercises are highlighted in green in the original and in grey here.

Elements

Definitions follow Caballer (2019), who describes each exercise by its need, goal and outcomes. Element names are those of the figure; where the text uses another name, it is given in italics.

The Core of CORE

  • 01

    Team Alignment

    The opening exercise (Alignment Exercise) starts from the observation that "people love it when they are included". Following the method of the brand attributes exercise, each participant names the three outcomes they most want from the work session; common wishes are "to get clarity" and for the team to be "on the same page". In the end each person's "only one thing" is prioritised, and the facilitator makes sure it is delivered before the session ends (Caballer, 2019).

  • 02

    Brand Attributes

    For Caballer, strategy starts with an organisation knowing who it is, and this matters most: what it does and for whom, how it does it, how it feels and how it affects the world. In this exercise (Brand Exercise), the team writes a brand statement together, whether it is called a mission statement or a brand statement. The statement gives the key attributes that guide the design process that follows; its aim is alignment and a clear vision, and it serves "as the blueprint to create the right solution" (Caballer, 2019).

    A manufacturer in Southern California: the CMO of a 100-million-dollar manufacturing company told Caballer that the firm had just paid 300,000 dollars for its mission statement, and that the exercise with the team had produced a better one in 60 minutes (Caballer, 2019).

  • 03

    Customer Profiles

    The value of a product or service starts with knowing what customers need, yet few teams are clear on those needs, agree on them and put them first. In this exercise the team describes three to four customer profiles and ranks their needs and goals, using what the people in the room know about customers and the company's own research data. The result is a shared view: three profiles, each with three top needs and solutions. Skipping it creates "chaos, mis-alignment, wasted effort" (Caballer, 2019).

  • 04

    Goals Prioritization

    Teams want a clear focus and no effort spent on work that is later redone or dropped. The exercise sets the business priorities for revenue (monetisation), awareness (marketing) and efficiency (operations), simply by asking the right questions and listening. The outcome is a top three in each category and a stack-ranked list of to-dos for the whole team, set by the people who will carry them out (Caballer, 2019).

  • 05

    Attribute Clustering

    Because no design can serve every brand attribute, this exercise turns the attributes into tangible design in a clearer, systematic way. For each planned design direction, one main and three supporting attributes are selected. The system behind it is story structure: how a character appears in the story, the feelings it creates and its effect on people. The result is three sets of attributes that can guide whole experiences, "a living brand" (Caballer, 2019).

  • 06

    Data Matching

    This exercise looks for solutions to the client's business problems beyond the requested deliverable, such as a website, a video or an identity. It pairs the three top needs of the customers with the priorities of the business, which Caballer calls "The Weave", and brainstorms solutions that help both sides. Ideas found where customer needs and company goals overlap are more likely to work (Caballer, 2019).

  • 07

    Impact Narrative

    The brainstormed solutions are placed in the course of time as customer journeys. The journeys of three to four customers are mapped in parallel, so that the links between the solutions become visible, as well as how customers relate to one another and can add value to each other in a community. The result is a clear story of the experience that is being built, "a view from above" and a roadmap (Caballer, 2019).

  • 08

    The Brief

    The brief puts the strategy into instructions for the design work. It informs the two to three design directions presented to the client and is where the designer "plans the design" with a conceptual framework of five questions, starting with "What is the highest impact, lowest effort solution that I have to create to move the business goals of this company or idea?" The brief sets out the directions, built on the chosen attributes, the Data Matching ideas and the Impact Narrative. The client signs it, which opens the design phase, starting with stylescapes (Caballer, 2019).

Source

  1. Caballer, J. (2019, August 2). The CORE Discovery Framework [Blog post]. Medium. https://josecaballer.medium.com/the-core-discovery-process-79f3f116d849 (archived copy retrieved October 7, 2026, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240530002722/https://josecaballer.medium.com/the-core-discovery-process-79f3f116d849)
  2. Caballer, J. (2024, April 16). The CORE Discovery 3.0 Framework: A Short Overview [Blog post]. Medium. https://josecaballer.medium.com/the-core-discovery-3-0-framework-7aaa29fa763f (archived copy retrieved October 7, 2026, from https://web.archive.org/web/20250126162536/https://josecaballer.medium.com/the-core-discovery-3-0-framework-7aaa29fa763f)

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