I went into this project with a "can-do-everything" instinct, interview everyone, run every workshop technique, chase every thread the research opened up. Warranty law, EU right-to-repair regulation, a 20-organisation coalition, and five separate behavioural models, it would have been easy to disappear into that. What actually shaped the outcome was learning to be selective, and getting comfortable cutting ideas I liked for reasons that had nothing to do with how good they were.

Facilitation taught me the same lesson from a different angle. I came in wanting to run every technique I knew; what worked was structuring my own understanding before inviting stakeholders in, so workshops became spaces to read tensions and dynamics rather than just generate volume.

If there's one line that stuck with me through all of it, it's designing is deciding. Good design isn't keeping every option open, it's making deliberate calls, setting real boundaries, and being able to explain why you didn't go the other way. That's the standard I tried to hold this project to, and it's the one I want to keep holding myself to next.