A method by Suhit Anantula · The Helix Lab

The 5Ps of Loop Design

Think, act and learn with AI — while keeping your judgement.

For strategy designers, policy designers, business designers, service designers — and anyone working through a difficult question. The 5Ps help you understand what matters, explore different possibilities, try something and decide what to do next.

AI helps you investigate, make and compare. You bring the context, involve the people affected and decide what deserves action. Start with one real situation and one conversation.

Try the 5Ps Understand the five questions

1. Try 5Ps now

The button copies the complete conversation guide, including the five capacities and a place for your situation. You can start here without downloading or installing anything.

1. Copy the starter and paste it into a new ChatGPT, Claude or other AI conversation.
2. Replace the “My situation” placeholder with the question you are working on.
3. Send it. Start with the AI’s question, check its assumptions and work towards a small next move.

For example: “We need to improve access to a public service. We know where people drop out, but not why. Help me question our assumptions, explore different responses and plan what to test with people.”

A useful first loop leaves you with clearer questions, different options and something to test. Check AI-generated assumptions with real people and evidence. Want to use the method again? Keep 5Ps in your AI.

Why this exists

Design thinking and innovation have been close to my work for more than fifteen years. When I started The Helix Moment, I wanted a way to design in an AI-rich environment — not “AI-enhanced tools,” and not a workshop method that still climbs one hill.

In the Helix model, strategy and design are not separate phases. They are intertwined strands. The 5Ps are the operating rhythm between them: a looped system that tells you when to sense, when to move, when to keep options, when to choose, and when to learn.

That argument is in the Helix Loop piece. This page exists so you can take the same loop and put it in the chat you already have open. thehelixloop.com/5ps-of-loop-design-design-thinking.

Why this matters when you work with AI

Most models are eager. They skip sensing and hand you a plan. They collapse to one option because one option looks decisive. They forget to leave a way to get smarter next time.

AI is not a phase in the 5Ps. It is the connective tissue. At Perceive it finds weak patterns. At Perform it drafts and simulates. At Portfolio it explores in parallel. At Pause/Promote it tests. At Progress it remembers. You still decide what matters. The skill is there to keep that split honest.

Without a loop, AI makes you faster at the wrong problem. With it, you get empathetic intelligence, focused momentum, experimental resilience, integrated judgement, and a system that compounds.

Five questions to keep the work moving

Move between these questions as the work demands. You can return to what you noticed, reopen an option or change your next move as you learn.

2. Keep 5Ps in your AI

Once you have tried a conversation, save the method for future challenges. Choose the guide for your AI. ChatGPT uses project instructions here; Claude uses an installable skill. Both keep the same five capacities available without pasting the full starter each time.

Set up ChatGPTSet up Claude

These guides follow the providers’ documentation. Menus and access can vary by app version and workspace. If your desktop app does not show a step, use the browser version with the same account to complete setup.

Already added the method? Start here

This short message works after you have saved the project instructions or enabled the skill. On its own, it does not supply the method. For a fresh chat without setup, use the complete starter above.

Use the 5Ps method I have added. First confirm you can access its instructions and name the five capacities. If you cannot access them, tell me rather than guessing.
My situation: [two or three sentences].
Help me understand what matters and explore different options before choosing a next move.

Check that the AI can access the instructions and names Perceive, Perform, Portfolio, Pause/Promote and Progress. Then look for it to explore your context and different options before recommending action. If the instructions are missing, revisit setup or paste the complete starter. A confident reply alone does not prove the method was loaded.

3. Explore advanced versions when you are ready

Companions are later forms of the same loop — not extra tools, and not five P installs. Same five capacities. Different organisation. Download one only when the default is already working for you.

The essay and the book

Start with the Helix Loop essay if you want the why. The method is written out in The Helix Moment, chapters 18–25.

Read the Helix Loop article

• Chapter 18: The 5Ps of Loop Design
• Chapter 19: Perceive — Never Forget the People
• Chapter 20: Perform — Move with Intention
• Chapter 21: Portfolio — Designing for Anti-Fragility
• Chapter 22: Pause/Promote — Choose What Matters
• Chapter 23: Progress — Build Learning Systems
• Chapter 24: The 5Ps in Action
• Chapter 25: The 5Ps as a Rhythmic Meta-Framework

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Use and share with attribution. Not for commercial resale. The book remains the authoritative source.