Where you hold your Sprint is critical. Whether you are running a Design Sprint, Innovation Workshop, Visioning Session, or another type of workshop, your venue or space is part of the event’s success. When planning your next workshop, I recommend that you consider these seven things.

1. LOCATION

Location is often the first consideration. Start with any geographical or budgetary constraints. Often, we pick a location based on where the majority of the workshop participants reside in order to reduce travel costs.

However, it’s important not to settle for whatever rooms might be available at your office. Many offices lack spaces that are ideal for workshops, so we recommend that you consider remote offsite locations. The investment is worth it. Working offsite might be helpful to get people out of their typical mindset. A change of scenery can be helpful for some companies, especially environments entrenched in the status quo.

Sometimes, instead of prioritizing the budget, we have to consider the availability of resources. Is there a participant or expert that we really want to include in-person? Perhaps we want to co-locate with our target users so that we can do our interviews in person. The opportunity cost could easily eclipse any additional cost of an outside venue.

Pro Tip: Check out websites Peerspace and Breather to find great creative spaces to hold your Sprint!

2. SPACE

It might seem nit-picky, but you should carefully consider the details of the room itself. First, it can’t be too small! Choose a space that is big enough to accommodate all attendees at the table(s). Don’t forget that you need enough room to move around and huddle at the walls.

A good rule of thumb is to pull all the chairs out from under the table so there is just a bit of space from the seat of the chair to the table. Is there still enough room to walk past the chair? That’s the absolute smallest room you should accept! Make sure to select a room that can proportionately accommodate the expected number of participants while respecting their personal space.

Pro Tip: For a Design Sprint with seven people, we recommend a room no smaller than 12 x 20 ft.

To take a more scientific approach, consider Proxemics. Proxemics, the study of personal space and boundaries, can give you some quick rules of thumb. During a Sprint, where seven people are in a single room, everyone is operating for an entire workweek in the Personal Distance Zone, which ranges from 2–5 feet. This space is reserved for friends and family — people you know and trust. It’s an easy and relaxed space for talking, shaking hands, gesturing, and making faces.

3. ENVIRONMENT

Think about how the workshop space will make your participants feel. This isn’t touchy-feely stuff, it’s actually key to the success of your event. Is it conducive to focus and fun? Is the space pleasant to work in and free from distractions? Consider air quality, decor, lighting, and the general vibe of the space.

Windows are always nice so that folks don’t feel like they are locked in a closet all day. A room that gets natural light from a window is always a good bet. Fun fact—daylit environments are known to increase productivity! A related consideration is the room’s temperature. Make sure you can control the temperature of the room so people aren’t too hot or too cold. (Or, make a note of it, so you can tell participants to bring a sweater!)

Pro Tip: Music is a powerful way to make your environment more inviting. Bringing a small speaker so you can play appropriate tunes when people arrive, during breaks, or even during brainstorming sessions.

4. FURNITURE

Ideally, your venue comes equipped with all the furniture you’ll need. You’ll need at least one chair for every participant. But, you also don’t want too many chairs or superfluous furniture cluttering up space.

Look for rooms that have tables that are easily moved and can be configured into different arrangements depending on your activities. For example, do you need to be seated in one large group for brainstorming? Or, will you be breaking into smaller groups? In that case, you need tables that can be utilized for breakout teams.

Pro Tip: Factor in time before your workshop starts to rearrange the room and make it *just right* for your agenda and participants. You’ll need at leave 20–30 minutes and more than one person to help!

5. WALL SPACE & WHITEBOARDS

One of the most important features of a great workshop venue is space for creation. You absolutely need dedicated space for hanging ideas, posters and/or Post-its. Make sure there is enough space on the walls to pin or tape things or that there are plenty of whiteboards.

For Design Sprint and most other workshops, you typically need two large whiteboards or 3–5 small ones. If you can’t get whiteboards, the 3M flipcharts can work. If so, consider buying an easel stand or two so they have something to sit on.

Pro Tip: If you have walls to hang on, they should be smooth enough that Post-it notes will stick to them. Avoid the comedy of errors of constantly falling Post-its at all costs!

6. AV / TECH

Ask about the venue’s audio-visual features and make sure it covers your needs. Usually, you can get by with a TV or projector with HDMI, VGA, or Airplay, which is used for projecting your presentation.

Also, having WiFi is preferred, but you could get away without it. Although, your participants might not like it!

7. REFRESHMENTS

When you are looking at venues, think about where the participants will eat. Well-fed participants are happy participants! If you do not have a separate space for lunch, there should be room in your space to accommodate lunch. Have an additional table at the ready where you can lay out your lunch spread without disturbing your workspace.

Lastly, this might sound mundane, but be sure that there are adequate recycling, compost, and landfill containers for the team in the space. Bonus points if you can get the waste bins out of the room after lunch to prevent any distracting odors throughout the afternoon.

These are the criteria we use at Voltage Control when planning and facilitating Design Sprints and innovation workshops for our clients.

Pro-tip: with these considerations in mind, use our Workshop Design Canvas download to design your workshop like a learning experience pro.

Are you in need of a facilitator for your next meeting or workshop? We’re here to help. Voltage Control facilitates events of all kinds, including design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Let’s chat!

The post 7 Things to Consider When Choosing a Workshop Venue appeared first on Voltage Control.

If your team is considering a Design Sprint, you’re probably also considering if the cost is worth it. It’s not just a small, simple 30-minute status meeting after all. A Design Sprint is a five-day process, initially developed at Google Ventures, used for validating ideas and tackling a business problem. Teams are guided through a design thinking process to uncover insights, prototype an idea, and test it with users. Design Sprints help answer important business questions and solve big challenges through design, prototyping, and testing ideas directly with users. Benefits include team alignment (creating a shortcut to the debate cycle), less risk, and the ability to compress months of time into a single week. 

If you are wondering if your team could benefit from a Design Sprint, first check out our article on 5 times you should run a Design Sprint. If and when you decide this is right for you and your team, you’ll need to consider the overall investment cost. In this post, we outline the considerations to take into account and the factors that contribute to the cost of a Design Sprint.

5 Considerations For Investing:

1) Time

This five-day process that requires careful planning. Note: we believe in giving your Design Sprint the full five days and not taking shortcuts. The activities and workshops take up the full five days, not including the pre-planning time, so you’ll want to factor that in. Consider what that means for your team – the participants will need to focus all of their time and attention on the Design Sprint, so their other projects and tasks will either need to be covered by someone else or put on hold for the week. The good news is what happens in a week can be equal to three or even six months of “regular” work.

“Design thinking research can lead to a 75% reduction in design and delivery time, often reducing an 8-month project to 3 or 4 months.” – IBM

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2) Resources

A Design Sprint team is typically made up of seven people who will provide diverse and critical perspectives on the project (including a Facilitator, Decider, Sponsor, some mix of Experts, Prototypers, Designers, Product and Tech leads). As mentioned above, this Sprint team will be fully focused on the Design Sprint over the five days, therefore their time and salary are factors to consider. In addition to time and salary, any other projects they are working on should also be factored into consideration.

3) Complexity

The complexity and impact of the project will also be a factor in the overall cost. For example, redesigning an existing piece of product functionality will likely be more straightforward than conceptualizing net new functionality from the ground up, and therefore requires less planning, time and resources. First decide on what the overarching challenge or question is that you hope to solve by utilizing a Design Sprint. Then you will have a more informed way to determine cost based upon the complexity of that challenge.

4) Expert Facilitators

Another consideration that will factor into the overall cost will be deciding to hire an expert facilitator or using someone internally. Consider bringing in an expert facilitator when dealing with big or sensitive topics. They offer a non-biased opinion, are removed from office politics, and take care of logistics while making sure everyone stays on track. The facilitator’s role is to increase engagement and positivity in the group, and an outside facilitator is a fresh face who can help to break patterns and promote productivity. Alternatively teams can run Design Sprints on their own, if there’s a neutral leader in the group who is well-versed in the process and facilitation.

Looking for someone to run a Design Sprint for you? We can help!

5) In-Person vs. Virtual

A final consideration and cost variable, especially relevant in today’s environment, is if the Design Sprint will be in-person or virtual. Traditionally, they have been held with all participants attending in-person, but they don’t have to be. Virtual Design Sprints can be just as effective but must be treated differently, as they are in a completely different landscape. If you decide to hold the Design Sprint in-person, you’ll need to consider travel, lodging and event costs if everyone is not located in the same place.

If you decide to go the virtual route, we recommend moving at a slower pace and scheduling a series of mini-workshops as opposed to five full days of activities. These mini workshop sessions are built chronologically one after the other. This sequence could happen over the course of four days, or even eight if needed. Combined, they create the complete virtual Design Sprint calendar. Designing around the in-between times is powerful and an opportunity that in-person doesn’t support. Between each mini-workshop, we assign homework and set the expectation that they will present their work at the next group session. Setting the expectation that the participant will present creates social pressure to encourage participation and ensure the work gets done. It’s easier for participants to get distracted during a virtual gathering, therefore it’s even more important for the Facilitator to pay attention to participant engagement and be proactive in including everyone in each activity.

We Think It Is Worth It!

Design Sprints can seem daunting, especially when thinking of all the immediate investment costs. But you also are getting a positive return on investment – lots of ideas and experiments in a relatively short period of time. Think about the long term – what you could be risking by continuing to do things the way they’ve always been done.

Consider these reasons why a Design Sprint is a sound investment:

1. Accomplish a month’s worth of work in 1 week
2. Get user feedback before it’s too late
3. Improve visibility & alignment for your team 
4. Gain speed & momentum for your project
5. Foster a culture of innovation

Learn how we helped IDB Invest’s Technology team improve its customer engagement and experience with a Design Sprint.

The true financial benefit of a Design Sprint is the upfront decision-making and alignment, resulting in a more efficient and simplified future process and product. By helping your company or team find the deep value for the end-user before building anything, and removing potentially useless or time-consuming features, you can save your team months of design, engineering, and development work and costs. You will be able to get your product or idea to market more quickly. Considering that Design Sprints minimize risk, reduce time to market, and accelerate innovation, we believe it’s worth the time and money when done correctly.

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You Don’t Have to Design Sprint Alone

If you want to run a Design Sprint at your company but are overwhelmed by the idea of planning and facilitating it, we can help you. Voltage Control designs and leads sprints for companies large and small. Having a professional facilitator run your Design Sprint ensures that you can focus on the ideas and the work, not the logistics or “doing it right.” Reach out to us at hello@voltagecontrol.com or get in touch with us here if you want to talk about running a Design Sprint at your company.

The post Is the Cost of a Design Sprint Worth It? appeared first on Voltage Control.

IDB Invest, the private sector institution of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group, is a multilateral development bank committed to supporting the private sector in Latin America and the Caribbean. It finances sustainable enterprises and projects to achieve financial results that maximize economic, social, and environmental development for the region.

Their technology team wanted to investigate how to successfully communicate their value proposition internally to IDB Invest, to ultimately get more people aware of their strategic role in the organization. So we facilitated a four-day Design Sprint to help them do so.

“The design sprint was an eye-opening experience. It planted the seed of a now-growing design culture within the AKI division by having team leaders (who usually approached IT solutions software-centered) go through the design thinking process and see the value of taking a more human-centered approach in devising effective solutions.” – Jose Morales Mendizabal, Lead UX Designer at IDB Invest

The Design Sprint

IBD Invest engaged in a four-day Design Sprint, led by Voltage Control. The team started the first day by imagining their desired end result and the risks along the way. Then, they worked backward to figure out the steps they needed to get there.

Day 1: Map/Sketch

We agreed on a goal, central questions we wanted to answer, and reviewed the map of our problem space together.

Identified goal: Communicate the value proposition to our internal stakeholders in a clear, understandable, accessible, and engaging way so that we can build advocates and become viewed as a strategic partner in co-creating solutions. 

Central Questions: 
How can we build and maintain trust?
How can we avoid prioritizing the urgent over the important?
How can we avoid missing the big pictures (and why)?
How can we get things done due to lack of time, support, and bureaucracy?
How can we address our internal communication issues?

The team then engaged in an exercise called “How we might…” The process was an effective way to encourage everyone to explore possible solutions to their challenge by thinking big rather than getting mired by the painful details of taking a full solution to market. Each team member selected their top HMW notes to keep in mind during testing. 

Next, the team located and shared analogous inspiration in lightning demos. The demos included competitors, adjacent services, intuitive interfaces, inspiring branding, and compelling content. 

“Good artists lie. Great artists steal.” —Picasso

Day one ended with a four-step sketch. This process enabled everyone on the team to become a designer. Anyone can sketch. Most solution sketches are just rectangles and words. Step one was for all team members to write down the goal and questions on paper as well as their favorite HMW’s and lightning demos. Taking time for this moment of collection and reflection grounded the team and focused energy while allowing each participant time to process all we had done so far.

Next, the team transitioned from observing and collecting to reacting and generating. They rapidly documented all ideas they had as they reviewed their notes. Step three was Crazy 8s. The team had eight minutes to quickly explore eight new ideas. This was a fun way to unlock latent ideas and try different versions of an idea. 

The team spent the rest of the day sketching one or two solutions that they felt held the most promise. Although they were together in the same room, they worked alone. Group brainstorms don’t work. Instead, we gave each person time to develop solutions on their own. 

Day 2: Decide

On the second day, the team engaged in Heat Mapping. Each team member worked their way around the room placing small dots on posted-up sketches to create a heat map of things that stood out as ideas with high potential. 

Once the heat maps were created, we led everyone through a speed critique and straw poll voting to narrow down the most popular ideas. Then the team leader used three super vote dots to select the winning solutions. We combined each of these sketches into a single solution for prototyping.

User Flows was the next activity. Each team member imagined their ideal flow in six steps. We compared the flows and voted on them. The team leader made the final call on which of the flows matched the solutions that were chosen. 

Using the user flows and solutions as a framework, the team collaborated on a storyboard. We pulled elements of the solutions that aligned with our flow into wireframes of the screens we could prototype.

Day 3: Prototype

The third day was dedicated to prototyping. The team created a web experience to showcase their division’s role and the services they provide to the organization in order to communicate their value proposition. The prototype featured a “brochure” style website, leveraging copy and stock photography to support the internal branding of the AKI division, as well as an interactive chat-bot simulation to solve users’ IT support queries. To build a high fidelity prototype, the team used a combination of digital design tools including Google Docs, MS Teams, and Adobe XD. By collaborating in Google Docs, the team could track jobs on a Kanban board and easily share assets with one another.

Day 4: Testing

On the final day, the entire sprint team observed the interviews in real time while I moderated the interviews from another room. Using the Voltage Control Design Sprint Scorecard, the team quickly assessed the response to the questions we set out at the beginning of the Design Sprint.

“I’ve never seen us work this way, usually we spend a ton of time and then launch something without knowing if it is the right thing.” —Alejandro

The Outcome

The IDB Invest team identified several takeaways about the technology and processes they were using. Firstly, we learned that Maestro, the core operations analysis tool they were using, was slow and cumbersome for quick updates which slowed their process. We also recognized holes in the user experience from how to effectively provide users with what they need to the consistent desire for more transparency in their work to build trust and engagement.

We developed potential next steps from these insights to address the problems. These included exploring contextual support from Maestro or other systems to improve the tool’s usability as well as exploring other helpful navigation tools, functions, and forms of communication to enhance the user experience. The ideas to experiment with ways to foster a sense of community and unlock more opportunities for self-service were also noted.

Here’s what Lead UX Designer at IDB Invest Jose Morales Mendizabal said about the team’s takeaways and how they are incorporating the learnings in their work post-sprint:

“After the great and really surprising insights we uncovered during the Design Sprint, we decided to go back to the drawing board and think of different approaches to communicate our value prop in more active and engaging ways than just a static, brochure-like intranet website. In the end, we crafted a ‘marketing plan’ aimed at improving the client experience. We are just now getting started rolling out each of the tactics that propel each objective in the strategy. The intranet portal will still be worked on, but it will be just a channel in a larger ecosystem.”

Looking for an Expert Facilitator?

Voltage Control offers a range of options for innovation training, design sprints, and design thinking facilitation. Please reach out to us at info@voltagecontrol.co if you want to talk.

The post Strengthening IDB Invest’s Value Prop With a 5-Day Design Sprint appeared first on Voltage Control.

A Design Sprint is a tried-and-true method that can help you jumpstart a project at work. It is a five-day process where you dissect a business challenge through a set of powerful activities. Design Sprint activities are carefully planned and executed to lead the group to their end result: a rapid prototype that has been vetted with real customers. The implementation of each design sprint activity helps you accomplish a month’s worth of work in a week.

The Design Sprint was initially developed at Google Ventures as a process for “answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers.” It’s an excellent way to push through confusion and inertia to come up with new ideas and find out quickly if your customers might respond positively to them.

Why do we need Design Sprints?

Most teams and organizations probably have a challenge that would benefit from a Design Sprint. But, if you’re wondering if it’s a good thing to consider, here are some scenarios that point to a strong need for a Sprint:

• You’re about to kick off a project or a new product, and you want momentum, excitement, alignment, and focus from the start.
• You’re in the middle of an initiative, and you don’t know where to go next.
• You haven’t talked to your customers enough, and your team feels stuck in an internal feedback loop.
• You think you need to pivot in your business or product model and want to explore the right way to go next.

Any of these scenarios are good reasons to hold a design sprint. Consider setting aside five days for a cross-disciplinary team to complete a Sprint. (Please don’t try to run your first Sprint in less than five days.)

Design Sprint Activities

One of the beautiful things about the Design Sprint is that it is a prescriptive (in the best meaning of the word!) week of events. You don’t need to wonder what to do. You don’t need to struggle to come up with an agenda.

This doesn’t mean a Design Sprint is “easy”; it does mean that the activities for each day are clearly defined so any team can jump in and run a Sprint if they take the time to read up on the process.

Do you need a professional Design Sprint facilitator?

Here at Voltage Control, we are professional Design Sprint facilitators, so it’s difficult to be unbiased when it comes to this question. We think teams can certainly run a design sprint on their own if they have one person on the team who wants to take the lead, do the prep and lead the group through all the activities. However, if you can make the investment, you might want to consider a professional facilitator. They can take care of logistics and making sure the team stays on track.

Preparation & Planning

Preparation and planning for your Design Sprint is the first step. Don’t underestimate the time that needs to be put into a Sprint before it even starts. It could take one to two weeks of someone’s time to get ready for a sprint. Here are some of the things you’ll do during this phase:

• Read the book Sprint.
• Secure a spot for your Sprint — on-site, or, even better, off-site.
• Buy Design Sprint supplies.
• Make your participant list. (Spoiler: more people isn’t better.)
• Plan for how you’re going to find research participants.
• Prepare the Sprint participants.
• (If needed) Engage a professional facilitator.
• Gather background research and data that might inform your Sprint.

Day 1 | Design Sprint Activities

The first day of your Design Sprint charts the course for the rest of the week and creates the focus.

Here are the activities:

• Create a long-term goal.
• Map the business challenge you’re tackling.
• Talk to internal experts on your team to get their perspectives on the challenge.
• Identify a target: agree on the specific part of your problem that you will focus on during the week

Day 2 | Design Sprint Activities

If day 1 of a Design Sprint is getting laser-focused on the problem or issue you face, the second day is when you begin to think bout how you might solve your problem.

Here’s an overview of activities for day 2:

• Gather inspiration: the team shares outside inspiration that might inform your solution (i.e., what are other companies doing that we love or might want to “copy”/remix?)
• Sketch: The group sketches ideas for answers using the Four-Step Sketch method. Drawing ability is NOT necessary! It’s more about the thought.
• Plan for customer testing: On Friday, you’ll be interviewing customers, so you also start work on that recruitment on this day (if you haven’t already.)

Day 3 | Design Sprint Activities

On the third day of your Sprint, you look at all of the solutions you’ve come up with and start to hone in on what you might prototype and test.

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Here’s an overview of what happens on this day:

• Critique each solution: keeping an eye on which ones are best for achieving the goal you set on day one.
• Create a storyboard: mix and match your favorite ideas from all of the sketches and piece together a storyboard that will be turned into a prototype that you’ll show to customers.

Day 4 | Design Sprint Activities

The fourth day of a design sprint is when things get very exciting, and depending on your experience with prototyping — a bit scary or daunting. You’ll be making your storyboard into your prototype.

• Prototyping is the main activity for the day!
• Prepping for your user interviews. Make sure you have a user interview script as well as a method for taking notes.

Day 5 | Design Sprint Activities

The last day of your Design Sprint is the moment of truth. It’s when you show users your prototype and get their feedback. This is when you’ll learn if your idea has legs and you should run with it, or if you need to rethink things.

After the Sprint Activities

A Design Sprint might be a week-long, but the activities should spread into the week after — at the very least.

Some of the essential things to do after your Sprint are:

• Hold a debrief or retrospective with the group to define what you learned.
• Communicate to your larger org or team what you learned.
• Align on your next steps.
• Read Beyond the Prototype: We saw companies struggle in the post-Sprint world, so we wrote a whole book about it. Check it out for more details about what to do after a Sprint.

The post An Overview of Design Sprint Activities appeared first on Voltage Control.

Has your company told you that you are going to participate in something called a Design Sprint? Or, are you curious about how you might run one for your own team? In this article, we outline some of the basics of what happens in a Design Sprint workshop—what to expect each day, what you’ll learn, and how to have an effective, successful Design Sprint.

What’s a Design Sprint workshop?

A Design Sprint is a week-long process for tackling a business problem that was initially developed at Google Ventures. Over five days, the sprint takes a team through a design thinking-based process to uncover insights, prototype an idea, and test it with users.

The Design Sprint is covered in-depth in Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp, Braden Kowitz, and John Zeratsky. This book is truly the bible on the method.

Why Should You Run a Design Sprint workshop?

• Align a team around a shared vision
• Answer critical business questions
• Discover the essence of a creative challenge or problem
• Cut through endless internal debate by building a prototype that your customers can give feedback on

When Should You Run a Sprint?

Design sprints are useful at many different stages of a project or product lifecycle. But, here are some great times to do a sprint:

• When kicking off a new initiative
• When looking for new breakthrough features for a product
• When you need to switch gears or iterate on a current product
• When you haven’t talked to your users enough

The Design Sprint Process

The Design Sprint is five days of focused workshops. It’s a tried-and-true formula, with clear plans and activities for each day:

• Day 1 | Map: Monday is about making a plan and getting focused. The first day’s activities help you define key questions, your goal, hear from internal experts and pick an area of focus.
• Day 2 | Sketch: The second day gets everyone’s creative juices going. But, instead of group brainstorming, the process prioritizes individual sketching of solutions.
• Day 3 | Decide: On Wednesday, the team looks at the potential solutions and works together to decide on what to storyboard and prototype.
• Day 4 | Prototype: On day four, the team creates a rapid prototype based on your storyboard, so you have something visual and tangible to test with users.
• Day 5 | Test: On the final day, you show your prototype to five different users in one-on-one interviews to gather feedback and get a gut-check on your possible direction.

“The big idea of the sprint is to take a small team, clear the schedule for a week, and rapidly progress from problem to tested solution.” — Jake Knapp, creator of the Google Ventures Design Sprint

What Do You Learn in a Design Sprint?

Some of the fundamental approaches to creative problem-solving that you digest through the sprint are:

• How to break down a complex problem into a focused target.
• The benefits of a diverse, cross-functional group when tackling a project.
• The power of learning through quick-and-dirty prototyping versus months of product development.
• The importance of showing your work to customers early to get actionable feedback.
• Plus, the need for collaboration, open-mindedness, divergent thinking, and empathy for the end-user.

Tips for a Successful Design Sprint Workshop

If you’ve decided to plan a Design Sprint, you can follow the agenda and activities as outlined in Sprint. But, through our experience running Design Sprints for people like Favor and Adobe, here are some of the things we’ve found critical for Sprint workshop success.

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Daily readout: One evolution we’ve made to the Design Sprint is the addition of a daily readout. Every day of the Sprint, we schedule a readout so the team can keep the larger stakeholder group informed. These are the folks that aren’t in the Sprint but need to know what’s going on. Be strategic about who’s on the readout. When the right people are in the loop, they’ll feel part of the process and you’ll avoid speed bumps down the road.

Stay on task: Your facilitator should be actively keeping people on task and engaged. They should also work to course-correct if someone is derailing the agenda or not participating. A skilled facilitator will make sure you are staying true to the Sprint questions, goals, and target that you set on Day 1.

Brain food: It might seem like snack micromanagement, but don’t overlook the importance of having healthy food on-hand for the team. Donut breakfasts and pizza lunches will inevitably lead to sugar crashes and post-lunch naps. Stock the Sprint room with things like nuts, fruit, protein bars and water to get people through the long days.

Facilitators are Your Friends

A final consideration: who is going to run or lead your Design Sprint? Is there someone on your team who can facilitate sprints, creative working sessions, or user testing? There is a ton of material out there on participatory design techniques, but being good at running them is another thing. It takes practice and time. Having someone with experience and expertise will bring better results if your plan has you continuing sprint techniques.

If you don’t have someone on your team or within your organization who can do this, you may need to bring in an outside coach or facilitator. Naturally, we’re wildly biased because we facilitate Design Sprints, but choosing the right facilitator for your Design Sprint is vital. An excellent facilitator is a mix between a party planner (they deal with logistics and scheduling), a sherpa (they guide the group through each activity), and a counselor (they have to know how to handle tough conversations). They may sound like a unicorn, but you can find one!

Looking for a Design Sprint Workshop Facilitator or Design Sprint Training? Get in touch.

Voltage Control facilitates design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Please reach out at hello@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.

FAQ Section

What is the Design Sprint process and why is it important?
The Design Sprint is a five-day process that helps teams tackle critical business questions by creating a realistic prototype to test with real users. This process involves cross-functional collaboration, enabling the sprint team to work through ideas with customers and answer crucial questions about a product’s development and potential solutions. It’s a powerful tool for speeding up the product development process and ensuring alignment with long-term goals.

How does a Design Sprint benefit cross-functional teams?
Cross-functional teams benefit from the Design Sprint by fostering remote collaboration and allowing input from a wide range of perspectives, including the design team, product manager, and sprint team. This collaboration creates a unified approach to answering key questions and results in innovative solutions for complex products, while keeping the entire team aligned on the project’s long-term goal.

What role do prototypes play in the Design Sprint process?
Prototypes in the Design Sprint serve as simple prototypes or more realistic prototypes to simulate user journeys and test potential user experiences. By involving real users in the testing phase, sprint teams can collect user feedback early on, ensuring that the final product is grounded in real-world usage. This allows teams to adjust quickly before investing heavily in development, making the process step more efficient.

Can Design Sprints be conducted remotely?
Yes. By using essential tools for remote collaboration, such as video conferencing and digital whiteboards, teams can engage in the same structured sprint process from different locations. The remote design sprint approach still delivers valuable insights, potential solutions, and user feedback while allowing for flexibility across time zones.

What are the common pitfalls in the Design Sprint process?
Some common pitfalls include not engaging with real customers early enough, skipping user feedback stages, or misaligning the sprint team’s goals. However, with expert interviews and a focus on realistic prototypes, teams can avoid these pitfalls by maintaining clear communication, addressing critical business questions, and ensuring the product development process remains on track.

How can a Design Sprint improve a customer journey?
A Design Sprint improves the customer journey by focusing on user experiences and answering key questions about how a product interacts with potential users. By mapping out the customer journey, sprint teams can ensure that the finished product aligns with the needs of real customers, offering an innovative, user-centered solution that drives long-term success.

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We hear about TurboTax a lot during Design Sprints, specifically during Lightning Demos. Lightning Demos are an exercise on the second day of a Design Sprint. During this exercise, each team member presents analogous inspiration that helps unlock creativity among the team.

These demos highlight products or services that are similar, dissimilar, or even competitive to what’s being explored in the Sprint. The facilitator sketches a thumbnail of the highlights on the whiteboard to serve as as a reminder during Day 2.

An example of the Lightning Demo consists of:

• The product/service that is a source of inspiration.
• The name of the company written beneath the thumbnail.
• An identifiable feature that stands out in the thumbnail.
• A big idea as a takeaway for the team to consider moving forward above the thumbnail.

So, you’re probably asking…

“Why TurboTax… and why Kevin Bacon?”

“Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” is a game where you pick any actor and within 6 movies they will have tangentially worked with Kevin Bacon… guaranteed. “Kevin Bacon is the Center of the Universe” was a newsgroup thread that highlighted this phenomenon. Once you point it out, it’s hard to miss and can be pretty fun to play using the Oracle of Bacon to research.

Just bear with me, but I believe that TurboTax has tangentially inspired every new product coming to market since their online service launched.

This is because I’ve noticed that TurboTax is mentioned in every Sprint we facilitate. Now that you know about it, you can be sure that someone will mention TurboTax during your next Design Sprint.

There is a reason that so many people resonate with the TurboTax experience. It has solved a few key pain points that were ubiquitous to anyone filing taxes. These are the attributes frequently observed about TurboTax:

• Efficient and clear interface that enables users of all skill levels to confidently navigate a complicated process such as filing taxes.
• Progressive disclosure of the necessary information that the user needs to know enables the person to complete filing.
• Micro-experiences that encourage users to progress effectively towards completion.

It can be easy for anyone to discuss how TurboTax is so successful and what they enjoy about the service. However, it’s not always easy for Sprint participants to compellingly articulate the benefits of the examples they present in the Lightning Demo. Additionally, some people may not be comfortable with presenting in front of groups. To support more effective Lightning Demos, we have created a 6 Step Mad Lib that offers a clear outline for presentation.

The format we encourage team members to use is:

1. The demo I would like to show you today is…
2. This company is solving the problem…
3. They did this by…
4. This matters to me because…
5. The important aspects of this example are…
6. This applies to our Design Sprint and goals because…

Let’s look at an example of the Lightning Demo format using TurboTax as the source of inspiration for our team members.

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The demo I would like to show you today is…

• Introduce the product/service that you are presenting in a simple statement. This can be a quick example of the solution they used.

The demo I would like to show you today is TurboTax. Their tool assists users by guiding them through the complexities of filing taxes.

This company is solving the problem…

• What is the purpose of the company? Why are they solving a problem?

TurboTax is improving the accuracy of filing, and tracking users progress through the journey so that they can incrementally complete their tax filing.

They did this by…

• How did they accomplish the solution?

They did this by designing progress trackers throughout the experience so that you never get lost. Also, the audit meter enables users to feel confident that they have filed correctly.

This matters to me because…

• Why do you care about the problem, solution, or company?

This matters to me because I have used the service before and I am now a life long customer because of how easy and innovative TurboTax has made it to file my taxes.

The important aspects of this example are…

• Tell us about the significant features of the product/service. This helps repeat and reiterate the earlier point. This can be helpful to help reinforce why you are showing the example.

The important aspects of this example are the persistent audit meter and the progress navigation. The audit meter makes me feel confident because of the simple rating scale, bold colors, and encouraging language.

This applies to our Design Sprint and goals because…

• Put a bow on your Lightning Demo with a strong statement about how this applies to your problem.

This applies to our Design Sprint and goals because we can very easily implement a similar method so that our users can track their progress within our ecosystem.

It’s simple to plug in any Lightning Demo you choose into this effective 6 Step Mad Lib. Share this with your Sprint team members to consider as they are exploring demos to present.

If you follow this format, your teams will resonate with your lightning presentation because it covers simple and declarative information that will help the team take notes. Remember an effective Lightning Demo is concise, meaningful, and identifies clear elements of inspiration that the team can use as ammunition during ideation. Happy Sprinting!

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As a Biology major, I’m always fascinated when I notice patterns in technology that borrow from natural phenomena. Rather than reinventing the wheel we can use existing capabilities to pursue new markets. Sometimes this even takes the form of utilizing by-product or waste form another process. Reusing shipping containers is popular right now, and I personally use a large wire spool for a coffee table.

Exaptation (Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth Vrba’s proposed replacement for what he considered the teleologically-loaded term “pre-adaptation”) and the related term co-option describe a shift in the function of a trait during evolution. For example, a trait can evolve because it served one particular function, but subsequently it may come to serve another. — Wikipedia

Common biological examples of exaptation are bird features and pain receptors. Bird initially evolved features for temperature regulation, but later they proved valuable to take flight. The physical pain system may have been co-opted to motivate social animals to respond to threats to their inclusion in the group as we see that the chemical pathways for physical pain and pain for social exclusion overlap.

“You can’t determine in advance what innovation is needed, you have to create an ecology in which novel solutions can emerge.” — Dave Snowden

A Few Famous Examples

LASIK Surgery

LASIK eye surgery uses the same algorithm NASA created to dock space shuttles to align the laser to the eye properly. Autonomous rendezvous and docking technology to assist the Space Shuttle in servicing satellites resulted in an eye-tracking device for LASIK vision correction surgery.

LADARTracker, it measures eye movements at a rate of 4,000 times per second, four times the established safety margin, to ensure the safety and effectiveness of LASIK surgery. The technology is manufactured by Alcon Laboratories of Fort Worth, Texas, and is used in conjunction with the company’s systems for LASIK surgery, employed by eye surgeons across the country.

In 1947, the microwave oven was accidentally made Percy Spencer, an engineer who was working at a radiation laboratory. One day, while Percy was working on an active radar set he noticed the candy bar he had in his pocket melted. Percy wasn’t the first to notice something like this with radars, but he was the first to investigate it. He and some other workers from the laboratory began trying to heat other food objects to see if a similar heating effect would happen. They first heated popcorn kernels, which became the world’s first microwaved popcorn. They then decided to try to heat an egg. The result was that the egg exploding in the face of one of his co-workers.

The company Percy was working for, Raytheon, then took rights on October 8, 1945, for a microwave cooking oven, eventually named the Radarange. The first produced microwave oven was about 6 feet tall and weighed around 750 pounds. The price tag on these ovens was about $5000 a piece. It wasn’t until 1967 that the first microwave oven that was both somewhat affordable ($495) and reasonably sized (counter-top model) became available.

Alfred Einhorn, the German scientist who around 1905 synthesized novocaine, the first nonaddictive narcotic, had intended it to be used in major surgical procedures like amputation. Surgeons, however, preferred total anesthesia for such procedures; they still do. Instead, novocaine found a ready appeal among dentists. Its inventor spent the remaining years of his life traveling from dental school to dental school making speeches that forbade dentists from “misusing” his noble invention in applications for which he had not intended it.

I’d say that the majority of successful new inventions or products don’t succeed in the market for which they were originally designed. — Peter Drucker

Approaches for Exaptive Innovation

Grid Thinking

My good friend an mentor, Gary Hoover, shared with me a powerful approach to innovation which he calls “Grid Thinking”. The concept is surprisingly simple and yet the results can have serious impact. The goal is to find viable unexplored intersections.

First you draw a grid, with one type of thing running vertically and another classification horizontally. For example you could put technologies on the horizontal axis and product types on the vertical axis. Note, it can be helpful to allow for flexibility such that both axis could contain the same item. Next, examine every possible intersection and ask yourself, “Is there a business opportunity here”?

Breakthrough innovations most often come from combining two ideas that everyone sees every day but no one has put together (yet). — Gary Hoover

Design Sprints

The Lightning Demos on Day-2 of a Design Sprint are an approach to inspire exaptive innovation. These analogous inspirations are great ways to borrow from others and repurpose ideas to generate new innovative approaches.

In the Sprint book, Jake, shares a story from 1908 about Melitta Bentz. Melitta, unhappy with the gritty and bitter coffee sought to find a better solution. Inspired by her son’s blotting paper, which was disposable, thick, and absorbent for the purposes of mopping up excess ink, she invented the worlds first coffee filter.

“Great innovation is built on existing ideas, repurposed with vision”. — Jake Knapp

During lightning demos for Twyla’s 4th design sprint, Shane O’Donnell, our product designer, shared a Coates golf’s website. The feature that Shane was excited to share with us all was a free trial for golf clubs. Shane’s hypothesis was that if they can offer a trial for expensive golf clubs, then Twyla could do the same for art. It turned out that this was a winning sketch and we prototyped the trial. When Twyla launched the $30 Trial, we saw a 2x increase in sales and the trial continues to account for a large portion of online sales.

Everywhere we turn, there are examples of exaptive innovation.

Even Design Sprints can be exaptated. I often extract exercises and activities from Design Sprints to use in other circumstances, restructure it into a 4-Day process, or use them to solve non traditional problems.

What are some of your favorite examples? Please share in the comments section below!

If you are in or near Austin, come visit us at the Austin Design Sprint meetup. Each month we have a guest speaker share their experience participating in a Design Sprint. If you would like to be a future speaker please email me.

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