Announcing the 6th Global Virtual Design Sprint (May 3–28, 2021)
… to start the new year off right! 😎🇺🇸
If anyone had told me in the fall of November 2018 that I would be doing six (!!!) of these international events for virtual design sprinting, I would have laughed them out of the room. No way. Not happening.
Yet here I am, about to set sail on yet another adventure of exploration, discovery, learning and experimental process that’s defined these events every time I’ve hosted one.
And it’s a little bittersweet, given that I’ve moved on from the traditional design sprint process. I’m no longer an ardent follower of the original 5-day methodology popularized by Jake Knapp. And that’s saying something… given I was flown out to Paris to meet him and attend one of his workshops!
Instead, I’ve come to embrace and love the variations of the process that I’ve encountered and tried out over the past year. I’m also learning how to incorporate pretotyping (pretend prototyping) into the mix, thanks to Alberto Savoia and his ongoing support.
And with the Global Virtual Design Sprint (GVDS), those advancements and explorations are showcased in a month-long event designed to teach others how to do them. With a ‘learn-by-doing’ model at its core, the GVDS brings an international team of practitioners and professionals together to showcase what they do best.
What I learned from the last Global Virtual Design Sprint (5.0)
With the last GVDS in October of last year, I took a more relaxed approach to the event. I opted for a single week of design sprinting and “pretotyping”, reserving the first two weeks of October for research, exploration and problem framing.
It was a welcome improvement from the previous events I’ve hosted, but it still fell short in a couple of areas.
- Despite the documentation, written instructions, stepped instruction videos and other materials meant to help teams move through the process, many participants needed additional guidance to move through their virtual design sprint exercises… especially with the Dash.
- The over-reliance on Facilitators to guide virtual design sprint teams was noticeably less than previous events… but there was still work to do.
- The traditional format of doing a virtual design sprint was becoming redundant with some participants. I received quite a few emails asking to incorporate even *more* advanced techniques into the mix.
- There was a louder call for challenges to better align with open innovation challenges in the wild, rather than having them just ‘home-grown’ within the event by participants. One person has previous referred to it as the ‘skeleton key’ of the entire event… unlocking the latent potential in the model to really help those in need.
Aside from the above, the one change that was palpable at the end of GVDS5 was a really strong sense of community. While it’s always been present with previous events, GVDS5 had a new, super strong sense of belonging.
In fact, we created a GVDS Community of Practice on Slack to keep the conversation going throughout the coming year. 👍
What’s new with GVDS 6.0
The improvements to the upcoming Global Virtual Design Sprint center on two particular dimensions of the event: creating team challenges and having representative facilitation.
- The adoption of an open innovation challenge model
After some of our participants mentioned an OpenIDEO challenge that aligned with both our team challenges and our timelines, I’ve started reaching out to a number of organizations (TAIKAI, Call for Code, Agorize and others) to align on their open innovation challenges. - The return of participant-submitted challenges
The 4th Global Virtual Design Sprint introduced a peer-based challenge submission system, complete with voting, Q&A and advance team placement. I pivoted to a more process-based approach in GVDS5, but it didn’t work out as well. Lesson learned, and we’re back with an approach that participants really enjoyed. - The introduction of a ‘virtual facilitator’
A lot of work was done to help experienced facilitators and newcomers with the nuances of both virtual design sprints and pretotyping. With GVDS6, I’ll be going after something quite ambitious; a ‘virtual facilitator’ (or VF) that guides someone completely new to the process through each step of a virtual design sprint.
The vision for this is fairly straightforward. The baseline virtual design sprint would be shown through a series of videos, with Q&A in written form for questions or issues that come up. Additional videos would be available for exercise variations that have proven to work in previous events (and given proper attribution to those who contributed them). - A ‘Featured Facilitator’ series to promote small business
A number of participants, including those in the Community of Practice, run their own businesses. They’ve been critical to the success of the GVDS as a foundational component of each team’s experience. With GVDS6, I’ll be offering these facilitators the chance to showcase their unique approach to facilitation while promoting the work they do to a larger audience. - A better, more robust integration of pretotyping (via the Dash).
After going through three different client engagements, the Dash (a hybrid version of Alberto Savoia’s pretotyping methodology and design thinking) has been streamlined and improved for a second run. Teams will be able to run fast, cheap and believable pretotype experiments before their sprint begins, or after their solution sketch has been finalized… all to test the desirability of their ideas in the market. - More networking events (and special guests) with Clubhouse
GVDS5 saw the introduction of weekly networking events for participants before the main event. With GVDS6, we’ll be leveraging the newest social media darling Clubhouse to hold some audio-only topical conversations about our challenges, guest appearances with some amazing people and some super secret sessions that I can’t discuss at the moment. 😁 - Spotlight Award Badges for LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
For those who receive a Spotlight Award (a peer-based prize given to participants, from participants), I’ll be continuing a GVDS4+5 tradition of creating graphical badges to showcase their achievements.
So what’s a “Global Virtual Design Sprint” anyway? 🤔
Good question! If you want to know everything and anything about the Global Virtual Design Sprint, you can get a complete overview on this page.
I’m also holding introductory sessions on the GVDS, where I explain what the event is all about, give the latest updates and answer any questions you might have.
How do I register for the GVDS? ✍️
That’s the easy part! You can sign up for the Global Virtual Design Sprint by following this link.
If you have any questions before you register, feel free to contact me on LinkedIn or through the official Global Virtual Design Sprint website.
Hope to see you there! 😁
