Frustrating virtual design sprint challenges (and how to combat them)

You can’t beat the stuffing out of a bad virtual sprint session. You can only hope to contain it.

There’s always going to be an event or situation in your design sprint that will challenge both your patience and your best laid plans for a great session.

These occurrences are common for both in-person and remote sprints. You might recognize a few of them:

• The HiPPO effect (Highest paid persons’ opinion) derailing the focus of the Sprint.
• Picking the wrong target and/or sprint questions because your problem framing was garbage.
• Trying to find user testers that represent your target market and not finding anyone who can fit your participant profile.
• A general lack of preparation that makes everyone wonder why they’re participating in the first place (which is one of the worst ones).

The nerving melody of grinding gears…

Virtual design sprints come with their own unique set of challenges. When everyone has their own screen and untethered from having to be in the same room, you have a whole new set of dynamics to deal with as a facilitator and organizer of your week long session.

Here’s my short list of the most common yet mildly frustrating situations I’ve encountered, along with some suggested pivots to get things back on track.

1. Technical difficulties and bad connections
   No question about it… you’re at the mercy of the network when everyone is online. If you experience connectivity issues and mother nature isn’t to blame, you can try the following in order: Stop video for those that are having issues, reboot and reconnect using private chat to give send updates, enable a live streaming feed and manage with a short delay.
2. No test drives of software/connectivity
   Given all the things that are grabbing for your teams’ attention and time, it’s no surprise that a lot of them show up on Monday without any preparation whatsoever.
   
   If that’s the case, you may need to reserve 15–30 minutes guiding all participants through the software they are going to use for a virtual environment. It helps to pair people up (someone skilled versus someone brand new) to work things out in a private chat during the Sprint.
3. Completely new to design sprints
   Even if you create the most engaging, compelling and enlightening videos that show someone how to go through an online/virtual design sprint, most of your participants won’t have time to watch them.
   
   Instead, work to incorporate your teachings and guidance into the regular flow of the design sprint. You can even use the aforementioned ‘buddy system’ to help guide others through particular activities.
4. Eight second attention spans
   There’s a good chance that your entire design sprint team is going to multi-task online, even if they’ve agreed (in principle) to the ground rules to keep their focus in the session. Note and vote activities every 30 minutes is a perfect counter to this dynamic and helps keeps a steady momentum going for your sprint team.
5. Low energy blues
   Lack of sleep, lack of food, long weekend, feeling under the weather or working in a very dark room can slow your virtual session to a crawl. Considering positioning yourself near windows with lots of natural light, as well as starting and ending each day of the virtual sprint with ice breakers and quick retros.
6. Last minute dropouts
   Life moves fast, and so do unexpected events that cause members of your team to miss various planned activities, or the entire day of the Sprint. As long as there’s enough representation to move things along, you can record entire sessions on Zoom, GoToMeeting or something similar to bring your missing team member up to speed on where things are.
7. Unfamiliarity with online software
   Most disruptions fall into this category, and participants are usually reluctant to admit that they’re lost. Consider walking someone through a program that they’re struggling with… whether its white boarding software like Mural, using Slack or Basecamp for offline communication, or prototyping with a program like Webflow. You may have to take extra time offline to bring someone up to speed, but it almost always pays off.
8. Jerks, arrogant pricks, disruptive idealists and serial conversationalists
   As a professional who’s there to help and guide everyone along, I don’t tolerate these kinds of behaviors. If the ground rules laid out at the beginning of the session don’t deter participants from being terrible versions of themselves, I shut the sprint down for 30 minutes and meet 1 on 1 to realign expectations. Most leave, some stay, but I’ve yet to have a reoccurrence of the initial transgression.
9. Time boxing breaks down
   If it’s your first time doing a virtual design sprint, I can guarantee you’ll be calling some audibles on your agenda. You simply can’t account for the amount of time humans need to express their point of view. A better way to approach the week is to see the posted schedule as a suggestion, not a blueprint. Plan on being extremely flexible and allow conversation to happen (within reason).
10. The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day
    If Monday is a disaster and Tuesday isn’t going much better, stop the madness. There’s something very wrong with either the foundations/rationale for doing the Sprint or the team that’s been assembled to address the challenge. Either way, consider cutting bait and shutting down the virtual design sprint during Tuesday’s lunch break. It’s much better to reset and reassess than put everyone through a lot of unnecessary pain.

Like most complex processes to achieve a common goal, practice makes perfect.

The best design sprint facilitators and practitioners know when to course correct and set a new direction for the team whenever they encounter an unexpected challenge. Hopefully the list above can help provide some guidance on how to address and combat the worst disruptions you’ll encounter.

If you enjoyed this article or have some constructive criticism to share, please put your thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks for reading!