The future of design sprints is virtual
… and it’s coming sooner than you think.
A growing number of companies and organizations are looking to execute the design sprint process online.
In fact, there’s numerous articles and stories over the past few years documenting how others have organized and facilitated remote design sprints for different purposes.
- How to run ideation workshops remotely (Mansi Gupta)
- How to Run a Remote Design Sprint Without Going Crazy (Jake Knapp)
- Running a remote design sprint (Andrej Kischiman)
- Jumpstart team creativity with remote design sprints (Laïla von Alvensleben)
All of these examples showcase how distributed teams and individuals can navigate time zones, share screens and run multiple levels of communication while leveraging online tools such as Zoom, Mural, Figma, Basecamp, Slack, Miro and Marvel to share their work.
And there’s no “right” way of doing it either.
It could be that lone remote person in Argentina that talks to a central team in North Carolina, or several teams connecting with one another from around the world. Remote design sprints can feature entire rooms of people with sticky notes, butcher paper and laptops all sharing the same digital whiteboard on their shared screen.
If facilitated and planned well, remote design sprints can be a great process for distributed teams to collaborate on big ideas and breakthrough projects.
I also believe this model of remote working is an evolutionary precursor of what’s to come in the near future.
The Case for Virtual Design Sprints
Ever since I started Dallas Design Sprints last year, I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring virtual design sprints.
And to clarify, a virtual design sprint isn’t something where everyone has a VR helmet, dot voting with hand-held controllers in a 3D environment on floating solution sketches. Even affinity diagramming in that environment would be batshit bonkers.
I’m talking about a scenario where:
- Everyone is working from their own screen, even if they’re in the same room.
- The Sprint Team you’re working with can be twice the size of an in-person or remote design sprint, and be just as efficient.
- The Sprint Team spends less time together online, yet still achieves the same level of progress as an in-person/remote design sprint.
- The Sprint Team has dedicated offline-alone time to use at their discretion to get various design sprint activities done.
- Any executive, stakeholder or observer can watch the progress of the team as they move through their exercises in the Sprint.
- Audio and video recordings of subject matter experts, user interviews and even the Sprint Team itself can be reviewed and shared.
- You never have to smell anyone you’re working with on your Sprint Team. Seriously. Some people arrive for their morning sessions with some serious death breath.
In other words, it’s a version of the methodology that’s more efficient, doesn’t require as much time, allows participants to control their engagements AND empowers stakeholders to make better decisions based on real, qualitative data.
And no death breath… or body cologne bombs or cheap perfume shrouds for that matter.
What’s not to like about this?
“I don’t like it.”
If you’re someone that enjoys being with people and engaging with them in person, then what I just wrote probably seemed like a big bunch of nonsense.
And it’s true… people generally prefer the in-person experience when they work on a design sprint. You get the full spectrum of team communication and camaraderie it provides, the tangible progress you can see on butcher paper and whiteboards, and observe how we all act as humans when working on something important and complex.
Plus, being online and working with others a million miles away isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. You can feel lonely, isolated, ignored or even disconnected from others you’re working with. You may be in a place with spooky internet, a huge antenna made from aluminum foil for better reception and a four year old PC trying to render Mural every five seconds.
So if you want to rock out with the design sprint process at the workplace with colleagues, or accelerate your startups’ product ideas by having everyone with a dedicated week in a WeWork conference room, by all means. Keep posting those live action shots on Instagram for everyone to see, and showcase what you’re doing to inspire and share with others. You do you.
In the meantime, I’m going to test my little thesis on virtual design sprints by literally lighting my comfort zone on fire.
The Global Virtual Design Sprint
Last April, I held a world-wide virtual design sprint event for practitioners and professionals to showcase what they were capable of. It was coined the “Global Virtual Design Sprint”, or GVDS, by Sabrina Goerlich, and I’ve used the term ever since.
The event attracted over 350+ people, with nearly 150+ people on 18 different virtual sprint teams working on various challenges (United Nations initiatives, reducing food waste, a design sprint referral network, etc.) . They tried out a virtual design sprint, networked with one another, collaborated on an interesting problem and shared what they did with their networks.
It was an event that busted the myth that virtual design sprints couldn’t be done, or just weren’t possible. Instead, it showcased how they were different from other types of design sprint frameworks, having both advantages and disadvantages that were mentioned earlier.
And it wasn’t all parades and accolades either. I’ve made some serious planning and logistical errors that prevented me from following up with event partners on their engagement. I didn’t create enough educational content, and the model didn’t prevent nearly 1/3 of early signups to drop out of the event… leaving their teammates feeling like they may have wasted their time.
Despite those setbacks and facepalms for not getting myself in order, I’m doing the GVDS again this November. This time around, it’ll feature:
- GDVS Presents — An entire month (October) of facilitators, designers, researchers, thought leaders and developers presenting on what they know.
- The official launch of the Design Sprint Referral Network.
- Talent Sprints — Where professionals looking for jobs can showcase their talents working on a project for a charitable organization.
- Regional Meetups — Where those looking to participate in the GVDS can meet in person before doing a virtual sprint online. (and potentially after)
- Mural Superpowers — We’ll be showcasing the newest tech from our digital whiteboard partner Mural, highlighting how facilitators can run their own virtual sprints from inside the tool.
And here’s a bonus! If you want to keep tabs on what’s going on with the next Global Virtual Design Sprint (titled GVDS 3.0), you should:
- Join the GVDS Facebook user group, AND/OR
- Sign up for the GVDS newsletter for updates every 1–2 weeks
“I still don’t like it.”
Okay, I understand. It’s not for everyone, and you may have tried one before and thought it was a huge waste of time. Totally get that.
But you know who’s been asking about virtual design sprints in the past couple of months? A couple of functional managers, quite a number of marketing executives, a senior project manager and a few people that run small to mid-size companies for a living.
At first, it was just one or two inquiries a month on LinkedIn in response to an article or topic. Now, it’s at least 1–2 conversations per week with a few scheduling follow-ups later on this summer.
Most of the questions deal with…
- Cost savings of a virtual design sprint (time & resources related to travel, in-person facilitation and/or training)
- The versatility of the model (“Can it be used for X?”, “Can I add it to Y?”, Can I use it with Z model for our roadmap projections, etc.)
- How a virtual sprint can impact business outcomes (early strategy and planning phases versus just speeding up design/dev/QA/deploy)
- Who offered virtual design sprints as a service (that one was easy)
While most may not have virtual design sprints on their radar, I can assure you that a growing number of decision makers, marketing professionals and company founders are starting to inquire about it.
Learn from my mistakes
If you want to give virtual design sprints a shot, here’s what I’d recommend you do beforehand. Don’t be the dumb version of me earlier this year when I was struggling to get the Global Virtual Design Sprint together. I know you’re way smarter than that.
- Meet in person (if you can)
If at all possible, meet up with who you’re going to work with before doing your virtual design sprint. The in-person connection you’ll start with will make your online collaboration that much easier. - Know your tools
A virtual design sprint team usually rallies around a single communication platform, an offline communication channel, a digital whiteboard and prototyping software. All of these will be the proper foundation for any virtual endeavor you embark on, so make sure everyone’s on the same page about what you’re using and why. - Map your time zones
If you’re already working with distributed teams and remote workers, it’s a no brainer. There are number of online tools you can use to figure out the availability of your colleagues and schedule online together time that works for everyone. - Over-communicate
Virtual design sprints require nearly everyone to pro-actively communicate with one another. It doesn’t matter if it’s offline in Slack or Basecamp, or online during an ideation session. The more you share, show and tell, the better off everyone will be as the week progresses. - Hold on loosely, but don’t let go
You’ll need to trust the professionals you assemble for a virtual design sprint to take ownership of their role and responsibilities. As long as you provide proper context, support and guidance on the outcomes they’re shooting for, let them do their thing.
Want to take it for a test drive?
However, if you don’t have a virtual sprint (or even a team) to get involved with or not even know where to get started, I’ll make you an offer.
If you want to experiment with a virtual design sprint, leave your LinkedIn profile URL in the comments below. Also, let me know if you’re actively looking for a job or opportunity in the market (either in the post or by private message… your discretion).
If there’s enough interest, I’ll take time out of my schedule to arrange a virtual sprint for the month of August. I’ll keep this offer open till the end of July. After that, we’ll see what happens. :)
But yeah, I’m putting it out there. Virtual sprints are the future, and they’re definitely coming (again) this November. If you’re interested in seeing it for yourself, you know what to do.
Thanks for reading!
