Virtual Sprint Week Diary, Day 3
Wednesday, November 7
Now it’s getting interesting.
There are three teams that are starting to break away from the group, primarily due to the drive and energy of the leaders on their teams.
Lee Duncan is taking both Team B and D into a new stage of development, offering SME’s and a Decider with amazing credentials (Gustavo Razzetti) for the ‘Design the Workday’ effort.
Sabrina Goerlich is pro-actively planning out activities and events for her Sprint Week while engaging and talking to a number of team members on their status and plans. I was delightfully surprised at how well connected she was with her team. It highlighted something I’ve seen from afar… a natural inclination towards trailblazing and showing leadership.
Other teams have a lot of dependencies to deal with, and will probably come online during the weekend. Many members of those other teams are currently in design sprints or projects this week (Phil Smithson, Brian Leung, Niko Peltoranta, etc.) where they just can’t break away.
Keisha Whaley and Bill Alexy are completely saturated with responsibilities. Some are looking for jobs full time, while others are dealing with family matters, It’s these dynamics you have to factor in when asking for others’ time for free.
Setting the Stage
Irregardless, the show must go on.
I’m attempting to drive teams to indicate their availability for Sprint Week. It’s becoming apparent who’s going to be able to meaningfully contribute versus merely observing and providing some assistance where it makes sense. Both parties are valuable to the process, but self-declaring their role and commitment is tricky. You don’t want to be pushy to the point that you drive volunteers away.
SME Interviews are also going to be slotted in for the next couple of days. I’m fairly certain that a few of them will be conducted over the weekend, and a few more during sprint week itself. As long as all of the are recorded, we’re good to go.
The other thing I’m trying to do is reassure those who have never done facilitation or participate in a design sprint that things will work themselves out. This is a *pilot*. It’s a perfectly safe place to make mistakes, and the whole point is to get some process reps in while showcasing what you can do as a professional.
Podcast Interviews
Finally, I conducted my first podcast interview with David Holl of Postobject. He’s on one of the design sprint teams, and I first met him through a user test interview for a recent sprint (where I asked him all about medical insurance. It was a barn burner.)
I have a few more I’d like to do (Jon Dunning, Bill Alexy, etc.) in order to profile the various practitioners that are volunteering their time for this event. There’s an undercurrent of storytelling that I don’t think I’ll be able to tap again with a future endeavor, and I’d like to capture these moments in time any way that I can.
For now, I’ll need to capture what sleep time I have before my son wakes me up at 5:00 AM. I don’t know what possesses him to get up so early (it’s not hunger or a full bladder per se… I think it’s just testing how much sleep deprivation I can really handle before going into hibernation for the year.)
Hope you all are doing well, and we’ll see you tomorrow. :)
