Distributed Sprints Kit
A Figma template to help your team ideate
At Dropbox, we work in a distributed fashion across multiple countries all over the world. Although we try to make sure our team members feel closer together, running design-ideation sprints can still be pretty difficult. There are challenges with time lags during videoconferencing, messy Sharpie sketches, and the inability to ensure that everyone is viewing the same screen.
Recently, we ran an ideation sprint with participants spread across five locations and two time zones. We were interested in how we could reduce the friction around sketching and sharing ideas during a videoconference. We decided to split our 20+ participants into three groups, and ran three sketching sessions in parallel — with one group fully distributed.
This was a super-cool exercise. Our distributed group pioneered this Figma resource, and it ended up being the smoothest ideation session of all (and the easiest to synthesize ideas!). Here are some fun pics of our team in action:
So you might be wondering: How do I get started?
We’ve included a three-step guide to quickly get you up and running. Check out the DEMO tab in this Figma template.
It’s pretty simple. After crazy eights, just drag your sketch into the image fill in the right-hand inspector pane of Figma, then add context to the text boxes.
As a facilitator, you can also change the components of each card to include images of each participating team member — super-handy for when you need to follow up on certain ideas after the sprint is over!
Afterwards, when everyone has input their ideas, drag each card around and start clustering as you share ideas. Simply click on a participant’s face to follow them around as they’re explaining their idea.
Download the kit
Download it, make it your own, and share feedback with us on Twitter at @DropboxDesign, or DM me at @cheecheelin.
Explore our full set of design resources on Dropbox.Design.
Happy ideating!
