Design Sprint Workshop

What is it?

Using the same framework as the famed “Google Ventures Design Sprint” process, we lead and mentor product teams through a complete sprint. We’re not just teaching the framework here, although that is an important part: this is an actual design sprint that delivers real business results.

We can deliver this in two different formats. The first is a three-day exercise, where we spent the first day preparing the team for the sprint, and we join in the sprint on the first and last days. This ensures that the team is well-prepared for the sprint, starts the sprint well and then wraps up with actual deliverables.

The second is the full six-day experience. We begin with a preparation day again, but then participate with you in the actual design sprint. We do not lead the sprint for you – that’s part of the learning exercise – but we are on hand to guide and advise every step of the way.

What outcome can I expect?

Both versions of the workshop expect the participants to deliver a full design sprint. This includes:

development of an overall plan for the sprint: identification of valuable targets, and gaining corporate buy-in;
creation of sketches and other low-fidelity solution tools;
development of story boards and customer journey analysis;
high-velocity development of prototypes suitable for customer testing;
running customer interviews, collecting and analysing the results.

Like all Product Reactor workshops, this is fully engaged in actual business problems: we do not simply “teach” you to design sprint, we participate with you and ensure you “learn to do”. Each participant is provided with a paperback copy of the book “Sprint”.

What is the content of the workshop?

Three-day workshop:

Day 1: overview of the process, introduction to the tools and techniques that will be used, administrative overview.
Day 2 (Sprint Day 1): starting the sprint, engaging the rest of the business, organizing the team.
Day 3 (Sprint Day 5): creating the sprint artefacts, performing successful customer interviews, collecting data and writing an outcome report.

Six-day workshop:

Day 1: overview of the process, introduction to the tools and techniques that will be used, administrative overview.
Day 2 (Sprint Day 1): starting the sprint, engaging the rest of the business.
Day 3 (Sprint Day 2): sketching and interview planning.
Day 4 (Sprint Day 3): storyboarding and solution prioritization.
Day 5 (Sprint Day 4): developing hypotheses and solution prototyping at speed.
Day 6 (Sprint Day 5): performing successful customer interviews, collecting data and writing an outcome report.

Note that in the traditional version of the sprint, “Sprint Day 1” would be a Monday. We tend to recommend against this; doing customer interviews and collecting results on a Friday inevitably leads to loss of engagement. We suggest aligning “Sprint Day 5” with a Tuesday or Wednesday, and as Day 4 is often challenging for many times it can be useful to allocate more time here for a first sprint.

We require the following commitments from participants and the sponsoring organization:

that participants fully read their copy of “Sprint” in advance of the design sprint preparation meeting;
that the team can fully dedicate themselves to a complete design sprint;
that the wider business will make experts and customers available as necessary through the process;
that any possibility of interruption or removal of participants for “emergency” reasons is kept to the absolute minimum.

As this takes up a significant piece of time – both on our side, but especially on yours – we suggest ensuring that this is planned well in advance. Unfortunately we are unable to commit to leading design sprints with less than 4 weeks notice, although we will always do our best to accommodate.

What are the costs?

There are two rates, depending on the involvement you ask of us. We do not host design sprints, and generally recommend against them being held off-site.

Three-day workshop: £3,600 + VAT
Six-day workshop: £7,200 + VAT

All workshops include paperback copies of “Sprint” for participants (approximate value £20), as well as exercise books and materials. We do not provide any software, and generally recommend that teams use the applications they are most familiar with when needed (as a rule, software is not required, though!).

Enquire about Design Sprint workshops