Remote Design Sprint Day 2. Notes

Day 2 Summary. The purpose of Day 2 in a design sprint is to begin the ideation, sketching, and solution-ing of the ‘Target’ we aligned to on Day 1.

…… The following article provides a list of notes, quick tips, and the actual ‘executed’ agenda from our 5-day remote product design sprint. It also assumes there is already a baseline understanding of the traditional design sprint process and we are just summarizing our variations and call outs for this specific remote design sprint experience.

Context

• Healthcare tech startup needs to decide scope for MVP and 1 or 2 killer capabilities that will differentiate them in the market (1 target persona)
• Participants: CEO. Chief Revenue Officer. COO. Engineer. Product. Designer
• 5-day remote design sprint
• Tools: Zoom, Mural, Figma, Slack, Spotify
• 3 user tests (B2B)

Notes and Tips

• Being flexible. The Decider mentioned in the prep session that the team was interested in identifying a name for the platform so we agreed prior to the sprint to take the team through a series of brand, personality, and naming exercises as the creative warm-up for Day 2
• Empathy and experience first. The team kept focusing the list of features in the MVP, so we decided to insert our go-to Doug Dietz story to help the team understand the value of designing for empathy and the experience first before deciding what features would go into the MVP Product backlog
• Taking time for clarity. Early on we realized that this new team coming from many different perspectives needed more time for clarity, so we spent 10–15 minutes per person during the lightning demo vs 3 minutes to help align at a visual and interaction level
• It’s ok to adjust the schedule. Due to the additional ‘must-have’ conversations throughout the day, we decided as a team to push ‘Sketch - Solution’ to Day 3

Structure and Pace

Based on the positive feedback on the structure and pace of Day 1 we decided to continue with the 10 am to 5 pm, 2-hour sessions with 30-minute breaks.

• Session 1 10:00–12:00 | Session 2 12:30–2:30 | Session 3 3:00–5:00
• The team was again diligent about stepping away from the computer during each break.

Housekeeping

• I adjusted my seat height, laptop and monitor set up on Tuesday. I had a mad crick in my neck because my monitor was not eye level and I had spent most of Monday looking up
• Reminder to lock down your Mural board. We made changes Monday night to Tuesday and forgot to lock down the board. (not a disaster but annoying)
• Don’t forget as the facilitator to prep your Lightning demos. I had each screen opened in my browser on different tabs beforehand
• Remind the participants to have 8.5 x 11 or 11x17 paper, post-its, and a sharpie for the ‘Sketch’ activities for the week. (Pictures were taken of the sketches and posted onto Mural)
• We recorded the sessions on Zoom. If you can multi-task it is best to record and stop recording before and after each speaker. For example on Day 1 have a recording per ‘Ask the Expert, on Day 2 have a recording per Lightning Demo shared on Zoom
• We had created a simple hand-drawn example of a ‘generic solution’ to help the participants understand what they were expected to create (another Lisa Wagner suggestion)
• Pictures were taken of the sketches and posted onto Mural
• We recommend the team have multiple tabs open, one per Mural board in sequence so that they can go in between boards easily
• Music fell between Rachmaninoff, Prince, Bob Marley and the Wailers, and Ben Harper

Lastly, my co-facilitator Kandis O'Brien was constantly jumping in when needed and providing alternative perspectives

• Suggested multiple areas where it was not obvious to me as a remote facilitator on Zoom where people were getting lost or unsure of themselves
• Recommended a couple of options that would help people have more clarity
• Jumped in and re-explained the ‘Sketch’ process from Notes to Solution when my response was not actually answering the question that was asked. The outside-in-view was super helpful here.
• Suggested moving the ‘Sketch - Solution’ activity to Wednesday. I was pushing to continue it as homework however she was able to read the ‘virtual room’ better than I was since she was focused on the participants rather than the process

We know budget and time often do not allow for co-facilitators but we highly recommend it.

?Day 2 Agenda (adjusted based on actuals)

Retrospective 10:00 -10:30am

Name Game 10:30 -12:00pm (branding, personality, and platform naming exercise)

…… Break 12:00 -12:30pm

*needed to spend some additional time on alignment 12:30 - 12:45pm

Lightning Demo - Example 12:45 - 1:00pm

Lightning Demo - Research 1:00 -1:30pm

Lightning Demo - Share 1:30 - 2:30pm (~10min each)

…… Break 2:30 - 3:00pm

Lightning Demo - Share 3:00 - 3:30pm

*needed to spend some additional time on alignment 3:30 - 3:50pm

Sketch - Notes 3:50 - 4:10pm

Sketch - Ideas 4:10 - 4:30pm

Sketch - Krazy 8s 4:30 - 4:38pm (Free Bird, Lynrd Skynrd, 9 min)

Sketch - Solution 4:38 - 4:50pm (aligned with the team to push to Wednesday morning)

Retrospective 4:50 - 5:00pm

Team Retrospective Summary

I Like…

• Creating designs/Crazy 8s
• Looking at examples from other companies
• Naming exercise

I Wish…

• I understood the sketching process better
• I could narrow my own focus
• My ideating was better. All crap

I Wonder…

• If our key moments are the right ones?
• How this will all come together?
• Will our ‘killer features’ be enough?
• What the output from this week will look like?

Resources

• Digital templates from New Haircut's Toolkit
• Branding: In Five and a Half Steps, Michael Johnson (Thames and Hudson)
• Transforming healthcare for children and their families, Doug Dietz (Ted 2012)

Follow us for more notes and be sure to check out our latest free templates and tools LINK

.....

We are The SIX, a women-founded and owned strategy and innovation firm. Feel free to ask questions, challenge, and share new ideas and frameworks in the comments section below. Follow us at https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/the-six.