What Design Sprints Can Do for Gender Equality in the Workplace

Design Sprints Force Everyone to Lean In, and Subtly Encourage Overly-Dominant People to Chill

We run Design Sprints at Remake, which brings us in contact with many external teams and allows us to observe them as the sprint process changes the way they normally interact. Overall, we’ve found this process to be very conducive to a meritocracy of ideas, and to the magnifying of often ignored or silenced voices.

This is a topic I’m very passionate about, and one which I think is an under-appreciated aspect of Jake Knapp and GV’s revolutionary Design Sprintprocess. Especially in cultures like the one I live in, where being loud and dominating the conversation can still be mistaken for having the right ideas.

First, An Important Disclaimer

Before I dive in — let me say I speak as a man who is generally fairly loud and opinionated in conversation, so this is not meant to point any fingers that I’m not willing to point at myself. I’m also making a generalization in the title about men tending to be louder and more domineering in business meetings and women tending to be more shy. This seems to be statistically true, and there is a lot of research to back it up. There’s even a (perhaps unfortunate) name for it: the confidence gap. There are also popular books encouraging women to lean in, speak up, and play a larger role in fields largely dominated by men. That being said — it should be taken as a given that some men are shy and quiet, and some women can easily argue it out with the loudest of us.

In general — I think everyone is OK being who they are, so long as they’re respectful of others. What’s been missing is a process that makes these differences irrelevant, and allows our best ideas and everyone’s expertise to shine through and play a role in our businesses.

That’s where a Design Sprint can be especially powerful, because of a few key features:

1. Gets loud and dominant people to listen to other people’s opinions

In the expert interview process, each expert is given a block of time (say 30–45 minutes), to express their view of the challenges, opportunities, and the overall system. No matter how shy or talkative they are — they still get the same amount of time. The talkative people have to sit and listen (or ask questions), but they can’t speak out of turn or monopolize the conversation. This may sound obvious, but this simple structure at the beginning of the Sprint works great to make sure everyone gets their say.

2. Requires shy and quiet people to form and express their own ideas.

Throughout the Sprint, from User Interviews, to choosing a Long Term Goal, to identifying challenges, to sketching out ideas — shy people have to participate as much as everyone. Since time is blocked out to sit and quietly write down your thoughts, or sketch them out — shyness or politeness plays no role. You just do it.

3. Creates a meritocracy around ideas, which can be encouraging.

In virtually every exercise in the Sprint, everyone’s ideas are placed (or rather stuck) next to each other on the wall. There then follows a voting exercise by which everyone gets to vote for the best ideas, most often without knowing who’s ideas they are. This creates a meritocracy by which good ideas can win out. This is huge. And we’re seeing the quietest members of the client’s team often come up with the winning ideas. Would they even have been listened to without this process? One would hope so, but I sometimes doubt it.

4. Rewards attention, curiosity and creativity over ego and bravado

The winning ideas in a Sprint generally come from those who’ve been paying attention to the problems, who’ve been listening to customers and stakeholders, who are curious and creative about finding solutions, and who actually care about improving things. Ego, bravado, and stubbornness are not rewarded at all. There’s in fact very little room for them to express themselves in the Sprint process.

5. Encourages good enough over perfect

One reason talented people who should shine through don’t, is a perfectionistic mindset. If you have to be perfect at all times — you will never ship that idea, that plan, that piece of writing. This can give an advantage to the people who don’t care as much, because at least they’re willing to put something out there while the perfectionist toils in secret. But all of this goes out the window when everyone’s on the clock. When the 45 minutes of sketching runs out — it really doesn’t matter how perfect or crappy your sketch is — you have to show it. And those valuable, creative ideas you were sitting on — will be seen and appreciated.

6. Provides the cover of anonymity where it’s needed

In some rare cases, egos or hierarchies might be so fragile that contesting them openly could stir some negative emotions. Or people might naturally gravitate towards the most senior person’s ideas because they think it will serve them better than voting for a great but unexpected idea. That’s why the Sprint offers the cover of anonymity when it’s most important. Idea sketches are often hung up without any credit — and the voting process takes place without reference to who’s ideas is who’s.

7. Can have aftereffects that influence post-sprint work

When enough good ideas come from someone who’s normally shy, I think it can have powerful aftereffects on how they are perceived by their peers and managers. At the very least, people might begin to appreciate them more, and wish to include them in more conversations. If the organization is sufficiently mindful, it might look at the way it runs meetings to make sure everyone gets a protected space to voice their opinions and ideas.

I believe the intentional design of our time together represents one of the best opportunities for business, society, and even spirituality. In a world where we increasingly have to give a space to everyone’s voices — we must make our strengths cumulative and our weaknesses irrelevant. The Design Sprint is the best attempt I’ve seen so far to do it consistently, respectfully, and productively at work.

Remake Labs is a Design Sprint agency dedicated to better outcomes and impact through rapid prototyping.

Originally published at https://www.remakelabs.com on August 7, 2019.