Running a remote design sprint

In April 2022, the Investing Experience team at Sharesies decided to explore and validate opportunities in a new area through a design sprint process. This was a broad problem space that had complex financial regulatory requirements, and touched all areas of the business. We based our format on the five day Google ventures design sprint, working through understanding and defining the problem, creating concepts, iterating and then testing.

I took on the sprint facilitator role, and worked with my design lead and product manager to plan and organise the workshops, talks and activities for the week. As facilitator, I was responsible for making sure that the daily workshops stayed on track, and that each participant had what they needed to be able to contribute.

Fostering team connection in a remote environment

We had seven representatives from teams across the business, including our legal, customer care, community, technical, design and product teams take part, each bringing valuable ideas and insights.

Half of our sprint team weren’t in the product team, and were unfamiliar with the agile discovery and design sprint process. To make sure that they felt comfortable and knew what to expect during the sprint, I arranged sessions before the start of the sprint to familiarise with the tooling, introduce the process, and get to know each other.

Adapting for a fully remote design sprint

At the time, a surge in covid cases meant that we needed to be flexible and adapt the design sprint format to work in fully remote environment.

One of the main considerations for me in running a remote sprint was ensuring that communication and collaboration was seamless. Minimising the different number of tools that the team were using was vital, we used just one Miro board, and one rolling google meeting for the entire week. At the start of each day, I outlined our schedule and aims, and rounded out the day with a recap and next steps for the following day.

To take into account how draining a remote meeting environment can be, I organised regular check-ins to monitor team energy levels and arranged shorter workshop sessions with more regular breaks. To reduce meeting fatigue, we arranged for lightning talks to be recorded so that they could be watched independently before collaborative work began.

We didn’t want to loose the aspects of an in-person design sprint that fostered creativity, and encouraged participants to sketch on paper, and use physical post-its to capture ideas. I organised packages to be delivered to each participants house that included printed templates for wire framing, pens and post its, and of course, Easter treats to keep energy levels up!

Outcomes from the design sprint

By the end of the design sprint, we had a concept prototyped and tested remotely with 6 participants, with recommendations for next steps based on learnings from the testing, and technical and legal considerations to present to the leadership team.

We also had a blueprint for a remote design sprints at Sharesies, and a process that could be built and iterated on for future design sprints.

After the sprint wrapped up, I undertook more in depth analysis of the customer testing sessions to add to our existing research in this area. I rewatched each recording, added notes from each participant as they went through the prototype, and then grouped comments and reactions into emerging themes.

Creating a remote sprint template

I took the structure and workshop activities that we had put together, and created a design sprint template in Miro that could be used for future design sprints, iterating and tweaking based on feedback from participants.

So that they could be used for full day discovery workshops or shorter activities, I grouped the activities into the five different phases, and included notes for facilitators on how to get the best out of the activity, and what outcome they could expect from it.