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Sparking Ideas in Virtual Design SprintWe’ve designed the „Jam-bo Coding Collective!

By Karla Schlaepfer
designsprint, remote design sprint, remote working, design thinking

For the last two weeks, I’ve been participating in the 4th Global Virtual Design Sprint #GVDS. I’ve experienced both elation and zoom fatigue and less sleep than usual.

Mostly it’s been incredible. Working together with a brilliant group of internationals on a worthy non-profit cause is simply amazing. We’ve tackled the Sprint challenge of how to help a group of tech-savvy refugee students in Uganda gain trust and get their first real IT pilot project off the ground.

Getting the show on the road

In week 1. of the Sprint we used both Design Sprint methods and a Design Thinking human-centered approach to try to understand the problem. Building on a series of conversations, input generated, and filtered by Design Sprint techniques, we created a mapped narrative along the Design Sprint process. Later in the week, in an overnight whirl of activity between continents, the storyboard served as an inspiring base to create a digital Figma prototype (bravo David in Newport Beach). The very next day, the research interviews were scheduled and resulted in really good, useable data feedback from the testers and we

This week we’re exploring further, trying out some alternative more creative approaches to refine and adapt our landing page prototype. And slipping in some “stretch” goals or next level solutions into the current iteration process as well :)

How to make virtual Sprint more human - trust the people in your team

Our teamwork is human-centered, about sharing and very thought-provoking. It’s so rewarding to be able to reflect with the others about the special team dynamics in a virtual team, making time to probe the actual Sprint process, AND still, stay on target! I’m learning a ton about what makes remote teams tick well (and some great warm-ups!), and other useful things - like where I need to level up my technical proficiency.

Here are some insights from our amazing team leads! Sabrina +Verena:

“It was such an exciting ride, following the flow and listening to what our team members - all different and each of them wonderful - brought to the table. “Trust the people” over “trust the process” was my thinking.“

“Our mindful conversation brought us to a level where we wanted to use a tool to spark ideas. Remembering the Spark canvas from @Sebastian F. Müller, I set up the canvas and we tried a successful ideation exercise.”

And lastly, “while we did not do an iteration sprint by the book, I hope that the others also found value in our experiments and in the “meta-level” discussions. For me (Verena) it sure was a mind- and eye-opening experience.”

I did! Thank you, @Sabrina Goerlich, @Verena Gorris @Gunjan Singh @David Witt and @Surya Vanka 🙌🏻 Thanks to @Robert Skrobe founder and incredible organizer of this mammoth event

Here is the result of our 2 week remote Sprint – an awesome prototype!

Inspired by “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”

Here a look at our prototype (PDF)

copilot