Design Sprint Facilitator Training and Short Design Thinking Sprints
The classic design sprint takes five full days. Most teams cannot step away that long, yet they still want the energy and results of a sprint. Our specialty is the short design thinking sprint: a half day, one day, or two days where a real team takes on a real challenge, step by step and activity by activity, and finishes with a prototype and a pitch.
We do two things: we lead design thinking sprints for your team, and we train facilitators to lead their own. Every sprint follows a proven sequence refined over many years with dozens of organizations, and we use design thinking to customize it for your people, goals, and challenge. Sprints run onsite or virtually on a shared Miro board.
Contact Us to Plan Your Sprint
What Our Clients Say
“In about 5 minutes all the teams had come up with company names, logos and taglines. The day was designed bespoke for us and what we wanted the students to get out of it.”
Natalie, Entrepreneurship Centre, business school, United Kingdom
“Darin’s approach takes the mystery out of how to think like an innovator. The results were breakthrough in nature. Solid innovative product and process concepts were developed by each team, which will now lead to formal funding and project assignments.”
Steve, Senior Vice President, Quality and Engineering, manufacturing company
“Our CIO expected 50-70% of the ideas generated would be almost useless and we had probably a 90% idea success rate.”
Michael, Chief of Staff to the CIO, Silicon Valley technology company
“…instead of generating 20-30 ideas in each 3 hour brainstorm, I was coming up with almost 150 ideas.”
James, startup founder and CEO, Silicon Valley
“People who did not think they had the capacity to innovate left with ideas, solutions and renewed energy for the project.”
Amy, health care improvement research center, university
What Is a Design Thinking Sprint?
A design thinking sprint is a fast, structured team experience that applies design thinking to a real challenge in a short amount of time. Like the classic design sprint popularized by Jake Knapp’s book Sprint, it moves a team from a challenge to a tested idea quickly. The difference is the time frame and the focus on learning. Our sprints fit into a half day to two days, and participants learn the design thinking process and mindsets while they use them, so they can keep innovating after the sprint ends.
How Our Design Thinking Sprints Work
Teams of about five move through our Innovation Step-by-Step process, from challenge to ideas to action:
1. Clarify the Challenge
Teams share early thoughts, research, and questions about a challenge that matters to them.
2. Formulate Questions
Teams consider their customers or users and their journeys, then frame focused “How might we…” questions.
3. Generate Ideas
Individuals create ideas on their own first, then share them with the team to build a large pool of possibilities.
4. Analyze and Synthesize Ideas
Each person moves from many ideas to a few of the best.
5. Develop Concepts
The strongest ideas become clear concepts, and the team builds a diverse portfolio of options.
6. Test and Select Concepts
Teams vote and quickly choose the most promising concept to develop.
7. Communicate and Advance
Teams build out a concept poster and rough prototype, then demo and pitch it to the room as a Challenge, Idea, Action story and gather feedback to improve it.
Contact Us to Plan Your Sprint
Design Thinking Sprint Formats
Half-Day Design Thinking Sprint
Experience the full sprint on a real challenge and leave with a team concept, a prototype, and a shared language for innovation.
One-Day Design Thinking Sprint
Add more time for research, ideation, and prototyping, and finish with team demos and pitches.
Two-Day Design Thinking Sprint
Go deeper with stakeholder interviews, multiple rounds of ideas, and a prototype tested and improved with feedback.
Sprint Series
Run the sprint as two- or three-hour sessions over several weeks, with teams continuing their work between sessions.
Virtual Design Thinking Sprint
Bring distributed teams together on a shared Miro board with breakout rooms for each team.
Contact Us to Plan Your Sprint
Design Sprint Facilitator Training: Learn to Lead Your Own
Once teams experience a sprint, many organizations want to run their own. Our facilitator training builds that capacity in your people.
Live Design Sprint Facilitator Training for Your Team
In a series of live sessions, your facilitators experience a sprint, practice the activities, design their own sessions, and then run and improve them with coaching. They learn design thinking facilitation by using design thinking.
Co-Facilitation and Coaching
Co-facilitate your first design sprint with us, then receive ongoing coaching as you begin to lead sprints on your own.
Online Design Sprint Facilitator Course
Learn at your own pace to facilitate your own design sprint, innovation workshop, or design thinking session, with facilitator guides for sprints of different lengths.
Design Thinking Facilitator Certification
Build broader skills through our Train the Trainer innovation and design thinking facilitator program.
Contact Us About Facilitator Training
Who Should Participate?
Our sprints and facilitator training are a strong fit for directors, product managers, engineers, designers, L&D and HR leaders, and other leaders who want to bring more innovation and collaboration to their organization. They are built for anyone who helps customers, teams, or individuals develop new products, services, and experiences or improve existing ones.
Design Sprint Facilitator Resources
- Design sprint training: the classic five-day process
- Design sprint videos
- Jake Knapp Miro design sprint template
- Virtual design sprint templates from Miro
- Design thinking workshop resources
Ready to run a short design thinking sprint with your team, or to build your own sprint facilitators? Tell us about your challenge and we will design a sprint around it.