The Enterprise

Design Sprints
Facilitation Guide
By Richard Banfield
 This guide is drawn from
the book Enterprise Design
Sprints, written by Richard
Banfield and published on
DesignBetter.Co.

2 The Enterprise Design Sprints Facilitation Guide

Table of Contents

How This Guide Can Help 4

The Facilitator Role 5

Skills of the Facilitator
The Improv Mindset

Pre-Sprint Preparation 10
Three Big Questions
Research Requirements

Being Prepared for Each Day 14

Understand
Diverge
Converge
Build
Test

The Enterprise Design Sprints Facilitation Guide 3

How This Guide Can Help

Once you’ve read Enterprise Design Sprints Handbook you’ll have

a good grasp on how to run a successful design sprint. However,
between reading the book and doing the sprint, some time will likely
pass, making it difficult to remember all the details. This guide is a
quick reference facilitators and sponsors can use to brush up,
and stay on track.

Pro Tip
The info in this guide is intended to give direction while
allowing room to customize your design sprint. Build
on the ideas here and experiment with the best way
to deliver value to your team and organization.

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The Facilitator Role

The ideal candidate for a design-sprint facilitator need not be

the stereotypical extrovert that likes to talk in front of room full of
people. However, the facilitator should be a good communicator
and listener. His or her primary responsibilities are directing
the process, timekeeping and managing group interactions.

Here are five important notes for facilitators:

1. A facilitator must not allow personal preferences and biases

to influence the outcome of the design sprint.

2. The facilitator must understand the challenge and be able to

communicate it to team members as well as other stakeholders
who get involved.

3. The best facilitators know the process and exercises well,

and stick to the basics.

4. Taking rigid responsibility for managing time and processes

allows team members to stay focused on creativity,
collaboration and keeping an open mind.

5. A good facilitator knows when to provide confidence and

support to keep a team on track, and when to stay out
of the way.

The Enterprise Design Sprints Facilitation Guide 5

 A good facilitator
is more like a
rudder, and less
“
like an engine.

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Ideal Skills of the Facilitator

01 02 03
Impartiality and Expects Strong verbal
objectivity and creates and written
high-quality communication
interactions skills
and outputs

04 05 06
Encourages Can resolve More interested
cooperative minor conflicts in asking questions
interactions or overcome than giving
bottlenecks answers

The Enterprise Design Sprints Facilitation Guide 7

The Improv Mindset

Good facilitators allow conversations to flow in the same way an

improv group builds on one another’s ideas. Taking cues from the
last person who spoke, a facilitator might add, “Yes, and…” rather
than, “But what about…”

Facilitators also set the tone with questions like:

• Tell me more about that?

• How would you build on that idea?

• How would you illustrate that idea in a sketch?

• What feelings were behind that decision?

• What was the outcome you wanted to create with this sketch?

• What personal experiences lead you to this idea?

Pro Tip
I make a point of telling teams numerous times that
“additive” questions and comments (e.g. Yes, and...)
are what we’ll use as a group to encourage a high
volume of ideas and reduce judgmental thinking.

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A Steep Learning Curve

Leading a design sprint gets easier with practice. After just one
design sprint your facilitation skills will improve significantly.
Give yourself permission to experiment with the tasks and don’t
expect to be a pro right out of the gate.

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Pre-Sprint Preparation

Before getting into the nuts and bolts of logistics, you’ll want
to address three interconnected questions:

1. What is the challenge you’re facing?

If needed, revisit chapter 2 of Enterprise Design Sprints

Handbook to better understand how to identify appropriate
challenges for a design sprint.

2. Who needs to be involved for a design sprint to succeed?

The Facilitator: If you’re reading this guide, it’s probably

you. But you could also hire a professional design-sprint
facilitator. If you do facilitate, you should NOT also be an
active participant.

Product Owner: This is the person at the company with

the initial product vision, or the person with ultimate
responsibility for the project. Their title is less important
than their final decision-making power.

Note Taker: This person’s job is to document the work.

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 Team members: The rest of the team will be made up
of the people needed to get the work done. Revisit the
section titled “Who Needs to Be At Your Design Sprint”
in chapter 1 for advice on incorporating subject-matter
experts and other part-time participants.

3. When and where will you be meeting?

The best option is to meet in person and off site for

five consecutive days. However, chapter 1 discusses
some alternative timeframes you may want to consider.
And chapter 4 provides tips for handling a design sprint
with remote participants.

If you can’t get full commitment from key people who you need to
participate in the design sprint, postpone the kickoff date. There’s
nothing more frustrating and distracting for the group than to have
one or two people dropping in and out because of other obligations.

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Leadership Buy-In

The popular edict is “ask forgiveness, not permission.” But in

enterprises there’s more to be gained by getting buy-in for your
design sprint. By including stakeholders and influencers you’ll
get the support you need for a more successful design sprint.
Revisit chapter 3, “Getting Senior Buy-In and Support,” for tips
and tactics.

Research Requirements

Pre-sprint research is critical for setting expectations and enabling

the overall success of a design sprint. To make the most of your
sprint, you’ll want a general idea of the customer’s real pain points.

I recommend:

• Conducting between six and twelve customer interviews

before the design sprint,

• Collecting and summarizing any qualitative or quantitative

data that will provide valuable insights, and

• Spending the time to draft foundational user journeys and

experience maps before the design sprint.

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Pro Tip
I also like to do some basic competitive analysis before
a sprint by calling competitors and pretending to be a
potential customer. Hearing how they pitch and price their
solutions is good insight into how they understand the
customer pain points.

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Being Prepared For
Each Day

This is where the rubber meets the road. Here you’ll find useful tips
and to-do’s for each phase/day of your design sprint.

Phase 1: Phase 2: Phase 3:

Understand Diverge Converge

Phase 4: Phase 5:
Build Test

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Phase 1: Understand

Introducing the Design Sprint

To do’s:
Give a quick Explain what will Consider playing a
introduction to be done on short intro video
the process. each day. like this one
by Jake Knapp.

Pro Tip
Never assume everyone has read the pre-sprint emails
or notes you provided.

Breaking the Ice

Canned ice breakers are more often awkward than not.

I recommend avoiding them. Instead, ask participants what
they want to get out of the design sprint and write down
the group’s goals on the whiteboard.

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Staying Focused on the Timetable

First time sprinters often find it difficult to stay on schedule.

The facilitator’s job is to make it happen for them.

To do’s:
Present the agenda Reinforce the importance
numerous times each day. of meeting time limits.

Pro Tip
Use your smartphone’s timer to set alarms for
each exercise.

Mapping Alignment With Phase Goals

The experience map exercise serves several purposes

in phase one:

Charting Creating Identifying areas

the customer team-alignment of concern.
journey for future on customer
reference. needs.

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 Pro Tip
Too much focus on the future suggests participants are
already trying to create solutions when they should be
focused on understanding the problem.

Get Snap Happy

First time sprinters often find it difficult to stay on schedule.

The facilitator’s job is to make it happen for them.

Pro Tip
Don’t forget to take photos of all the work you do. Even if
you’re taking notes, a visual reference of all the experience
maps, personas, Jobs To Be Done, or Who/Do will be
extremely valuable.

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Phase 2: Diverge

Trust The Process

The design sprint process and exercises have been tested by

thousands of teams around the world. Even when you’re not sure if
things are working as intended, push through. You’ll be pleasantly
surprised at how consistently the process generates the ideas
and answers you’re looking for.

Expert Input

To do’s:
Use your pre- Read out Encourage
sprint interviews survey answers participants take
to seed or pain-point the insights and
the Diverge descriptions. improvise.
conversations.

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It’s OK to Cheat A Little

While certain exercises like 8-ups are best done by individual

participants in silence, others provide good opportunities for
participants to borrow ideas from one another and build on them.

Pro Tip
Encourage participants to look around and take inspiration
from the ideas of others.

Sticky Notes

Given the chance, most participants will write their insights,

ideas and sketches on regular sheets of paper or in notebooks.
This reduces collaboration.

To do’s:
Ensure that all ideas are Display sticky notes on
written or drawn on a sticky appropriate boards.
note (one idea per sticky).

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 Pro Tip
The simple act of getting up and walking to the
whiteboard with a sticky note creates a more
collaborative environment.

Storyboarding

Initially this task might go slower than anticipated. Warm up the team
by asking them to do a rough sketch first and then start with the
detailed storyboard exercise.

Pro Tip
Plan extra time for participants who find drawing
especially challenging.

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Phase 3: Converge

Keep Focused on Problems, Not Solutions

When participants share storyboards they often act as if the ideas

have already been validated. It’s a good idea to remind everyone
that these are just untested proposals. A prototype solution is still
several steps away.

Voting for Ideas

Choosing one idea over another can get personal. You don’t
want that.

To do’s:
Explain that the decision Display voting clearly
is based on voting, not a so everyone can see how
single opinion. it played out.

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Lightning Demos

Before voting on ideas, give participants a chance to demo their

ideas for the rest of the group. This should feel like a fast-paced
pitch competition.

Pro Tip
Use a timer to ensure nobody blows through a 2-3 minute
time limit.

Capture All Ideas

The Converge phase is for narrowing down the field of potential

solutions to a single idea for prototyping. Inevitably there will be
other good ideas worth keeping.

To do:
Create a parking lot or pipeline where ideas that don’t make
the cut are preserved for the future.

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Phase 4: Build

Recruit Early

Lining up test subjects in advance early makes the Build phase less
stressful. This is especially true of projects that need to be tested
with senior executives or customers.

To do:
Depending on the team size assign one or two people to recruit
test subjects in advance of the Build phase.

Roles For All

Make sure everyone has a clear role to play during the Build
phase. If necessary, create printouts for the team roles so there’s
no confusion.

To do’s:
Designers Testers need to Recruiters need
need to create develop interview to organize test
prototypes. questions. subjects and
scheduling.

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Prototypes Are More Than Screens

In our digital-dominated world it may feel like all prototypes need a

digital interface. But our digital devices live in context with physical
and emotional experiences that need to be considered.

Pro Tip
Nudge the team to prototype solutions that include
interaction or service-experience models. For example,
the team can set up role-playing scenarios where they are
the service providers and test subjects are the customers.

Conflict Resolution

In every design sprint there will be debate and disagreement.

That’s good and robust conversation should be encouraged.
However, sometimes you may encounter difficulty people who
insist on their ideas in spite of what others or research suggest.

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Pro Tip
Begin by saying, “That is an excellent perspective, but for
now we need to focus on creating an objectively testable
prototype. We can come back to your idea when we have
more time.” If this doesn’t work, you may need to be more
direct. Generally, it’s enough to ask participants to trust
the process and put their opinions in the parking lot.

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Phase 5: Test

Test the Testers

Before running interviews, have participants play both interviewer

and interviewee. This will give each team member practice,
as well as the empathy needed to better understand how
interviewees respond.

Capture and Review

It’s easy to get overly focused on interviewing subjects and forget

to capture feedback correctly.

To do’s:
Make sure note takers and Label and upload Screenflow,
interviewers convene for a few video and/or audio recordings
minutes after each interview after each interview.
to discuss the feedback.

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Patiently Impatient

Staying on task is what allows a design sprint to deliver results in a

short amount of time. But gathering quality feedback can take time.

Pro Tip
If test subjects begin to ramble on about their experiences
you can redirect them by thanking them and then asking
direct questions like, “Thanks for your feedback. Let’s table
that for now and go back to this specific feature,” or “You’ve
given us way more than we anticipated. Can we shift gears
and talk about XYZ?”

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Practice Makes Perfect

Here’s a final tip:

Don’t expect your first design sprint to go perfectly.

Rather, know there is always something more to learn and each

successive sprint will be easier to conduct within your enterprise.
Plus, even if the exercises don’t go exactly as planned, you will
still gain important insights and answers. Good luck!