About my last Design Sprint (ice breaker and creative visualization)
I would like to share with you the experience I had facilitating my last Design Sprint in the company where I work. In this case I used some exercises that had a very good result and maybe it will be useful to more than one of you for your next workshops. 🧊 CREATIVE TIMELINE (ice breaker) Duration: 10 min. Help the teams to try to explain some important events in their lives through symbols, shapes, icons or illustrations (without using words). Although this exercise took more time than recommended, it had a very good result because it generated a very pleasant environment where everyone laughed to see what the other people interpreted from their point of view. Outcome: Participants think visually and collaborate (also having fun by making funny interpretations) Exercise observation and storytelling. 1. Materials - Ask each participant to grab a sheet of paper and a pen. 2. Each person should draw a timeline of their professional or personal life, but with a twist: they must represent each important event with a symbolic or creative drawing. No words or numbers allowed, just symbols or shapes. They will have 3 minutes to complete this. 3. Once they’re done, pair up participants randomly and have them exchange their timelines. 4. Each person must interpret what their partner tried to communicate with their drawings and explain their interpretation within 2 minutes. 5. After interpreting, each participant explains in 1 minute what the actual events represented by their symbols were, and they compare how their partner interpreted them. -- 👁️🗨️ VISUALIZATION: JOURNEY TO THE SOLUTION OF THE FUTURE Duration: 10 min. My colleagues were very grateful to have been able to do this exercise before starting to work on ideation exercises. Several shared that they had come in stressed thinking about the amount of things to do and this exercise helped them to focus, relax and take it all in a calmer way. Outcome: This exercise will help participants relax their minds and visualize solutions without the immediate barriers of critical analysis. It allows them to open up to innovative ideas and emotionally connect with the impact of potential solutions.