The Design Gym Sprints

The CROSS-FUNCTIONAL INNOVATION SPRINT

Collaborate cross-functionally on new ideas

Who It’s For

The Cross-Functional Innovation Sprint is great for innovation, growth, strategy, and product/service/experience design teams who need to:

  • Better articulate an opportunity space and push thinking beyond what’s been done in the past
  • Build momentum and gain buy-in amongst a complex, cross-functional stakeholder group
  • Increase connection and engagement within, and across, teams
  • Prioritize and refine recommendations before being presented to a leadership / executive team

How It Works

Week 1: Onboarding and Strategy Brief

Our teams become one team with an immersion into goals, desired outcomes, and business results. We co-create a Strategy Brief that will guide the project.

  • Immersion into existing documentation (asynchronous)
  • 1x 90m Visioning Session with the team leader (virtual)
  • 1x 3-hour Kickoff + Problem Framing Workshop (in person/virtual)
  • Interviews with up to 8x members of your team (in person/virtual)
  • 1x team inspiration dinner designed to inspire and connect (in person, fees not included)
  • Research Planning (asynchronous)
Weeks 2-3: Research Immersion

We ground the process in insights on your users, your business, your industry, and a few of the people who are shaking it all up.

  • Desk research / immersion in your team’s existing insights (asynchronous)
  • Up to 8x 1-hour customer or user interviews to understand beliefs, behaviors, and needs (virtual)
  • Up to 3x leadership interviews to integrate business needs and strategic priorities (virtual)
  • 1x 3-hour session to prioritize opportunity spaces with the team leader and core team (virtual)
Weeks 4-6: Cross-Functional Ideation + Concept Definition

We’ll bring together a divergent, cross-functional group and ground them in the insights from our research before facilitating them through a highly creative and experiential ideation workshop. From there we will gather a smaller group to prioritize and refine our top 5 ideas into a detailed concepts prototypes that are ready to be put in front of customers / users for feedback testing. We’ll develop the concept name, description, key features, interaction storyboard, 1/3/5 year vision, and a higher fidelity illustration to bring it to life.

  • Design of the ideation sessions and inspiration stimulus
  • 1x 2-day ideation session for up to 30 cross-functional people and/or guest stars (in person/virtual)
  • 1x 3-hour prioritization and decision making session with the core team (in person/virtual)
  • Heads down time to refine the concepts
  • Additional 1:1 feedback sessions as needed to refine the concepts (asynchronous)
Weeks 7-8: Roadmapping + Testing Plan Development

We’ll map out the next steps, including a recommended pipeline strategy, the short term testing roadmap, and research plans and discussion guides for customer / user testing. Then we’ll either kick-off the pilot phase with you, or transition it to your team for testing in-house.

  • Development of final deliverables
  • 1x 90m share-out (virtual)
  • 1x 60m team retrospective to debrief the process and collaboration (virtual)
  • Optional: 1x 90m workshop to co-create a narrative to cascade through the team (virtual)

Sprint Deliverables

  • Strategy Brief
  • Research Plan
  • Empathy Interview Videos
  • Insights + Opportunity Space Presentation
  • 50x Raw Ideas and 5x Refined Concepts
  • Testing Roadmap

The Details

  • Time Starting at 8 weeks
  • Participants A hand selected team of 6-12 cross-functional people
  • Instructors Expert facilitation and coaching from 3 TDG strategists
  • Location Virtual or in person, wherever you are

The Business Case

  • Outcomes Accelerate quality outcomes
  • Engagement Increase employee engagement
  • Time & Money Spend less money and time
  • Customer Get closer to your customer
Interested? Let's connect.

EXAMPLES OF PAST INNOVATION SPRINTS

Global Grocery Conglomerate

Gathered cross-functional leaders to quickly update their ‘meals to go’ strategy at the onset of the pandemic. It included competitive assessments, opportunity definition, concept development, and investment strategies.

Sponsor: Director of Strategy

National Wellness Brand

Designed a 5-year innovation and growth roadmap resulting in an acquisition and 2x new $10M+ rapid growth products

Sponsor: Head of Innovation

Fortune 100 Tech Company

Designed a robust 3-year executive rotation and development program to address leadership retention issues and increase executive engagement

Sponsor: Business President

Learn More

If you’re interested in bringing a TDG Sprint to your organization, or customizing a sprint to fit your needs, drop us a note below!

    About TDG Sprints

    TDG Sprints are strategy and innovation projects designed to help leaders move quickly, creatively, and collaboratively in environments that are volatile, lean, and fast moving (kind of like right now).

    What types of activities can you expect?

    • Core Team working sessions
    • Full Team facilitated workshops
    • Customer listening and feedback sessions
    • TDG synthesis, strategy, and design time

    What does a Sprint Team look like?

    • Our side: 3x strategists + 1 partner
    • Your side: 3-6 people on the core team + additional stakeholders at key moments

    My team is busy – what’s the time commitment?

    They can be fully embedded with our team or hands off – we know calendars are tight, we so we’ll mold to what is feasible.

    Our priorities are already set. How do these fit in?

    Sprints are designed to accelerate the highest priority initiatives you’re on the hook to deliver. We will work with you in advance to make sure they’re scoped against the right strategic priorities so it doesn’t feel like a ‘side of desk’ project.

    Check out the other TDG Sprint Offerings.

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