Design Sprint Exercises: Sketching and Voting

Design sprint exercises for sketching and voting: Lightning Demos, the four-step sketch with Crazy 8s, dot voting and the Decider's supervote.

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At a Glance

Overview

The sketching and voting exercises are the core of the design sprint's middle days. On Tuesday every team member produces a detailed solution alone. On Wednesday morning the team reviews those solutions silently and the Decider picks what to prototype. The pair covers what Google's Design Sprint Kit splits into its Sketch and Decide phases, and what many teams call the design sprint decide phase.

The reason for the structure goes back to Jake Knapp's first sprints at Google. In his 2012 account he describes running group brainstorms whose ideas "didn't go anywhere," and finding that the most successful ideas tended to come from individuals who had time to develop them. He also found that choosing winners by consensus tended to compromise (Knapp, 2012). The exercises answer both problems: people sketch alone, and a vote informs a decision that one person makes. The Google Design Sprint method page covers the rest of the week.

Tuesday opens with Lightning Demos, short tours of existing products that solve related problems, so everyone starts from shared raw material. Then comes the four-step sketch: notes, rough ideas, Crazy 8s and a three-panel solution sketch. Wednesday's "sticky decision" follows five steps: an art museum of the sketches, a heat map of small dots, a speed critique, a straw poll and the Decider's supervote (Design Sprint guide).

These exercises work for teams without designers. The checklist says "anyone can sketch" and notes that most solution sketches are "just rectangles and words." Google's kit adds that people without a design background may find Crazy 8s intimidating at first, and that sketches only need to communicate the idea (Design Sprint Kit: Crazy 8's). The skill is mainly about protecting that quiet, individual work from the habits of a normal meeting.

How It Works

Lightning Demos come first. Each person shows a product, service or internal idea worth borrowing from, including from unrelated industries, in about three minutes, and the Facilitator draws a quick sketch of each good idea on the whiteboard. The team then decides whether to "divide or swarm": split a large target into parts with one person per part, or have everyone sketch the same moment (Design Sprint guide).

The four-step sketch then runs in silence, with each step timed. In the notes step (twenty minutes in the checklist) people walk the room and copy what matters from Monday's goal, questions, map and demos. In the ideas step (another twenty minutes) they jot rough ideas privately and circle the most promising. Crazy 8s takes eight minutes: fold a sheet into eight frames and sketch a variation of one strong idea in each, about a minute per frame. Google's kit describes it as a way to "push beyond your first idea" (Design Sprint Kit: Crazy 8's). The solution sketch takes thirty to ninety minutes and is a three-panel storyboard on sticky notes, self-explanatory, anonymous and with a catchy title.

Wednesday's decision is designed to separate evaluation from persuasion. The sketches go up in one long row, the art museum. Everyone reviews them silently and places one to three small dots beside every part they like, which produces a heat map. The speed critique gives each sketch three minutes: the group discusses its highlights, standout ideas and important objections are captured, and at the end the sketcher is asked whether the group missed anything (Design Sprint guide).

Then comes the vote. In the straw poll each person silently chooses a favorite and places one large dot at the same moment as everyone else, as a nonbinding signal. The Decider then gets three large dots marked with their initials for the supervote, and the team prototypes what the Decider chooses. Sketches with supervotes are separated from the "maybe-laters," and the team decides whether the winners fit one prototype or need two or three competing prototypes in a "Rumble."

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Run the Lightning Demos

Ask each person to bring a few examples of products or services that solve a related problem, including ones from other industries and from inside the company. Give each demo about three minutes on the shared screen. As each person talks, the Facilitator draws a small sketch of the useful idea with a title and its source. Stop at the end of the time slot even if some demos remain. The demos supply raw material to remix.

Step 2: Decide to divide or swarm

Look at the target on the map. If it is a single moment, have everyone sketch the same thing, because several solutions to one moment give the Decider real choices. If the target spans a few steps, assign people to parts so the full path is covered. Write the assignments on the whiteboard. Make the call quickly, since the checklist treats it as a short step before lunch (Design Sprint guide).

Step 3: Take notes and write rough ideas

Hand out paper and pens and explain the four steps briefly before starting. In the notes step, people walk around the room and copy anything from the goal, questions, map, How Might We notes and demos that matters to them. In the ideas step, they fill a page with rough doodles, headlines and diagrams, then circle their best ideas. Keep the room quiet and the timer visible. Nobody shares yet.

Step 4: Run Crazy 8s for design sprint sketching

Have everyone fold a sheet into eight panels and start an eight-minute timer. Each person sketches a variation of one of their circled ideas in each panel, about a minute each, without polishing (Design Sprint Kit: Crazy 8's). Warn people that the first few frames come easily and the last few are the useful ones, because they force alternatives. When the timer ends, pens down. The sheets stay private and feed the solution sketch.

Step 5: Draw the solution sketches

Give thirty to ninety minutes for each person to draw a three-panel storyboard of their best idea on sticky notes placed on a sheet of paper. Ask them to make it self-explanatory, with real words instead of lorem ipsum, and to add a catchy title. Keep sketches anonymous: no names on the paper. Collect them into a pile without presenting them. Tell the team they will see them for the first time on Wednesday morning.

Step 6: Build the art museum and heat map

On Wednesday, tape the sketches to the wall in one row, along with Monday's goal and questions for reference. Give everyone small dot stickers, all the same color, and ask them to look silently and place one to three dots beside every part they like. Nobody talks during this step. The clusters show where the room's interest is before anyone has argued for anything.

Step 7: Run the speed critique

Take each sketch in turn, three minutes each. Start from the dot clusters and ask the group to name the highlights, then capture standout ideas and important objections on sticky notes next to the sketch. The sketcher stays quiet during the discussion; at the end, ask whether the group missed anything. Keep strict time and move on even when the discussion is interesting.

Step 8: Hold the straw poll and supervote

Ask everyone to choose a favorite idea privately, then have all of them place one large dot at the same moment. Give the Decider three large dots with their initials and explain that the team will prototype what the Decider chooses (Design Sprint guide). Move sketches with supervotes to one side and the rest to the maybe-laters. Finally, decide whether the winners fit one prototype or need a Rumble of competing prototypes.

Best Practices

• Keep the sketches anonymous until the end of each critique. Knapp's early finding that consensus tends to compromise (Knapp, 2012) is the reason judgement is kept away from authorship.
• Use the same color for all small dots and a different color for the large ones. The checklist recommends this so the heat map and the votes cannot be confused.
• Reassure non-designers before Crazy 8s. Google's kit suggests saying plainly that the sketches only need to communicate, and even running a short "how to sketch" session first.
• Make words carry the solution sketch. A sketch whose labels and headlines read clearly will survive the critique; a beautiful drawing with no words often gets misunderstood.
• Keep the timer visible for every step. Strict timeboxes keep a large group from sliding into open debate, which is the pattern the exercises are designed to avoid.
• Let the Decider vote last. Everyone else's dots and notes are in view before the supervote, so the Decider decides with the team's view in front of them.

Common Mistakes

• Presenting sketches on Tuesday: Letting people pitch their idea turns the art museum into a contest of presentation skill. Collect the sketches silently and let them speak for themselves on Wednesday.
• Open discussion before the heat map: Talking first anchors the room on the first idea mentioned. Always run the silent review and dot placement before any critique.
• Treating the straw poll as the decision: The straw poll is nonbinding. The Decider's supervote decides, and a team that skips it drifts back to consensus.
• Sketches that need the author to explain them: If a sketch only makes sense with narration, its idea will be lost in critique. Ask for headlines, labels and a title during the solution sketch step.
• Combining every winning idea into one prototype: Merging incompatible ideas produces a prototype that tests nothing clearly. If the supervotes point in different directions, run a Rumble instead.

References

• Examples: Worked examples and scenarios
• FAQ: Frequently asked questions
• Parent Method: Google Design Sprint

Related Skills

• Design Sprint Day 1: Map the Problem and Pick a Target
• Sprint Storyboarding: Plan the Prototype Step by Step
• Design Sprint Facilitator: How to Facilitate a Sprint
• Running a Remote Design Sprint with Distributed Teams

Sources

• Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky: Design Sprint guide
• Jake Knapp: The product design sprint, a five-day recipe for startups
• Google Design Sprint Kit: Crazy 8's

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