A design sprint for government teams

When the District of North Vancouver reached out to us about a design sprint, they had recently launched their new digital services team and rolled out their district-wide digital strategy. They were ready to tackle their first key project: an experience called “MyDNV.” But they needed clarity on what the experience should include.

To build as clear a plan as possible, they knew they would need a fast-moving, collaboratively-driven approach. Enter the design sprint.

Day Two began with nothing but the previous day’s challenge statements. But by the end of the day, twelve entirely different conceptual directions had been created.

As the third day dawned, it was clear decisions would have to be made. How does a team sort through twelve possible directions to arrive at a shared concept? We used sprint decision-making methods to make choices about the intended interface and features, and by the end of the day we had a clear path for the concept that was previously known as “MyDNV.” The prototype was fully storyboarded—click-by-click—in comic-strip panels along the whiteboard.

Day Four was about bringing the concept to life. Our team helped DNV create a multi-screen digital prototype that illuminated the intended direction of this imagined product.

On Day Five, it was time to bring the prototype to users. This is the part where the sprint methodology begins to deliver clear results. As user after user streamed in to test out the digital experience, and post-its documenting their observations went up on the wall, a theme began to emerge. DNV is on the right track. Users want this digital experience. This is valuable. This particular pathway warrants further investment. DNV now had a clear, shared concept: something that could be budgeted and planned for.

Through the course of a five-day sprint, the team at DNV was able to create a tested prototype, clearly defining their next step on a multi-year journey to grow their digital strategy. That’s the power of a sprint: co-creating valuable concepts extremely quickly, and getting user feedback early.

But that only proved our first hypothesis. The second was about new ways of working.

One of the sprint participants summarized the results well: “We often get down on ourselves as a District about our silos, but right here, this week, we proved that a new way of collaborating is already possible. Look at this: we’re from so many teams, but we worked together, hierarchy wasn’t an issue, we explored new possibilities, and it was actually fun. In future times when we find ourselves getting glum about our ways of working, we have to remember this week.”