Design Sprint Facilitation
Physician Health First
The vision: fight physician burnout with intention and compassion.
Goal: turn a compassionate vision into an inspiring reality
The problem: a bright vision in need of direction
Family physicians were struggling with levels of burnout reaching crisis levels, dealing with everything from excessive documentation requirements to compassion fatigue. The Senior Vice President for Education had a bold vision to heal this growing crisis, but needed a way to turn his vision into reality. I proposed a five-day design sprint to create a proof of concept that would convince the organization to invest in his dream.
Design sprints, based on the Stanford d.School Design Thinking model, are an intensive week that speed-runs the design process to reach a testable prototype much faster than the traditional, weeks- or -months-long processes:
Monday: Understand the problem, make a map, and choose a target
Tuesday: Diverge and brainstorm as many solutions as the team can dream up
Wednesday: Decide together on the best path forward
Thursday: Prototype your solution using whatever you have on hand
Friday: Test the prototype with real users like it’s a real product
The process: leading through uncertainty
In addition to our Senior VP acting as Decider, I brought together subject matter experts, a content strategist, a member representative, a researcher, and one uncomfortable senior software developer who declared he “wasn’t artistic” on Day One.
No one aside from myself as Facilitator had been through the full Design Sprint process. Everyone was uncertain, but I had my trusty whiteboard, lots of markers, and a clear day-by-day plan laid out in a Confluence space everyone could follow. (A few snacks and plenty of breaks to check email helped ease the way, too.) I used my favorite exercises from the Sprint! book by Jake Knapp: 3 Words, Lightning Talks, Crazy 8’s, Art Gallery, and many more. Having the time-limited exercises clearly mapped out from day one helped everyone feel more comfortable knowing what was coming.
At the end of Day One, our Decider SVP was so excited to see his vision coming to live that he actually hugged me.
Everyone draws is one of the core tenets of the design sprint process, and I make it my Number One Rule. Everyone, including our SVP, put Sharpies to paper in a storm of design ideas, sticky notes, and dot voting. And the design that our product owner ultimately chose at the end of Day Three? The “mountaintop celebration” design below—submitted by our “not artistic” veteran developer.
3 Words, Day One — Helpful, Engaging, Inspiring
Art Gallery, Note-and-Vote, Day Three — Everyone Draws
The big win: a vision realized
We pieced together a prototype using whatever tools we had at hand:
Axure for layout and interactivity
royalty-free graphics sourced from the Internet
a short video of the SVP introducing the program—shot on my iPhone in a conference room
The prototype tested positively with participants, but more importantly, we had transformed a compassionate vision into an achievable reality in just five days. Colleagues from every corner of the organization now knew it was possible to have an idea and the User Experience team would help them turn it into something real. I received an internal award from our SVP, but even better, we created a successful product that really was Helpful, Engaging, and Inspiring.
“My Well-Being Assistant” prototype from Day Five of the Design Sprint.
Storyboard, Day Three — Making a Reality
Physician Health First when it launched live, a few months later.
Post-Sprint Participant Quotes
"Participating in design sprints is such a satisfying experience! It's true collaboration... I always leave feeling like we've come up with something that's much more than the sum of its parts."
— Product Owner
“The process was designed to encourage all suggestions from everyone and consider all ideas. The result was a very positive brainstorming experience, which resulted in creative designs!”
— Sprint Participant