In Sprint’s experience during the lockdown
We have decided, Fabrizio Faraco and I (Andrea Romoli), partners and founder of In Sprint Srl to tell you about our experience during the particular period that has come about: the lockdown.
As those who follow us as well as In Sprint know, our mission is to offer facilitation, consultancy, training and mentorship activities in organizations (companies, entities, non-profit organizations and associations) with the use of different methodologies (Design Thinking, Design Sprint, Growth Hacking, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, Lean Startup, etc.).
With the arrival of the lockdown in the first week of March, we tried to transport as much of our business as possible from offline, to be understood from live to online workshops with the pros and cons of the situation.
To understand each other in an online workshop, the relationships that are built between the participants and the networking between them are indispensable, which could have created problems for us with online workshops; we solved it by using new tools for us initially: Zoom for chats and Mural a powerful shared blackboard that allows workshop participants to use virtual post-its to brainstorm and explain their ideas.
We were among the first to launch interactive workshops, in our workshops the participants are an active part of the workshop itself in the sense that they participate and share their experiences and ideas.
We have de facto created a standard for the workshops in the sense that usually our workshops start with a generic presentation of about ten minutes then the participants are projected first on a practical Mural dashboard where they learn the basic rudiments of the platform and then subsequently on the platform of the workshop with which we create templates dedicated to individual workshops, this method was taken up by other workshops not only in Italy but also abroad.
As for the contents of the workshops, they have been varied and we have really indulged: Business Agility, Design Thinking, Design Sprint, Lightning Decision Jam, Daisy Lab and use of Liberating Structures.
Following our success, other facilitators followed us who in turn launched their workshops using the same tools that we used, we have to say it: we were precursors to using these tools.
Just a few numbers to make you understand what we produced during this period from the lockdown to early June:
- 20 workshops directly managed by us such as In Sprint attended by over 700 people
- 10 workshops to which we were invited as speakers (including Rinascita Digitale, Growth Hacking Day, Fattor Comune, Campus Party etc.) attended by over 600 people
- 4 workshops inside multinational companies for a total of 250 participants
It was certainly a particular, very intense period in which we worked hard and which has already brought us positive results that we hope will continue in September when we hope to return to full speed to do the workshops live or at least as many event organizers claim, see what Paddy Cosgrave CEO of the Web Summit said, since everything has changed, the events will undergo a radical transformation by creating a mix between offline and online, but we are ready thanks to this solid experience during the lockdown period.
