5. Give clear instructions. Before starting each activity (listed below), give clear instructions on what the participants are expected to do and how much time they have to do it, e.g. “Sketch as many ideas as possible in 3 minutes. If you get stuck, create another version of an idea.”
6. Sketch. Challenge each participant to create 4-8 sketches (or as many as they can) in the given time. Ask them to add notes to them to distinguish the sketches. This will help during the voting and documentation.
7. Pitch. Put all sketches on a wall or table so that everyone can see them. Each participant gets 1-2 minutes to pitch all of their ideas. No-one is allowed to interrupt while someone else is pitching.
To make it easy for everyone to understand your idea when you pitch is to clearly state who your design is for and what scenario they are in.
Be objective and focus on facts in your pitch. Always avoid subjective feelings, e.g. “I like this idea because..”.
8. Critique and vote on the ideas using the green and pink sticky notes. Add short comments (again, avoid subjective feelings) to the sticky notes to clearly state why you voted the way you did.
The green sticky notes are used to mark concepts that have potential and that will be moved into the next sketching round. The pink sticky notes are used to mark concepts that have room for improvement and that you will not move forward with in the next round.
9. Summarise the round. After each round, it is important that the facilitator makes a verbal summary of what you have discussed and settled on so that everyone is aligned before the next round.
10. Repeat! Depending on the size and complexity of the challenge in your challenge statement, we recommend doing 2-3 rounds to reach ideas that can be turned into prototypes and tested with customers and end-users.
11. Use a parking lot. When we get off topic or think of ideas that are outside of the scope, note them down on sticky notes and put them in a dedicated area of the whiteboard or wall marked as the “parking lot”. This allows the team to focus on the challenge at hand and pick up other ideas later.
12. Keep track of time. It’s easy to go into lengthy discussions. The facilitator needs to be quite harsh regarding time. Some discussion is needed, but help the team move forward. “Interesting discussion guys! However, due to our limited time we need to move on. Please add this to the parking lot.”