Branding Sprints
Contents
Session 1 - Clarity about the Venture
Session 1 - Clarity about the Venture
Introduction
The very beginning of the workshop is the most important part to set the correct tone and vibe. Here's an ideal to-do list to kick off the Design Sprint workshop with:
Welcome everyone and thank them for turning up.
Share the Miro link, introduce how it works, and let everyone find their personal workspace.
Normally, it's okay to skip personal introductions. Quickly introduce the Deep Work team, emphasising their strengths.
Talk about what's going to happen over the course of the 2-day Branding Sprint. Go into a bit more detail on what's going to happen on the current day.
Explain the concept of breaks. Emphasise that breaks should be used to rest. (mention time boxing)
Explain how the collaborative process works and the importance of everyone's involvement. (repeat this point at the beginning of each session)
Help to eliminate the fear of saying something irrelevant or stupid. Any input can spark ideas.
Empower others on the team to feel their input is valuable.
Mention that it might be intense at times, but that's ok. Just trust the process.
Nominate a decider. The decider is the one who pushes the envelope forward wherever the team is stuck somewhere and couldn't come to a decision.
HMWs
Duration: 38 mins
How Might We (HMW) is an exercise wherein everyone comes up with questions to tackle a challenge or to solve a particular problem. Ask the decider to talk about the biggest challenges and let everyone jot down the How-Might-We's (HMWs). Let everyone contribute who has expert knowledge. This discussion should not take longer than 20 minutes.
Here are some questions to ask during the exercise:
"Where is the project right now?"
"Who is the target audience?"
"What can be done with the tech?"
"Who is currently using it?"
"What’s the most important thing for your target audience?"
"What are the most difficult challenges?"
Make sure everyone is actually writing.
Progress and guide everyone through the HMW related exercises:
Quickly arrange the HMWs into categories. Overlap doubles. This should take 10 minutes.
Vote on the most relevant HMWs. Each participant gets 4 votes whereas the decider gets 5. This should take 7 minutes.
Arrange voted notes into a "tree" structure in order to prioritise the ones with a higher number of votes. Read out the final results. This should take 1 minute.
20y Roadmap
Duration: 20 mins
The point of the 20-Year Roadmap is to get your team thinking about the lifetime of your brand. Have the client imagine it's 20 years in the future and their company has gone out of business after completing its mission. They have been so successful that a major new service is writing an obituary to commemorate your contribution to society.
What would you like it to say?
Work backwards from there detailing your company's lifetime achievements.
Group similar post-it's together, if they are within the same time-frame. Next, spend 5 minutes voting. Everyone votes on their favorite post-it per time block. Each participant gets 4 votes, 1 for each time block. The decider votes with green.
Lastly, open up the floor for discussion. Try to touch on what the person who wrote the most voted on post-it for a given time-period meant. Keep conversation targeted and concise. Try to keep the discussion to 5 minutes.
What/how/why
Duration: 30 mins
Have the client fill in the following with o limits to the amount of post-its:
WHAT — Onliness
Our brand is the only _____ that ________.
In the eyes of your customer does your answer clearly set you apart from your competitors? If not, you need to rethink your answer.
HOW — Secret sauce
What is your company's secret sauce?
WHY — Rich Uncle
Why does your brand exist?
Come up with keywords that capture the Why of your brand.
Spend 5 minutes voting. Vote on the best post-it for each circle. Everyone gets 1 vote per circle. Everyone except the decider votes. Afterward, the decider will have 5 minuted to cast the final vote in green.
Values
Duration: 20 mins
Values (20 min)
Have the participants write down a list of values that describe the organization with no limits on amount of post-its. Have them think about what their organization is becoming and where they would like to see it go.
Spend 5 minutes voting on the values believed to best describe the company / organization. Everyone gets 3 votes. The decider does not vote yet.
Open up the floor for discussion by walking through the most upvoted post-its. Try to touch on what the person who wrote the most voted on post-it for a given time-period meant. Keep conversation targeted and concise. Try to keep the discussion to 5 minutes.
Afterward, the decider will have 5 minutes to cast his vote for the 3 values they see as most important and then to make the final call on the ranking of those 3 values.
Session 2 - Alignment
Introduction
Introduce what happened in the previous session and what will happen this session. Explain how the collaborative process works and the importance of everyone's involvement. Emphasize that when we think about brand, we're thinking about what we're becoming.
Audiences
Duration: 25 mins
Introduce the idea of an audience that is beyond just the customer. Ask "Whose opinion do we care about?" This often includes other categories of audiences such as investors, influencers etc. Once explained, have each person write down a list of who they think the organization's audiences are.
Spend 3 minutes voting on the 2 audiences they think are the most important, with 2 votes per person, including the Decider. Open up discussion for about five minutes and then give the Decider a few minutes to rank the audiences.
Personality
Duration: 20 mins
Introduce the sliders to the client. Advise them to consider what their brand is becoming, not what it is today. Let them know that it is helpful in this exercise to be strongly opinionated but that it's also okay to be in the middle.
Spend 5 minutes voting on where they think the organization sits on each range. Everyone takes turns marking the whiteboard with their sliders, then labeling each one with their initials. Discuss any diagram where people disagree about where the company should be. Afterward, the Decider votes with green.
If your brand was a person
Now, ask the client "If your brand was a person, how would you describe their personality?" Let them know to limit their answers to one idea per post it.
Spend 5 minutes voting on the post-its that are most important to consider. Everyone gets 2 votes. The Decider gets 3 votes.
Comparative Landscape
Duration: 30 mins
Have each person writes down a list of other companies in the same space or industry, and then spend 5 minutes voting. Each person gets two votes to place on the two most important companies to include, including the decider. After voting, remove the other companies to reduce confusion.
Next, have the participants place the sticky notes on the matrix one at a time. Quickly discuss where it should go. Repeat. Ask the Decider if they'd like to move any of the notes.
Lastly, have them plot their own company on the matrix. Look back at the rest of the sprint exercises to see if this placement makes sense for their 20-Year Roadmap, What How Why, Values, Audience, and Brand Sliders.
Mission Statement
Duration: 20 mins
Pull in the top voted What from What, How, Why, the top voted audiences from Audiences, and the top voted Why from What, How, Why. Combine the pulled in post-its into a mission statement.
Visual Research and Voting
Duration: 60 mins
Have each person go out on their own and bring in inspiration from elsewhere. The idea is to consider the output of previous exercises with regards to what the brand is supposed to represent. Have them find examples that represent those traits, values, etc.
The goal is to bridge the gap between the conceptual discussions we've been having, to the visual design the designer will work on. Contributions can be visual (like color palettes, illustrations, typograph), or slightly more abstract (like pictures and directions for further ideas).
Have them include a post-it with their name above the screenshots they share, as well as post-its explaining where the screenshot is from, and why they're including it.
Everyone gets 1-3 minutes to go through their examples and explain why they found them interesting. While one person presents, the others can vote and there are no limits on the amount of votes. Remind everyone how important voting is. It gives the designer a heatmap to work off of.
Walk through the most upvoted post-its and have a discussion for roughly 10 minutes.
Homework (due at the next workshop)
Keep adding inspiration to your column on this board throughout the next days/weeks until the next workshop.
Welcome everyone and thank them for turning up.
Share the Miro link, introduce how it works, and let everyone find their personal workspace.
Normally, it's okay to skip personal introductions. Quickly introduce the Deep Work team, emphasising their strengths.
Talk about what's going to happen over the course of the 2-day Branding Sprint. Go into a bit more detail on what's going to happen on the current day.
Explain the concept of breaks. Emphasise that breaks should be used to rest. (mention time boxing)
Explain how the collaborative process works and the importance of everyone's involvement. (repeat this point at the beginning of each session)
Help to eliminate the fear of saying something irrelevant or stupid. Any input can spark ideas.
Empower others on the team to feel their input is valuable.
Mention that it might be intense at times, but that's ok. Just trust the process.
Nominate a decider.
The decider is the one who pushes the envelope forward wherever the team is stuck somewhere and couldn't come to a decision.
HMWs
Duration: 38 mins
How Might We (HMW) is an exercise wherein everyone comes up with questions to tackle a challenge or to solve a particular problem. Ask the decider to talk about the biggest challenges and let everyone jot down the How-Might-We's (HMWs). Let everyone contribute who has expert knowledge. This discussion should not take longer than 20 minutes.
Here are some questions to ask during the exercise:
"Where is the project right now?"
"Who is the target audience?"
"What can be done with the tech?"
"Who is currently using it?"
"What’s the most important thing for your target audience?"
"What are the most difficult challenges?"
Make sure everyone is actually writing.
Progress and guide everyone through the HMW related exercises:
Quickly arrange the HMWs into categories. Overlap doubles. This should take 10 minutes.
Vote on the most relevant HMWs. Each participant gets 4 votes whereas the decider gets 5. This should take 7 minutes.
Arrange voted notes into a "tree" structure in order to prioritise the ones with a higher number of votes. Read out the final results. This should take 1 minute.
20y Roadmap
Duration: 20 mins
The point of the 20-Year Roadmap is to get your team thinking about the lifetime of your brand. Have the client imagine it's 20 years in the future and their company has gone out of business after completing its mission. They have been so successful that a major new service is writing an obituary to commemorate your contribution to society.
What would you like it to say?
Work backwards from there detailing your company's lifetime achievements.
Group similar post-it's together, if they are within the same time-frame. Next, spend 5 minutes voting. Everyone votes on their favorite post-it per time block. Each participant gets 4 votes, 1 for each time block. The decider votes with green.
Lastly, open up the floor for discussion. Try to touch on what the person who wrote the most voted on post-it for a given time-period meant. Keep conversation targeted and concise. Try to keep the discussion to 5 minutes.
What/how/why
Duration: 30 mins
Have the client fill in the following with o limits to the amount of post-its:
WHAT — Onliness
Our brand is the only _____ that ________.
In the eyes of your customer does your answer clearly set you apart from your competitors? If not, you need to rethink your answer.
HOW — Secret sauce
What is your company's secret sauce?
WHY — Rich Uncle
Why does your brand exist?
Come up with keywords that capture the Why of your brand.
Spend 5 minutes voting. Vote on the best post-it for each circle. Everyone gets 1 vote per circle. Everyone except the decider votes. Afterward, the decider will have 5 minuted to cast the final vote in green.
Values
Duration: 20 mins
Values (20 min)
Have the participants write down a list of values that describe the organization with no limits on amount of post-its. Have them think about what their organization is becoming and where they would like to see it go.
Spend 5 minutes voting on the values believed to best describe the company / organization. Everyone gets 3 votes. The decider does not vote yet.
Open up the floor for discussion by walking through the most upvoted post-its. Try to touch on what the person who wrote the most voted on post-it for a given time-period meant. Keep conversation targeted and concise. Try to keep the discussion to 5 minutes.
Afterward, the decider will have 5 minutes to cast his vote for the 3 values they see as most important and then to make the final call on the ranking of those 3 values.
Session 2 - Alignment
Introduction
Introduce what happened in the previous session and what will happen this session. Explain how the collaborative process works and the importance of everyone's involvement. Emphasize that when we think about brand, we're thinking about what we're becoming.
Audiences
Duration: 25 mins
Introduce the idea of an audience that is beyond just the customer. Ask "Whose opinion do we care about?" This often includes other categories of audiences such as investors, influencers etc. Once explained, have each person write down a list of who they think the organization's audiences are.
Spend 3 minutes voting on the 2 audiences they think are the most important, with 2 votes per person, including the Decider. Open up discussion for about five minutes and then give the Decider a few minutes to rank the audiences.
Personality
Duration: 20 mins
Introduce the sliders to the client. Advise them to consider what their brand is becoming, not what it is today. Let them know that it is helpful in this exercise to be strongly opinionated but that it's also okay to be in the middle.
Spend 5 minutes voting on where they think the organization sits on each range. Everyone takes turns marking the whiteboard with their sliders, then labeling each one with their initials. Discuss any diagram where people disagree about where the company should be. Afterward, the Decider votes with green.
If your brand was a person
Now, ask the client "If your brand was a person, how would you describe their personality?" Let them know to limit their answers to one idea per post it.
Spend 5 minutes voting on the post-its that are most important to consider. Everyone gets 2 votes. The Decider gets 3 votes.
Comparative Landscape
Duration: 30 mins
Have each person writes down a list of other companies in the same space or industry, and then spend 5 minutes voting. Each person gets two votes to place on the two most important companies to include, including the decider. After voting, remove the other companies to reduce confusion.
Next, have the participants place the sticky notes on the matrix one at a time. Quickly discuss where it should go. Repeat. Ask the Decider if they'd like to move any of the notes.
Lastly, have them plot their own company on the matrix. Look back at the rest of the sprint exercises to see if this placement makes sense for their 20-Year Roadmap, What How Why, Values, Audience, and Brand Sliders.
Mission Statement
Duration: 20 mins
Pull in the top voted What from What, How, Why, the top voted audiences from Audiences, and the top voted Why from What, How, Why. Combine the pulled in post-its into a mission statement.
Visual Research and Voting
Duration: 60 mins
Have each person go out on their own and bring in inspiration from elsewhere. The idea is to consider the output of previous exercises with regards to what the brand is supposed to represent. Have them find examples that represent those traits, values, etc.
The goal is to bridge the gap between the conceptual discussions we've been having, to the visual design the designer will work on. Contributions can be visual (like color palettes, illustrations, typograph), or slightly more abstract (like pictures and directions for further ideas).
Have them include a post-it with their name above the screenshots they share, as well as post-its explaining where the screenshot is from, and why they're including it.
Everyone gets 1-3 minutes to go through their examples and explain why they found them interesting. While one person presents, the others can vote and there are no limits on the amount of votes. Remind everyone how important voting is. It gives the designer a heatmap to work off of.
Walk through the most upvoted post-its and have a discussion for roughly 10 minutes.
Homework (due at the next workshop)
Keep adding inspiration to your column on this board throughout the next days/weeks until the next workshop.
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