Design Fest: 150 people, one day
A company-wide design sprint I created to show all of Workhuman how design works, and its largest collaboration project to date.
- Company
- Workhuman
- Sector
- HR software
- When
- 2022
- My role
- Creator and lead
- More than 150 people in 13 teams across four locations and online
- 13 product ideas, judged by the C-suite
- The winning idea was built into the product
- The Conversations team moved to outcome-driven development afterwards
In February 2020 a colleague and I ran Usability Day, a company-wide event about accessibility and usability. Hundreds of people took part. The pandemic stopped us running it again.
Design Fest was its successor. The design team had a goal: show the company why working towards outcomes is better than working towards outputs. I pitched a festival-style event where teams of people from any role would take a new product idea through a short design sprint in one day.
Every idea had to add joy to one of Workhuman’s products. The C-suite judged them.
What I did
I created the event, its brand and its theme, got management to back it, and secured the budget.
I formed sub-teams for branding, planning and catering, and they reported to me daily. With another principal designer I designed the workshop itself and ran several trials.
I recruited facilitators from across the design team and trained them. On the day I facilitated a team of my own and ran company communications. A third-party events company handled music, food, photography and print.
What happened
The workshop ran as planned in every location. All 13 teams produced an idea, and the winner was built.
The event raised the standing of the design team. It also gave my own team the opening to change how we worked.
What I would do differently
I would involve other departments in the planning. A design-only organising group led to some groupthink.
I would also delegate more. The event went over budget by a small amount, and it was more stressful than it needed to be.