Plan and set up your Lightning Talks before the Design Sprint begins. (You can find more information on arranging Lighting Talks in our Planning section.) Depending on your goal or deliverables, you may spend up to a half a day on these talks. After all the lightning talks are finished, you should hold a HMW sharing session so you can capture all the opportunities your team has come up with.

Each Lighting Talk should last anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes. Topics could include:

• Project Vision and Business Goals
• User Research and User Journeys
• Existing Product Audit
• Design Evolution
• Competitive Overview
• Technical opportunities or the Technological Frontier

Invite team members and external knowledge experts to be speakers. Having key team members hold Lightning Talks gives people a voice and a chance to share the knowledge they’ve built up. It also gives the team a sense of ownership over the sprint’s outcome. And the external experts can introduce fresh perspectives.

Lightning Talks are also a good opportunity to bring your Engineering Lead in to share technical opportunities or discuss previous efforts.

Directions:

Time: 10-15 min per talk
Activity: Individual

1. Determine which topics are relevant for your challenge.
2. Identify speakers for each topic and explain their time limits.
3. Create a template deck to hold all the presentations.
4. Follow up with each presenter to be sure they prepare in time.