Sprint Lab is where we bring our experience of over ten years of Book Sprint facilitation to design new methods for sprinting on various formats and types of content, some of them hybrid formats, others fully virtual.
Even before the global pandemic, we had been questioning whether we could reach similar levels of productivity and knowledge exchange in a virtual space. At the beginning of 2020, as part of our commitment to become a more climate-conscious business by reducing air travel, we had started exploring hybrid online-and-onsite collaborative methods. Going virtual did not mean simply taking a process that works well onsite and mapping it onto an online environment. The whole Book Sprint process had to be revisited and re-designed. We spent time designing the virtual process with a specific selection of tools, facilitation techniques, preparations, time boxes, and adding mindfulness exercises to the mix to increase focus, even when working from home under often improvised conditions. For this we turned to Sprint Lab which we founded in 2019 for designing atypical processes.
Sprint Lab is our container for experimentation and innovation. Anything that is not an onsite Book Sprint but still relies on collaborative-knowledge production and a short timeframe fits here. We enjoy working with clients to design Sprints together with them in a collaborative fashion, or for them. In each of these cases, the client organization approached us with a request for facilitation that was slightly outside of the typical Book Sprint facilitation methodology. Rather than decline opportunities to push the limits of facilitation and rapid, collaborative content generation, Sprint Lab encourages it. So far, experiments in the lab have included:
Sprint Lab is a critical next step to keep ourselves on the cutting edge of facilitation methodology. At the same time, it’s wonderful to now offer some flexibility in the approach for clients who have a desire to experiment with content and collaboration. We are happy to discuss your idea.
Contact UsShawn Wells and I were the only team members that had participated previously in a Book Sprint and we knew the challenge that was ahead of us. We also knew that if any team could do it, it was going to be a Red Hat team. The key to success with this model is experienced and trusted facilitation, and excellent logistical support. Our Book Sprint facilitation team came through with flying colors."
– Keith Basil, Senior Principal Product Manager at Red Hat
We were writing a handbook and rhetoric guide that any instructor teaching English 100 can use. We got it done in less than a week. So applying the Book Sprints process is really accelerating the adoption and the availability of OER here at the University of Hawaii."
– Billy Meincke, OER Technologist at University of Hawaii at Manoa
It required several authors’ perspectives on the topic to create the lecture script. In the Book Sprint, these perspectives were discussed and aligned to form a coherent narrative. Because the script is peer-reviewed three times, a single person could not have done it better.”
– Regina Cordes-Frey, Academic Director at IUBH University of Applied Sciences
Most of our clients approach us because they need to make a book. They value our product-oriented methodology and are surprised by how quickly we can get different stakeholders to develop a shared understanding and reach consensus on often very ... read more
Since the launch of the Sprint Lab in 2019, we have experimented to apply the Book Sprints method to different formats, specifically for educational materials: Both writing new textbooks, and updating, improving and expanding existing open educational resources. College textbooks ... read more
Together with our clients Free Press Unlimited and Greenhost, we were interested in trying out how our method could be applied to produce an online course. The topic of the course? How to bypass internet censorship in Iran. The online course is now available ... read more
We just concluded a Book Sprint in the alpine town of Bad Reichenhall, in the border of Germany and Austria. It was here, at IUBH International University of Applied Sciences, that 6 authors got together during 5 days to write ... read more
In April 2019 we facilitated our first series of Update Sprints for Cisco on three different books we had produced for them in the last few years: SD-Access, Wireless and Catalyst Switches. We took two days per book and worked ... read more
Improving the Conference Experience Conferences are an opportunity for a professional community to come together and exchange thoughts, trends and experiences in their field. This can be incredibly enriching and frustratingly overwhelming. At the end of the conference, one often ... read more
In order for a Book Sprint to be a Book Sprint, it has to follow a rather particular methodology. A crucial facet of that, and what we have come known for, is that the group has to start with a ... read more
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