Lightning decision jam

Solve tough issues within an hour. A lightning decision jam is an easy to use workshop method to quickly bring out problems and ideas from a group and move them into actionable next steps.

How to

1. Draw a sailboat on the wall. Ensure it has a sail and an archor. The sail represents everything that is pushing us forward (above water), the anchor represents your challenges / what is holding us back.

2. (4min) Write down what is pushing us forward. Seperate post-it for every item!
   Afterwards, go one-by one to stick your post-its on the wall (around the sail / above the water) and read them out-loud so everyone can hear.

3. (4min) Write down all challenges. Seperate post-it for every item!
   Afterwards, put them on the wall (around the anchor / below the water). Do this all at once without reading them out-loud: you don't want to focus on the negative.

4. (3min) Prioritise the problems. Each person in the team gets three dot votes. Vote for the problems you feel are the biggest (in silence). If you see duplicates: just put the post-its on top of each-other.
   Afterwards, take the top-votes problems apart and arrange them to popularity.

5. (3min) Reframe problems as challenges. Facilitator creates a How Might We from the top-voted problem(s).
   e.g. "Office is too loud" becomes "How might we accomodate people who need quiet in the office?"

6. (5min) Ideating without discussion. Everyone gets a block of post-its. Come up with as many solutions as you can. Ensure what you write on a post-it is self-explanatory - you won’t be presenting your solutions. After the 4 minutes, stick them all on the wall (in silence, all at once).

7. (4min) Voting and prioritising Every team member gets 6 dots to vote for the best solutions. No discussion. Duplicates? Just put them together. Prioritise the solutions based on the amount of votes.

8. (10min) Choose what to execute Draw an effort/impact scale.
   Y-scale: how much impact will this solution have? How successful do we think this solution will be?

   X scale: how much effort will it take? How expensive will it be?

   Facilitator is guide in the process: start with the most-voted for solution in the center of the graph and ask the group higher/lower. Your first post-it is the anchor / baseline. All others can be placed relative to that one. Plot all solutions (or as many as you manage in 10 minutes)

9. (5min) Make the solution actionable (5min)

   Start with one solution: take the top-left solution to start an experiment with.

   Make it actionable: write down at least 3 actionable steps needed to start an experiment.

Tips

• Start with the positives: it's easier to come up with corresponding negatives. Also, when you start with the challenges it creates a bit of a negative atmosphere.
• Start small: an experiment should be something you can execute quickly and easily.
• This is an exercise that can easily be done remotely using a tool like Figma or Miro

What do you need

Learn more

• Watch the video by AJ&Smart on Lightning Decision Jam
• More extensive instructions on Inside Design