THE SHIFT LAB 2.0 JOURNEY We chose to conduct the lab over several weekend intervals, known as sprints, for a number of reasons, including feasibility, participation, and logistics. Transportation and childcare were also factored in to enable broader participation.
Sprints were structured as three-day intensive working sessions, starting on Friday evenings with relationship building activities and a shared meal and finishing by Sunday afternoon with a debriefing session to allow participants to close the weekend.
The Triple Helix In Action: The Sprints Each design sprint started with a grounding activity, typically Indigenous focussed, to intellectually and emotionally centre the participants. The opportunity to Indigenize the design sprints was essential to their effectiveness. Indeed, it’s what grounds the work of the Shift Lab in Edmonton and Treaty 6 Territory. Under Jodi’s tutelage, each sprint featured Indigenous-themed activities, foods and speakers, including local/regional elders and wisdom keepers, political representatives, educators, activists, drummers and business people. This was followed by sharing food and relationship building. A participant observer (witness) was invited to provide feedback on group dynamics throughout each weekend, and invited to share anonymous feedback with the team. Feedback from each sprint was considered and iterated into each successive sprint.
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While no sprint is identical, each followed a similar structure, combining three elements from Shift Lab 1.0: Grounding Days, Workshops and Campfires (see below). As much as possible, each design sprint embodied our Triple Helix of Design Thinking, Systems Thinking and Indigenous Epistemologies. • Grounding Days made space to think deeply about the topic at hand, usually started by an Indigenous custom, practice or observation as assisted by Jodi and Elders. • Workshops reflecting an exploration of the humancentred design process from a solutions-oriented narrative. • Campfire exercises provided emotional on- and offramps into the topic, with often deeply emotional experiences shared alongside problem-oriented analyses.
